Free Republic

The first armed robbery attempt was in October, on a residential Bronx block near an elevated train stop. The victim fought back. He was shot in the leg. After the third robbery attempt, in February, two distinct patterns became apparent. The police suspected a single group was to blame, a group that cruised in cars and attacked lone men at night. But a more unusual pattern was seen among the three victims: when faced with a gun and a straightforward proposition — your money or your life — they had opted to take their chances with their lives. “Being held...

The threat emerged here in the evening darkness, as John Wolf was out for a walk on the fringe of his working-class neighborhood. The threat was a suspicious man, also on foot, coming right at him. Wolf crossed the street, breathed easier and kept going. Soon enough, though, the same man sneaked behind Wolf and stuck a .38 caliber revolver into his neck. “He must have told me he was going to kill me 10 times,” said Wolf, 59. Unbeknownst to the robber, Wolf had his own .40-caliber Glock semi-automatic pistol hidden under a loose hanging shirt. And so there,...

Obamacare 2.0: Shaky like 1.0 By: David Nather April 26, 2013 05:23 PM EDT Obamacare fires are flaring up all over — in Hill hearings, in scary headlines about big rate hikes and in closed-door meetings of nervous Democrats. The White House response: We’ll get to that. President Barack Obama’s messaging gurus and their allies say they will step on the gas before enrollment begins this fall, but the effort, they concede, is not in full swing. Obama’s allies know the health care law needs a massive outreach effort, but Obamacare Round 2 is already starting to look a lot...

Tavon White’s loyal women brought him anything he wanted — drugs, money, the latest cellphones, tobacco, food — charges say. They even apparently bought him luxury German cars. In the past four years, four of these women reportedly gave him five children. One woman tattooed “Tavon” on her neck; another has “Tavon” on her wrist. Sex, drugs and prisoners were all involved in this recent FBI sting. The Washington Post’s Ann Marimow explains what was happening behind the prison walls. White was an inmate in the Baltimore City Detention Center. The harem? His prison guards, according to federal prosecutors. Officials...

* Throughout Boston and its surrounding suburbs — a metro area usually clogged and bustling on a weekday morning — residents found themselves ordered to stay in — or stay out — of their homes Friday morning, as police launched an unprecedented hunt for Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19, an immigrant of Chechen origin who grew up in Cambridge and was identified in video footage from the site of Monday’s deadly attack. The major universities that are the city’s lifeblood shut down. The web of buses and squealing transit cars of the oldest underground subway in the nation ground to a...

There are two very different President Obamas. There’s the confident, uncompromising Obama who sought to shame and bully Republicans into submitting to his agenda of tax increases and sweeping gun reform. This version of Obama was dominant until one month ago. Then there’s the calmer, more compromising Obama — the one who has courted Republicans and taken on his own party with a call for (modest) reductions in entitlement spending. This version of Obama took command last month. Both are flailing. (PHOTOS: The two sides of Barack Obama) Obama, regardless of the personality and political approach he displays on any...

Democratic Rep. Diana DeGette drew national criticism Wednesday for remarks made at a public forum in which she said banning high-capacity in ammunition magazines would be effective in reducing gun violence because "the bullets will have been shot and there won't be any more available." For years in Congress, DeGette has been the prime sponsor on a federal ban on high-capacity magazines. But despite the congresswoman's claim, ammunition magazines can be reloaded with more bullets and can be reused hundreds of times. "These are ammunition, they're bullets, so the people who have those now, they're going to shoot them, so...

* But puritans haven't vanished. They've merely changed the subject. The expansion of freedom in matters of sex has coincided with a shrinkage in matters of health. New Yorkers would laugh at laws policing sex, but they elected a mayor who has no problem trying to control other physical indulgences. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg brought forth a ban on large sugar-laden beverages, which this week was struck down by a state court. But the idea won't go away that easily: The city will appeal the ruling, and other cities are considering similar laws. Nor is this approach out...

A growing number of shooting enthusiasts are creating legal trusts to acquire machine guns, silencers or other items whose sale is restricted by federal law — a mechanism that bypasses the need to obtain law enforcement approval or even undergo criminal background checks. The trusts, called gun trusts, are intended to allow the owners of the firearms to share them legally with family members and to pass them down responsibly. They have gained in popularity, gun owners say, in part because they may offer protection from future legislation intended to prohibit the possession or sale of the firearms. But because...

On the production floor of Beretta USA sits a hulking new barrel-making machine ready to churn out the next object of obsession in America’s love-hate relationship with guns: a civilian version of a machine gun designed for special operations forces and popularized in the video game Call of Duty. Beretta, the nearly 500-year-old family-owned company that made one of James Bond’s firearms, has already invested more than $1 million in the machine and has planned to expand its plant further in Prince George’s County to ramp up production. But under an assault-weapons ban that advanced late last week in the...

Americans have a very special message for the federal government: Don’t tread on me. That’s the takeaway from a new poll from the Pew Research Center in which, for the first time in at least the last two decades, a majority of Americans say Washington actually poses a threat to their “personal rights and freedoms.” And it’s not just tea party supporters, Republicans and gun owners. Nearly two-fifths of Democrats (38 percent) say the government is a threat to them personally, as do 45 percent of non-gun owners. Overall, the percentage of Americans who view the federal government as a...

CHICAGO — Not a single gun shop can be found in this city because they are outlawed. Handguns were banned in Chicago for decades, too, until 2010, when the United States Supreme Court ruled that was going too far, leading city leaders to settle for restrictions some describe as the closest they could get legally to a ban without a ban. Despite a continuing legal fight, Illinois remains the only state in the nation with no provision to let private citizens carry guns in public. And yet Chicago, a city with no civilian gun ranges and bans on both assault...

As the country moves toward the effective start date of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, the operational and economic elements of this vast legislation are becoming clearer. Yet one likely outcome of the act that will directly affect the quality of patient care, and could affect its cost, has gone virtually unnoticed and unreported: the increasing trend for physicians to become employees, rather than self-employed. This development represents a potentially radical factor in the transformation of health care—the doctor as union worker. Physicians have historically practiced either in small groups or alone. Unlike hospitals, which operate under the rubric...

I AM a New England liberal, born and bred. I have lived most of my life in the Northeast — Boston, New York and Philadelphia — and my politics are devoutly Democratic. * I am also a Texas resident and a gun owner. * My relationship to firearms might have ended there, if not for a coincidence of weather. Everybody remembers Hurricane Katrina; fewer recall Hurricane Rita, an even more intense storm that headed straight for Houston less than a month later. My wife and I arranged to stay at a friend’s house in Austin, packed up the kids and...

The Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show was expected to bring $44 million in direct spending to the region, according to the Hershey Harrisburg Regional Visitors Bureau. Now that the show has been postponed -- with no reschedule date set, and none imminent -- many hotels and restaurants could be in for a difficult winter. "This is a hard time of the year to fill hotels," said Rick Dunlap, a spokesman for the bureau. "A lot of these hoteliers relied on this show to make their budget for the early part of the year." The $44 million in direct spending the...

We have just learned that Reed Exhibitions has decided to postpone the 2013 Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show. In the days following Reed Exhibitions’ announcement that modern sporting rifles would be prohibited from the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show, the leadership of the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF) has been in intense, frank discussions with Reed Exhibitions management in an effort to reverse this unacceptable decision. These discussions reached an impasse. NSSF is in no way affiliated with, nor does it participate in or exhibit at this show in any way. Reed Exhibitions does, however, manage the NSSF-owned SHOT Show...

Rob Kaufhold's gut told him it would get "ugly" when the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show banned the presence of assault rifles and high-capacity magazine rounds. The explosiveness of the gun control issue, and the power of social media, he believed, would assure that. His instincts were looking good Wednesday, as a growing list of vendors and celebrities announced they would boycott North America's largest outdoor show, which is set to begin Feb. 2 at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg. The owner of Lancaster Archery Supply said he quickly concluded outdoor enthusiasts would hold it against his business if...

Lebanon’s Jamie Gray has joined the ever-growing list of people and companies boycotting the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show. The Olympic gold medalist in air rifle made the announcement on her Facebook page on Wednesday. She said: “I want to thank all of you for your concern regarding my participation at the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show. It was with great honor that I originally accepted the invitation to participate in the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show. My purpose in attending this show in year’s past has always been to help provide a deeper knowledge and understanding for the Olympic...

On Tuesday afternoon, The Sportsman's Shop in New Holland was the last major gun dealer from Lancaster County still scheduled to attend the Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show in Harrisburg. On Tuesday evening, owner Joe Keffer pulled the plug. "As a member of the Board of Governors of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, I have been working, in good faith, with Reed to find a compromise to allow the show to continue at the caliber to which my fellow exhibitors, manufacturers and the more than 200,000 attendees have come to expect," Keffer wrote on the store's Facebook page. "After nearly...

The Eastern Sports and Outdoor Show is billed as the largest show of its kind in North America. But after the event made a decision to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines, it may now lose that title. "We felt that getting involved last year was a good business decision. It has a lot of coverage, a lot of exposure," said Ben Bode of Trop Gun Shop in Elizabethtown. Trop was one of the first vendors to boycott the show, and their customers responded. Trop's Facebook page exploded with 'likes', they received letter, faxes and praise from clients. But...