Free Republic

Trump Uses Executive Order to Expand Hunting and Fishing OpportunitiesPresident Trump signed an executive order Thursday expanding the amount of federal land available for use by hunters and fishermen and removing years of anti-hunting regulations.The White House noted that the order erases years of regulatory actions that targeted lead ammo and fishing tackle.... Link to the EO itself:https://www.whitehouse.gov/fact-sheets/2026/09/fact-sheet-president-donald-j-trump-reinvigorates-americas-hunting-heritage/"...The Order directs the Secretary of the Interior, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of War, and the Secretary of Commerce to propose changes to polices that prevent access of public lands for recreation, infrastructure repair, and wildlife management, as well as to...

Innocent Florida father is under attack by left-wing activists and local agitators after stepping in to defend his son from a violent bully Despite law enforcement confirming that the father acted completely within the law to protect himself and his child, outraged activists, including local branches of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), are demanding that the father be locked up for assault with a deadly weapon. According to Martin County Sheriff John Budensiek, the dispute began Thursday, September 17, on a Martin County school bus headed toward South Fork High School, WPBF reported. A 16-year-old...

Colombian President Abelardo de la Espriella signed Decree 1368 on September 8, 2026, ending the country’s nationwide suspension of firearm carry permits and restoring the effectiveness of qualifying permits already issued to private citizens.Here is a translation from the article in eltiempo.com:“’For years, the law-abiding citizen was restricted while criminals kept arming themselves illegally to the teeth. That has to change,’ the head of state said in a video on social media, emphasizing that the measure, which expressly repeals the restrictions established since 2018 and extended until the end of 2025 , does not translate into unrestricted authorization or indiscriminate...

The Justice Department on Friday released a new legal opinion that concludes a federal gun law prohibiting firearms dealers from selling handguns or handgun ammunition to young adults between the ages of 18 and 20 is unconstitutional by violating their Second Amendment rights. The OLC opinion is not legally binding, nor does it create any precedent. However, it is likely to lead federal prosecutors across the country to refrain from pursuing felony charges against licensed firearms dealers who are suspected of knowingly selling handguns to young adults under the age of 21.

NEW ORLEANS (September 18, 2026) — Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today a major victory in Elite Precision Customs v. ATF, with the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit holding that the federal government’s ban on direct interstate handgun purchases violates the Second Amendment. The Court reversed the lower court’s dismissal of the case and rendered judgment for FPC and its co-plaintiffs. [snip] The federal laws challenged by FPC categorically prohibit people from directly purchasing handguns from licensed dealers outside their state of residence. While federal law provides exceptions for interstate rifle and shotgun purchases, handgun buyers...

While researching bear-human conflicts, two additional incidents were found in which Slovaks used handguns to successfully defend themselves against European brown bears (Ursus arctos). Slovakia is one of the Central European countries that has adopted statutes allowing people to legally carry handguns for self-defense and the defense of others. The areas of both attacks are located about 20 km north of Banská Bystrica, in central Slovakia. On March 30, 2024, a young man was searching for mushrooms in a dense forest in the Žilina district, near the village of Stráňavy. He was off the hiking trail when a brown bear...

Today, the Justice Department filed suit against the City of San Jose, California, and the San Jose Police Department for charging private individuals unreasonable fees to exercise their Second Amendment right to lawfully carry a firearm. At nearly $1,600 per license, the City’s application fee to carry a firearm is the highest in the nation. Indeed, San Jose’s fee towers over those imposed by the country’s biggest cities. New York, Washington, D.C., Boston, and Chicago all charge a small fraction of San Jose’s fee. The Supreme Court has held that “exorbitant fees” such as San Jose’s violate the Second Amendment...

Harel Shapira, a sociologist at the University of Texas at Austin, is one of the country’s leading scholars of the American political right. For his first book, Waiting for José: The Minutemen’s Pursuit of America (Princeton University Press, 2013), Shapira spent years embedded with a militia group, which helped point him to his next subject, gun culture. To research his new book, Basic Pistol: Living and Dying by the Gun in America (Pantheon, September 15), Shapira spent four years immersing himself in that culture, participating in firearms and self-defense training courses in Texas and around the country and getting to...

From the gun cabinet of his shooting range, Volodymyr Sukhomlyn pulls out a semiautomatic shotgun. **SNIP** Not an easy target “But more recently it’s been bus drivers and cabbies buying them, too — anyone who is out on the streets a lot.” One FPV attack this month injured several people at a supermarket, leaving the floor stained with blood. Another ploughed into the upper floors of a government building downtown. “I heard it coming and we had to hide in a shop when it exploded,” said Julia Sologub, 31. “It used to be just a problem for soldiers — now...

On April 18, 2026, a 58-year-old man committed a mass murder in Kyiv, Ukraine, using a legally registered firearm. Seven people were killed. Two police officers fled the scene. The Minister of the Interior, Ihor Klymenko, established an administrative working group to consider the creation of a national law to allow citizens to own and carry handguns for self-defense. The working group was established on June 11, 2026. Ihor Klymenko was replaced as Interior Minister on July 16, 2026. Ivan Vyhivskyi is the current Minister of the Interior. It is not clear if the working group has submitted recommendations to...

A 21-year-old man barely survived after he was shot three times during an encounter with a ‘street takeover’ in Seattle’s Belltown neighborhood last weekend. Matthew Lanske and his friends had just finished dinner in Belltown when they were confronted by a group of armed thugs participating in a ‘street takeover.’ Lanske was shot twice in the stomach and a third time in the pelvis during an attempted robbery as he heroically tried to protect his friend, who tragically died. After being shot three times, Lanske walked two blocks looking for help. Bystanders filmed him rather than calling 911 for help....

Chutz-POW! A host of rabbis recently participated in a five-day “summer camp” featuring extensive firearms training as Jewish leaders from across the US prepared for the High Holidays. The pilot program, run by Los Angeles-based Jewish security organization Magen Am USA, brought together 20 Chabad Hasidic rabbis from 12 states for an intensive crash course designed to help them respond to potential threats at their synagogues and in their communities. The program, which also included emergency medicine and security training, took place in August in Los Angeles. It came as Jewish communities across California and the country grapple with heightened...

'What about Tate?' Dave Adamiak, whose son Patrick “Tate” Adamiak has 17 more years left to serve in federal prison, is confused, perplexed and nearing his wit’s end. While he appreciates all the support his son’s case has drawn—there are hundreds of videos and stories chronicled on his “Freedom for Tate” website—Tate remains is prison. To date, there has been no formal move to secure his release—despite the kind words of more than a few elected officials. Adamiak’s family sent a pardon request to Attorney General Todd Blanche and U.S. Justice Department Pardon Attorney Edward J. Martin Jr., along with...

CDC Undercounts Defensive Gun Uses COMMENTARY By John R. Lott Jr.September 11, 2026 CDC Undercounts Defensive Gun UsesAP Whoever controls crime data can shape the political debate. The Trump administration has already reversed some of the changes the Biden administration made to federal crime and gun data, including information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). But politicization of data at the FBI and Justice Department still deserves attention. Gun-control activists have long tried to “debunk” what they call the “good guy with a gun myth” as they push for stricter gun-control laws. The federal government and much...

A surprising number has been revealed from comparing the ratios of firearms found in over a hundred years of federal government data on firearms production, export, and import to the firearms reported to be owned by gun owners in the William English’s survey done in mid 2026. Ratios validate the Survey’s methods and numbers of firearms findings.The survey paper, released in August of 2026 is the best designed and executed survey to date in an attempt to determine the extent of firearms ownership in the United States. The 2026 Survey has been designed to overcome minor defects in the original...

WILMINGTON, DE (September 10, 2026) — Firearms Policy Coalition (FPC) announced today a major Second Amendment victory in its Rigby v. Jennings lawsuit, with the United States District Court for the District of Delaware holding that the State’s bans on possessing and self-manufacturing so-called “ghost guns” are unconstitutional. The decision comes nearly four years after FPC first secured a preliminary injunction against Delaware’s possession and home-manufacturing bans. In its new merits decision, the Court granted FPC’s motion for summary judgment in part and rejected Delaware’s effort to defend its prohibitions under the Supreme Court’s Second Amendment framework. “Delaware tried to...

Gun owners do not carry firearms only because violent criminals exist. Bears, mountain lions, feral dogs, rabid animals and other four-legged threats do not care about gun-control politics—and they do not wait for police or animal-control officers to arrive.A newly published national firearms survey from Georgetown University professor William English estimates that Americans use firearms defensively against animal threats roughly 180,000 times every year.English’s new 2026 National Firearms Survey is a detailed, 75-page follow-up to his widely cited 2021 work. The survey began with 51,398 American adults and identified 16,688 respondents as gun owners through a two-stage validation process.The paper...

The Air Force said last week that its M18 service pistol is "safe, reliable, and functional" following a review of tens of thousands of the firearms. The findings came as part of the final review in a large-scale inspection of the gun ordered last year after an airman was killed by a bullet fired from a M18. Last July, Airman Brayden Lovan, 21, with the 90th Security Forces Group was shot and killed at F.E. Warren Air Base. The shooting was initially reported as an accidental discharge. Air Force Global Strike Command, which oversees the United States' intercontinental ballistic missile...

The Supreme Court could decide multiple Second Amendment cases as appeals accelerated since it decided two cases about gun rights in June. The Supreme Court agreed to hear Viramontes v. Cook County on June 30, and announced Friday the hearing would occur on Dec.2, taking up a Second Amendment challenge to a ban on modern semiautomatic firearms passed by the Illinois locality days after issuing rulings on two Second Amendment cases. The high court, though, received four petitions asking it to hear cases since the end of July, while it has considered taking up one case for a record number...

Why did British police patrol the streets unarmed while officers in New York considered carrying a gun essential to doing their job? In this 1966 report, ITN’s Peter Woods explores the stark differences between British and American policing. NYPD officers react with disbelief to Britain’s largely unarmed police force, with one lieutenant describing the idea as “sort of ridiculous” and predicting chaos if New York officers were expected to work without guns. The report also follows firearms training at the New York Police Academy and shows unarmed British police searching for Harry Roberts, wanted in connection with the murder of...