Free Republic

Chase Oliver is the Libertarian Party's nominee for President -- after speeches by both RFK and Trump at their convention. I understand how he got the nomination -- he's been quite-instrumental in getting ballot access for the party over the last few years and done a decent amount of campaigning and "boots on the ground" work (which the Libertarians, in general, are poor at with a few notable exceptions) and thus you can reasonably say "he earned it." His ballot win was also a blow to the so-called "Mises" wing of the party that some considered "hard right." Reason did...

Libertarians for Kennedy, a group of Libertarians who sought to nominate independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the party convention, proposed a strategic plan on Wednesday to place Kennedy on certain state ballots. This effort aims to improve future ballot access for the party while also helping Kennedy participate in the presidential debates. The group initially invited Kennedy to seek the presidential nomination of the Libertarian Party at its convention held this past weekend. The invitation included a letter signed by several state Libertarian Party leaders, delegation chairs, and an alternate regional member of the Libertarian National Committee. Kennedy...

Libertarian National Committee Chair Angela McArdle appeared to withhold immediate support for the Libertarian Party ticket of Chase Oliver and Mike ter Maat on Tuesday, instead urging members to prioritize the potential benefits of a 2024 Trump administration. “Everyone is understandably flipping out right now. I will have more to say this weekend,” McArdle said on Tuesday. “For now, I will say that I delivered an incredible convention, with the help of my amazing staff and volunteers. All of my critics were WRONG. I made the right call to invite Donald Trump and if libertarians can behave themselves, he will...

In the October 2023 term, the Supreme Court heard three significant cases involving the Second Amendment. Only one of these cases, Rahimi, was directly about the Second Amendment.Supreme Court terms begin with the first week in October. Court sessions usually end by the last week of June, occasionally extending into the first week of July. Cases decided by the court are published during the term before the Court recesses near the end of June. During the recess from the end of June to October, the court is busy studying cases that have been argued and working on their opinions.We should...

ATF agents cut off the electricity to Bryan Malinowski's Little Rock home before executing their search warrant March 19. None of the agents wore body cameras, and they covered Malinowski's doorbell camera with tape to hide their actions. Fifty-seven seconds after kicking down the front door, Malinowski was fatally shot in the head. His wife, Maer Malinowski, was pulled out of her home wearing only bedclothes and forced into the back of a squad car, where she was held against her will for four hours in 34-degree weather, despite her frequent pleas to check on her dying husband. "If that...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has secured a temporary restraining order from a federal judge that prevents an unlawful rule promulgated by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (“ATF”) from taking effect while the case is litigated. On May 1, Attorney General Paxton led a coalition suing the ATF to prevent a new regulatory restriction that unlawfully attempted to abridge Americans’ constitutional right to privately buy and sell firearms. The Final Rule was arbitrary and capricious and flagrantly violated the Second Amendment. Despite Congress having recognized the legality of private firearms sales by non-dealers, the Biden Administration issued...

Back when there were still two Germanys, one a parliamentary democracy aligned with the West and one a Soviet satellite surveillance state, I had trouble remembering which was the Federal Republic and which the Democratic Republic—until I realized that the one calling itself democratic wasn’t. Even today, North Korea’s official name is the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. The least democratic regimes in the world pretend to be the most democratic. Then as now, Marxists and those who have learned from them often justify abuse of language by redefining the key term. Words come to mean their opposite. To the...

Police are recommending murder charges after two of three robbers were killed by their intended victims on Monday, but it's the third accused robber who's facing prosecution, not the individuals who acted in self-defense. [snip] “They acted in self defense,” said Gulfport Lt. Jason DuCré. But the third man involved in the attempted robbery was arrested and charged in the killings in Gulfport of Temi Lawal, 18, of Moss Point, and Lorenzo Stennis, 21, of Pascagoula. Lawrence Corley IV, 17, of Gautier is charged with two counts of capital murder. On Monday night, Gulfport PD officers arrived at a residence...

Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump accepted the endorsement of the National Rifle Association at the NRA Leadership Forum in Dallas on Saturday afternoon. "It's a true honor to be here today to receive the endorsement of the proud American patriots at the NRA," Trump told the forum in a speech that aired live and in its entirety on Newsmax and the Newsmax2 streaming platform. "These are great patriots. These are great people, and we're going to do things like nobody can believe. "We're going to win this election at levels that nobody's ever seen before. Thank you very much...

Hawaii Supreme Court Justice Todd Eddins delivered a scathing critique of the U.S. Supreme Court, denouncing its conservative justices for what he views as an “incredibly dishonest” application of the legal philosophy of originalism

Yesterday, anti-gun New York legislators introduced a bill designed to COMPLETELY ban the sale of Glock handguns and other semi-automatic pistols.Their bill, S. 9225, comes under the guise that Glocks, and other semi-automatic “convertible pistols,” can be easily turned into machine-guns through the installation or attachment of a “pistol converter,” more commonly known as a “Glock switch.”New York state lawmakers are intentionally targeting a major firearms manufacturer and banning the sale of their product because criminals, who don’t obey the law in the first place, could illegally acquire handguns and then illegally alter them further.Under federal law, machine guns are...

(The Center Square) – Twenty-six states sued the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives on Wednesday arguing a new federal rule it's implementing targets lawful gun owners and is unconstitutional and illegal. Texas and Kansas led two multi-state coalitions; Florida filed its own lawsuit. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach announced their multi-state coalitions at a joint press conference in Frisco, Texas, on Wednesday. The announcement was the first time Paxton has held a press conference about official state business since he was impeached last year. Paxton was the first Texas attorney general to...

In a remarkable move, 26 states have launched a legal counterattack against the Biden administration’s assault on the Second Amendment. The states filed lawsuits against the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) and the Justice Department on Wednesday. At the heart of the matter is a new ATF rule finalized on April 19, 2023, that requires thousands of law-abiding gun owners to register as firearms dealers. The rule derives from the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, a federal anti-gunner law passed in the aftermath of one of several high-profile mass shootings: [snip] The Texas coalition includes Louisiana, Missouri,...

TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — NFL star and Houston Texans’ wide receiver Tank Dell was among the 10 victims injured in a shooting after an argument turned violent at a Florida nightclub Saturday night. Seminole County deputies responded to the Cabana Live in Sanford just after midnight to observe a crowd that formed outside the bar, according to NBC affiliate WESH. Deputies then heard shots ring out as the crowd dispersed. Officials said 10 people were hurt, suffering non-life-threatening injuries, with most of the victims being shot in the lower body. ‘ The Texans confirmed Dell was one of the victims...

Flipping a gun for a price higher than one paid now may turn anyone into a dealer, making any such sale unlawful if it does not involve all the licensing and paperwork that govern gun dealers.. On Friday, the 31st anniversary of the massacre of Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas, the ATF issued new regulations that make it more difficult to comply with federal laws regulating gun dealing and background checks. Since the 1930s, federal law has required gun dealers to be registered as Federal Firearms Licensees (FFL). The requirements hinged on the meaning of “engaged in the business of”...

There's been a case in New York that I should have been following more closely. Dexter Taylor was a hobby gunsmith. He liked the nature of putting together guns from lawfully purchased parts. However, the state of New York disapproved of this pastime. They arrested Taylor and, on Monday, he was convicted. My friend Jeff Charles over at our sister site RedState has been covering this case pretty much from the jump, and in his story from Monday about the sentencing, there was something we had to talk about. You see, the judge in the case has decided that a...

Does your state support your 2nd Amendment rights – or make it exceedingly difficult to keep and bear arms? We’ve ranked the worst states to be a gun owner by analyzing each state’s current laws, upcoming laws, concealed carry guidelines, self-defense statutes, and 2A-centric taxes. #1 Hawaii #2 California #3 New York #4 Illinois #5 New Jersey #6 Connecticut #7 Maryland #8 Massachusetts #9 Rhode Island #10 Michigan #11 Washington #12 Minnesota #13 Colorado #14 Nebraska #15 New Mexico #16 Pennsylvania #17 Oregon #18 Delaware #19 Wisconsin #20 Vermont #21 Virginia #22 Nevada #23 Ohio #24 Maine #25 North Carolina

Though still far behind the number of cases granted for the next term this time last year, the court on Monday added two new cases to its docket for the 2024-2025 term. The justices agreed to weigh in on a challenge to a rule by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives regulating so-called “ghost guns” – firearms without serial numbers that virtually anyone can assemble from parts, often purchased in a kit. Garland v. VanDerStok was one of two cases granted on Monday on a list of orders from the justices’ private conference last week. The dispute over...

A Brooklyn man has been convicted of 13 weapons charges after having been arrested and charged in 2022 for building his own firearms. Dexter Taylor’s ordeal could become a landmark Second Amendment case in light of the Bruen ruling handed down in the same year. The jury found Taylor guilty of second-degree criminal possession of a loaded weapon, four counts of third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, five counts of criminal possession of a firearm, second-degree criminal possession of five or more firearms, unlawful possession of pistol ammunition, violation of certificate of registration, prohibition on unfinished frames or receivers. Two...