Free Republic

Perhaps Gov. Gavin Newsom was only joking on Saturday when he called for a Texas-style law that would prod Californians to sue one another over guns, just as SB 8 incentivizes Texans to seek bounties to block abortions. Maybe he was speaking only out of frustration, or maybe he just wanted to buck up fellow blue-staters who are rightly appalled that the U.S. Supreme Court didn’t strike down the Texas law last week and instead appears headed toward embracing further constraints on women’s control of their bodies while loosening restrictions on the ability to carry and use dangerous weapons. (snip)...

The jury in the Kyle Rittenhouse trial has begun its deliberations. As we wait, it is worth acknowledging that this trial has come to stand for what may well be the future of criminal defense law in America. Put aside the tactical errors of the prosecutors and the trial antics of a flamboyant judge and even the radicalization of the vigilante right—what is left is a snapshot of what will happen every time jurors contemplate how guns, protests, and hair-trigger self-defense combine in public spaces. And it looks very much like passing judgment over a shootout at the O.K. Corral....

Many Americans fervently believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to bear arms everywhere, including at public protests. Many Americans also believe that the First Amendment protects their right to speak freely and participate in political protest. What most people do not realize is that the Second Amendment has become, in recent years, a threat to the First Amendment. People cannot freely exercise their speech rights when they fear for their lives. This is not hyperbole. Since January 2020, millions of Americans have assembled in public places to protest police brutality, systemic racism, and coronavirus protocols, among other things....

In 2018, Detroit had 25 times the national average of reported justifiable homicides. The police chief of Detroit, James Craig, supports the residents' right to self defense. He supports the issuance of concealed carry permits. From detroitnews.com: The county's report shows there were 289 homicides in Detroit in 2018, although the county lists all homicides, whereas Detroit, like most cities, doesn't include justifiable homicides in its report because those aren't crimes.Assistant Detroit Police Chief David LeValley said there were 18 justifiable homicides in the city last year. Including those in the city's count raises the number of homicides to 279...

Editor's Note: The column was co-authored by Lori Roman. America’s founders understood that the right to own firearms — the right to use effectual force to defend oneself, one’s family, one’s neighborhood, one’s nation — was the difference between a mere subject and a free, independent, equal citizen. The United States was designed to enjoy a government of, by, and for the people, as President Lincoln put it. To that end every citizen was entitled, and often required, to own firearms. On the frontier, defending the community was the responsibility of every man.For black communities, however, the threat has rarely...

An adult man and a baby girl were reportedly shot while the man was changing the child’s diaper inside a vehicle parked outside a Chuck E. Cheese on Saturday in Alabama. Vestavia Hills Police said the gun was hidden inside the diaper bag and it accidentally went off, hitting the man in the chest and the child in the leg. Lt. Michael Keller told AL.com that they believe the man was searching for something in the diaper bag when he came in contact with the weapon inside and it fired. A single bullet discharged, hitting him in the chest and then...

Last week, a 25-year-old woman was standing at a bus stop before dawn in the Fernwood neighborhood on Chicago’s Far South Side when she was approached by a teen who attempted to rob her with a gun. Instead, the woman, a concealed carry permit holder, pulled out her own gun and shot and killed the 19-year-old. On its face, this story may seem to make the case for the merits of concealed carry as a method of self-protection, especially for people living in high-crime neighborhoods. But the fact is that this scenario is an outlier. It is extremely rare for...

Just weeks after the UK’s i News published James Comey’s call for more gun control in America, the former FBI director is using Twitter to urge Americans to vote Democrat in November. On July 1, 2018, Breitbart News reported excepts from Comey’s i News interview, in which he claimed the NRA tells “lies” and called for limitations on the types of guns Americans can purchase, as well as limits magazine capacity for those guns. Comey said, “There’s no slippery slope in America when it comes to guns. It’s a concrete staircase, which is our constitution…. We just have to decide...

The New York Times editorial board said that there have been more than 1,600 mass shootings in the U.S. since the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in December 2012. That’s only true if you grant an extremely generous definition of “mass shooting.” NYT says 1,600, but the left-leaning outlet Mother Jones says only 35, and Everytown for Gun Safety claims there were 156 between 2009 and 2016. The U.S. Congress found just over 300 shootings between 1999 and 2013. They’re all using different definitions of what a mass shooting is. In layman’s terms, a “mass shooting” may evoke the...

The first firearm I purchased was just because. The year was 1993. I was young, had money burning in my pocket, and my buddy needed cash. And so, for a couple hundred bucks I owned a 9MM handgun, which immediately went under the bed, mostly forgotten, a totem to my spendthrift ways. Another 15 years would pass before that investment paid off. When we moved to Los Angeles in 2003, the gun came with me, and I again slipped it under the bed because that is where it had always been. Five more years passed. I don’t want to say...

While Democrats have been all over the “more gun control” bandwagon since Sunday’s massacre at a Texas church, House Speaker Paul Ryan is pointing out that existing laws should have prevented now-dead suspect Devin Kelley, 26, from buying guns. Democrats have gone so far as to walk out of a moment of silence in the U.S. House in memory of the victims, as Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., did to make a publicity video. Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., took a more typical path. USA Today said he “blasted lawmakers for failing to pass laws that could prevent tragedies like Sunday’s Texas...

Melrose Park police sent an appalling message over Labor Day weekend when they auctioned off an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle to raise money for their police union. EDITORIAL They apparently did not care that Melrose Park, the very town they have sworn to serve and protect, bans possession of AR-15s — semiautomatic rifles that can load magazines with multiple bullets. ADVERTISING The village bans the gun for good reason. Nobody need such a powerful weapon to protect themselves their homes or to hunt. And the guns can be exceptionally dangerous when they fall into the wrong hands. But, as Robert Herguth...

The man in the Camden, N.J., police video is practically begging to be shot. After using a knife to menace a cashier and a customer in a fast-food restaurant, he strides down a street slashing at the air as police repeatedly order him to drop his weapon. The man keeps walking, defiantly waving the knife. Several cops form a ring around him and move along at a safe distance, block after block. This goes on for several tense minutes, as the viewer waits for shots to ring out. But they never do. Eventually, the man drops the knife and is...

By overwhelmingly supporting universal background checks for firearms purchases, Clark County voters made it abundantly clear last month that they were concerned about gun violence. Now, it’s time for Las Vegas-area lawmakers to go a step further to protect Nevadans and push to ban the sale of high-capacity magazines in the state. Eight states and the District of Columbia already have imposed such prohibitions, and with good reason. There’s simply no legitimate civilian use for magazines that hold dozens upon dozens of rounds of ammunition. Don’t believe us? Fine, then listen to Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo. “I’m a very...

Three important news stories this week, taken together, cry out for saner gun laws in Illinois — beginning with tougher penalties for gun crimes. In the first story, a man charged with shooting and killing another man near Millennium Park on Saturday was reported to have a criminal record that should have precluded him from even being on the street. The suspect, Paul Pagan, 32 had been arrested 39 times and was twice convicted for pointing a gun during an argument. He has convictions for aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, reckless conduct, marijuana possession and possession of a stolen...

In the wake of the horrific attack on an Orlando nightclub by a man espousing allegiance to ISIS, it didn’t take long for the Big Three networks (ABC, NBC, CBS) to advance the preferred political line of the Democrats, in this election year, to push for more gun control. Beginning on the evening following the shooting, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt on June 12, sounded the clarion call for gun control: “Today’s terror attack brings national security and the debate over gun control to forefront of the presidential campaigns once again.” And for the next week, an MRC study...

Writing of the "ethical confusion which overtook American society in the Industrial Age," Samuel Eliot Morison and Henry Steele Commager wrote of deadly social consequences for which no individuals felt in any way responsible: "These men were caught in the meshes of a business system which had not yet developed a moral code of its own and to which the old codes were irrelevant. The manufacture and sale of impure foods, dangerous drugs, infected milk, poisonous toys, might produce disease or death, but none of those involved in the process — retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers, advertisers, corporations, directors or stockholders —...

A Wauwatosa man is under federal investigation for selling guns without a proper license, buying more than 500 firearms from an outdoors store and then selling them through a website or at gun shows, according to newly unsealed court documents. The guns, primarily used firearms, were purchased from 13 Gander Mountain stores across Wisconsin and sold through the website Gunbroker, according to a search warrant unsealed in federal court in Milwaukee last week. The suspect, who is 60, recruited Gander Mountain employees to watch for used firearms and call him when they came into the store, according to the affidavit....

Enough. For too long, politicians have sat back and ignored the reality facing our nation. Gun violence has become a widespread public health crisis. Everyone deserves to feel safe in their communities and it is beyond time we talked about guns in a different way. Unfortunately, this issue has divided our nation to the extent that meaningful discussions of gun control are seemingly impossible. I submit that we must change the culture concerning guns in America. We know that the United States is the only advanced country in the world that sees these mass shootings on a perpetual basis. This...

When I was in middle and high school, there were spirited public debates about whether the proliferation of grisly movies, gore-glorifying song lyrics and shoot-’em-up video games might desensitize my peers and me to violence. (snip) A decade or two post-adolescence — as our own preschool-age children now practice “active shooter” drills in which they’re coached to cower in the closet or throw toys at a tactical-gear-outfitted maniac — millennials seem to have neither the desire nor the willpower to pressure our political leaders to do much to prevent such tragedies. If anything, we may be slightly more blasé about...