Free Republic

An Alabama Supreme Court ruling has dictated that police officers can demand ID when approaching individuals. The ruling states that officers are allowed to ask for physical identification if they feel an individual gives an unsatisfactory oral answer. AL.com reported how the decision ruled against a local pastor, who sued an Alabama town and its law enforcement office after a police encounter. The incident occurred in 2022, in which police arrested Pastor Michael Jennings after he watered his neighbor’s flowers. Another neighbor called the police on Jennings, citing that a “younger Black male” was on the property. While officers pressed...

Swedish authorities claim attending church 3 times a week is evidence of 'religious extremism' A Swedish couple that have been separated from their two eldest daughters for nearly four years due to alleged “religious extremism” have had an appeal rejected by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Daniel and Bianca Samson’s ordeal began in late 2022 when government authorities took the daughters into their care. The intervention was prompted by an allegation by the eldest daughter that her parents would not allow them to wear makeup or own a phone due to their purported “religious extremism.”

The Minnesota legislature is considering HF 3433. HF3433 contains several significant infringements on the rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. The bill was introduced in the Minnesota House of Representatives on February 17, 2026. HF 3433 has been referred to the Minnesota House of Representatives Committee on Public Safety Finance and Policy. 35 members of the House have signed up as authors of the bill. HF3433 bans a long list of firearms by name, bans firearms by specific features, requires people who desire to keep any of the firearms specified to register them, store them...

The United States Department of Education announced on February 17 that it was opening an investigation into Portland Public Schools (PPS) over a complaint that the district’s Center for Black Student Excellence (CBSE) violates the federal Civil Rights Act. The Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating a complaint filed in December, alleging the CBSE violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which banned discrimination based on race, color, or national origin in education programs and activities that receive federal funding. According to Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey: “Civil rights law—and basic fairness—demand that...

WASHINGTON — The Department of Veterans Affairs today announced a major new step to protect Veterans’ Second Amendment rights. Effective immediately, VA will not report Veterans to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System as “prohibited persons” only because they need help from a fiduciary in managing their VA benefits.This corrects a three-decade-old wrong that deprived many thousands of Veterans in VA’s Fiduciary Program of their constitutional right to own a firearm without a legal basis.After a thorough review, VA recognized that many Veterans had been deprived of their Second Amendment rights without hearings or adequate...

On Wednesday’s CNN This Morning, host Audie Cornish and her panel managed to recast enforcement of federal civil rights law under Donald Trump as “enforcing ideology,” while a Democratic consultant insisted that DEI “was never a problem” until Trump took office. [snip] Cornish framed the issue this way: “What it means is the actual government now is involved in enforcing a different ideology, so to speak.”No. It means the federal government is enforcing the law. Democratic consultant Antjuan Seawright went further, claiming: “DEI was never a problem until Trump became President of the United States."Seawright also suggested that scaling back...

Virginia Delegate Tom Garrett Jr. delivered an extended statement arguing that efforts to restrict firearms represent a fundamental misunderstanding of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the historical basis of self-defense, asserting that the right to bear arms is inherent and not granted by government.Garrett framed his remarks around what he described as repeated misinterpretations of the Second Amendment and broader constitutional principles, opening by questioning the motivation behind gun control proposals.

Democrats in Congress and George Floyd’s lawyer are calling for a change to federal law. They wish to amend the Civil Rights Act to allow citizens to more easily sue federal immigration officers. Since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement protests in Minneapolis and the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, Democrats have called for ICE to be fully defunded. The agency under the Department of Homeland Security is funded through Feb. 13 and has funding for deportation operations through 2028. However, at an unofficial, bicameral, partisan hearing on Tuesday, Antonio Romanucci, George Floyd’s former attorney now representing Good, called...

The UK government has pledged to introduce a digital ID system for all UK citizens and legal residents by the end of the current Parliament (so no later than 2029). The integration of digital ID into government services, though already under way, has hitherto been largely voluntary. However, it is becoming steadily less optional, as the government has said it will now be required as a precondition for work in the UK, and a version of it (GOV.UK One Login) is already being imposed unilaterally upon company directors throughout the UK. Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister Darren Jones has...

Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison previously argued that Americans have no Second Amendment right to carry firearms at political protests. Ellison joined 16 other attorneys general from Democrat-led states in an amicus brief filed with the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in January 2024, according to court records. The coalition argued states can ban firearms at political rallies and protests because such events attract violence. The group also contended that guns at demonstrations could intimidate people and discourage them from speaking freely. Ellison’s legal stance faced scrutiny Saturday when Border Patrol agents fatally shot Alex Pretti during an immigration enforcement...

The Queens senior citizen who killed a would-be mugger during an early morning shooting reported to prison Wednesday to serve a four-year sentence for criminal weapons possession. The then-65-year-old was returning to his Queens Avenue apartment around 2 a.m. after buying a pack of cigarettes when he was confronted by a menacing Cody Gonzalez.

A federal appeals court has overturned the gun conviction of a man who had failed to pay child support, saying that sort of crime shouldn’t have cost him his gun rights for the rest of his life. The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday in a 2-1 decision that as long as he was current in his payments, his past felony conviction doesn’t automatically make him too dangerous to society to possess a firearm. “So there’s no historical justification to disarm him at that moment — never mind for the rest of his life,” Judge James Ho, a...

Dhillon made the remarks in the wake of recent revelations that the FBI admitted it likely lacked probable cause to raid President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach in 2022. Assistant Attorney General Harmeet Dhillon told Just the News on Wednesday that federal and local officials involved in the prosecutions of President Donald Trump may face legal action if the Department of Justice identifies a conspiracy to deprive him or his followers of his civil rights. "The Department of Justice is at the heart of considering these issues right now, so I can't really talk about the specifics, but...

Nearly 30 years ago I wrote a short article for the Human Rights Defender about the ‘right’ to own guns. In those days there wasn’t much to say. Even in the gun-crazy United States of America (USA), the courts had consistently ruled that the vaunted Second Amendment to the Constitution was no obstacle to regulation of firearms; its power was psychological and political, rather than legal. My article was prompted by the emergence of rights rhetoric from the Sporting Shooters Association of Australia (SSAA), part of the Australian pro-gun lobby, which had formed an alliance with the US National Rifle...

If Europe’s elites want war, they should pick up a rifle and fight. After the European Commission levied a several-hundred-million-dollar fine on Elon Musk and his social media platform X earlier this month, journalist Michael Shellenberger wrote a damning post in which he excoriated Europe’s rank censorship and state-sponsored propaganda. He accused the commission of engaging “in a deception campaign aimed at confusing” Europeans and Americans into thinking that European elites’ “goal” is anything other than “to censor the American people.” Shellenberger pointed out that Musk’s fine came while European governments are demanding backdoor access to all private text messages...

The question is not whether the EU collapses but whenIf I were a bookie, I would be making odds now about when the European Union will finally unravel and die. Unless there is an imminent and drastic course correction, the blessed event cannot be far off. I might need a Doomsday Clock akin to the one publicized by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Their clock hovers near midnight, which signifies nuclear Armageddon, the minute hand pushed closer or farther away from the blast depending on minatory world events. My clock would measure the EU’s proximity to implosion. Its recent...

Sharing a meme against President Trump in response to a memorial for assassinated conservative activist Charlie Kirk cost a Tennessee man his liberty for 37 days, which in turn got him fired. The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, which is representing Larry Bushart, told Just the News on Tuesday it's still prepping a lawsuit on his behalf. The Alliance Defending Freedom beat FIRE to court in response to another alleged criminal investigation of speech related to Kirk in neighboring North Carolina, alleging a school district known for a Supreme Court precedent on school busing sanctioned an unidentified high school...

Freedom of speech will be under even greater threat if the British government is able to do away with jury trials for almost all cases because legal studies show a judge sitting alone is far more likely to convict defendants in free speech than juries, the Free Speech Union warns. The Free Speech Union warns the United Kingdom risks losing “a check on governmental power and arbitrary justice” in “the biggest assault on our liberties in 800 years” if the government is able to push ahead this week with plans said to be looking at abolishing the right to a...

By now, you’ve probably seen the giddy headlines from America’s propaganda media about the U.S. Supreme Court declining to take up a case that sought to overturn so-called “gay marriage.”“BREAKING: The Supreme Court rejects a call to overturn its decision legalizing same-sex marriage nationwide,” an Associated Press tweet with more than 21,000 likes reads. “Supreme Court rejects challenge to landmark same-sex marriage decision,” a USA Today headline blared. This “breaking news” is in response to an order list published by the Supreme Court on Monday detailing which cases it will and will not be taking up during its ongoing 2025-2026...

A teen boy and his mother filed a federal lawsuit against Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and its police department, alleging false arrest and imprisonment after the boy was misidentified in a surveillance video and jailed for nearly a month on gun charges. The complaint filed by Mekhi Johnson and his mother, Amber Garrity, on July 31 (and obtained by Atlanta Black Star) claims Williamsport Police Bureau Agent Benjamin Hitesman ignored evidence proving Johnson’s innocence and failed to inform prosecutors, willful omissions that a county judge later said “cast a dark cloud” over local police and all law enforcement..... Based solely on that...