Free Republic

A surprise development has come to light in the Gun Free School Zone Case involving Gabriel Metcalf in Billings, Montana. As they were processing Gabriel for release from jail on his personal recognizance under the Federal charges, they informed him that he could not leave. Reports say his attorney, Russell Hart, responded by saying, “No, we have an order from the judge for his release.” They then informed Hart that the charges on this warrant are not federal; they are local charges.They had not served the warrant, but the jail refused to release Gabriel due to the warrant’s existence. No...

On September 21, 2023, a detention hearing for Gabriel Metcalf was re-opened, with a motion granted to the defense by Judge Cavan. The prosecutor, Thomas K. Godfrey, had opposed the hearing, claiming there was no significant change of information from the initial detention hearing held on August 24, 2023. At the end of the hearing, Judge Cavan released Gabriel on his own recognizance, with restrictions, to his mother’s home at 430 Broadwater Avenue in Billings, Montana, where he has lived for the past decade and more. Vivian, Gabriel’s mother, and a neighbor who owned a gunshop next to Vivian’s alterations...

The controversial Gun Free School Zone case, where Gabriel Metcalf has been in pre-trial detention for a month, has a detention hearing scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday morning, September 21, 2022.Russel Hart, the federal public defender for Gabriel Metcalf, asked for the hearing, citing new evidence that was not available at the first detention hearing. Shortly after Gabriel’s arrest, seemingly by an ATF/Billings Police Task Force, the hearing took place. The prosecuting attorney, Assistant United States Attorney Thomas K. Godfrey, had opposed the re-opening of the detention hearing. Godfrey indicated to Judge Cavan that he had sufficient information and that...

On September 13, 2023, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals held California AB2571, which broadly limits the commercial speech of people promoting the sale of firearms or firearms products or events where firearms products are used or sold, was probably unconstitutional. For example, this would include virtually all gun shows. The three-judge panel stopped enforcement of the bill. The California Government had passed the bill into law a bit more than a year earlier.On June 30, 2022, the California Governor signed AB 2571 into law, a sweeping new restriction on the commercial speech of firearms industry...

In a recent survey by the Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey, Americans were asked to name the rights the First Amendment protected. The Annenberg Foundation has drifted reliably left since its creation. From the ABA Journal: The 2023 Annenberg Constitution Day Civics Survey asked Americans to name the specific rights guaranteed by the First Amendment. The results: 77% said freedom of speech 40% said freedom of religion 33% said the right to assembly 28% said freedom of the press 9% said the right to petition governmentTwenty-two percent named the right to bear arms, which is actually protected by the Second...

• In 2021, there were 10,048 injury-related deaths (individuals between the ages <1-17). 2,590 of those deaths involved firearms. • 62% of child injury-related deaths included mechanisms other than firearms in 2021. • Firearms accounted for less than 25% of all injury-related juvenile deaths in 2021. • 1,590 adolescents nationwide committed suicide in 2021. Of those, 790 suicides involved firearms. • There were 2,220 homicides among the <1-17 age group in 2021. Firearms were suspected in 1,503 of those homicides. • There were 161 more adolescent homicides (all methods) in 2021 than in 2020. • There were 93 school shootings...

On 22 August 2023, Gabriel Metcalf was arrested for possessing a firearm in a federal gun-free zone in Billings, Montana. Gabriel and his mother live across the street from the Broadwater Elementary School. Billings police officers had previously told Gabriel and his mother, Vivian, that Gabriel was not breaking any laws.Some people had complained when they saw Gabriel outside his home with a single-shot 20 gauge shotgun. Gabriel had armed himself because of a two-year campaign of terror conducted by a former neighbor, David Carpenter, and associates. Over the course of two years, Carpenter was the subject of a restraining...

In the ongoing Gun Free School Zone case against Gabriel Metcalf in Billings, Montana, Gabriel’s federal public defender, Russel Hart, has filed a motion requesting a detention hearing. The Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Thomas K. Godfrey has indicated he opposes re-opening a detention hearing. This means Godfrey wants to keep Gabriel Metcalf in a federal lockup in the Yellowstone County Detention Facility until trial. A trial could be years away. This case could go all the way to the Supreme Court. The magistrate judge, Timothy J. Cavan, ordered the United States representative in this matter, AUSA Godfrey, to file...

Gabriel Metcalf was arrested in Billings, Montana, for violating the Gun Free School Zone Act on August 22, 2023. The Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) Thomas K. Godfrey asked for pre-trial detention at the August 25, 2023, preliminary hearing. The reason for pre-trial detention is listed in the image. The Magistrate Judge, Timothy J. Cavan, granted the Order of Detention for Gabriel Metcalf. The reasons checked on the order of detention pending trial form is a claim the judge believed the Government had proven, by clear and convincing evidence, that no condition or combination of conditions of release will reasonably...

In June of 2022, Gilbert Grooms was confronted and threatened at his job in the presence of his wife and children. He refused to fight hand-to-hand with a younger, brutal, and violent man. When the man continued to confront him and come at him, he used a shotgun to stop the assault.He was charged with six felonies. He chose a jury trial. He was found not guilty of all charges.From ruralradio.com:A South Dakota man facing six felonies in connection with a June 2022 shooting at the Sheridan County Livestock Sale Barn in Rushville has been acquitted.After a four day trial,...

A homeowner shot a home intruder a second time after the intruder appeared to taunt the owner over the first gunshot wound he sustained, Georgia police said. Fayette County Sheriff Barry Babb told WAGA-TV that the incident unfolded at a residence on Thursday when the homeowner called police about an intruder. At the same time, the home's alarm company was alerting the police about an intruder.

President Joe Biden's son Hunter Biden has been indicted by special counsel David Weiss on felony gun charges. The charges bring renewed legal pressure on the younger Biden after a plea agreement he struck with prosecutors imploded in recent months. The younger Biden has been charged with one count of False Statement in Purchase of a Firearm, one count of False Statement Related to Information Required to be Kept By Federal Firearms Licensed Dealer, and one count of Possession of a Firearm by a Person who is an Unlawful User of or Addicted to a Controlled Substance

City Of Billings vs David Lee Carpenter Plea Agreement 11-29-2022 Gabriel Metcalf is being held in federal custody without any prior convictions, violence, threats, or use of a weapon. He is incarcerated because he exercised his First and Second Amendment rights.In the affidavit of a criminal complaint for the arrest of Gabriel Metcalf in Billings, Montana’s Gun-Free School Zone case, ATF Task Force officer and Billings Police officer Dustin Stroble wrote the following:Per dispatch narrative, METCALF lives at 430 Broadwater and patrols his yard due to a protection order he believes is in place and is trying to protect his...

With the ongoing case in Billings, Montana, where Billings Police collaborated with federal officials to arrest Gabriel (Gabe Metcalf) for exercising his Second Amendment rights, a recap of the history of the federal Gun Free School Zone Acts (GFSZA) is in order. The GFSZA appears to be designed as a direct attack on the exercise of Second Amendment rights and the right to be able to defend against criminal attacks.The first GFSZA was passed into law in 1989-90. The federal Gun-Free School Zone Act was introduced by some of the most rabid Anti-Second Amendment zealots, Herb Kohl of Wisconsin and...

Liberty Safe, which describes itself as “America’s #1 heavy-duty home and gun safe manufacturer,” has come under fire after a report revealed that its parent company has donated almost half a million dollars to pro-gun control Democratic officials. On Wednesday, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk shared FEC filings on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that show Liberty Safe’s parent company, Monomoy Capital Partners, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats. “I pulled the FEC reports on the company and found approximately $400,000 over the last 10 cycles of max donations to Democrats,” Kirk...

• There have been 2,646 school shooting incidents in the U.S. since 1966. Of those, 2,205 (94%) occurred after the 1990 School Zone Safety Act (Amended in 1995). • There are 1,325 total State Gun Laws per this 2022 report. • The Federal government has been enacting Federal Firearm regulations since 1934. • The correlation between population density and school shootings is more profound in population density than in firearm legislation. • There is no standard “School shooting” definition in the U.S. The Secret Service defines targeted attacks, while most data includes incidents when a firearm is brandished, fired, or...

The sheer volume of firearms in the United States is a point of contention for almost every American. Some believe we have too few, while others believe we have too many. Nonetheless, firearms are a large part of American culture. We value our liberties, the natural right to self-defense, the inherent check on state power an armed populace offers, and the heritage which we pass down from generation to generation. Whether an individual defines freedom as a life without firearms or a life without government interference, we can all agree that some states do not support gun ownership. Whether it's...

Gun control activist David Hogg used a post on X to slam New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) ban on carrying handguns in public in cities such as Albuquerque. Grisham issued the order Friday and it went into effect Saturday, September 8, Breitbart News reported. The ban applies to handguns carried openly or concealed in public and the prohibition also bars concealed carry permit holders from carrying their guns for self-defense.

CLAY, N.Y. — On September 13, gun owners in New York State will have to go through a background check every time they want to buy ammunition and those background checks aren't free. The news about the state implementing changes. didn’t exactly thrill Syracuse Pistol Club president Bill Bender, "Everybody is concerned. The dealers are concerned because they have received no information from the state police yet." It will be $9 for the firearm background fee and $2.50 for the ammunition fee. The money will go towards the New York State Police to perform those checks, “Now the governor and...

Campaign finance documents found an unsurprising connection between Liberty Safe’s parent company and the Democratic Party in an attempt to restrict American’s Second Amendment rights. Monomoy Capital Partners, which purchased Liberty Safe in 2021, has contributed more almost half a million dollars to prominent Democrats such as Senators Raphael Warnock (D-GA), John Fetterman (D-PA), and Mark Kelly (D-AZ). All of the donations made by the company total over $400,000 to the party that seeks to limit firearms. Liberty Safe is the gun safe company that cooperated with the FBI and recently turned over a private, secure passcode used by a...