Free Republic

LAS Vegas is the city that perhaps most obviously symbolises America’s love affair with the world of entertainment. Its themed hotels, the residencies of huge music stars, the casinos, the coloured illuminations: pulled together they offer the chance to be thrilled and, if you’re lucky, get rich – all under the gaze of a thousand fluorescent light bulbs. Now, however, Vegas is facing up to a much darker reality following the death of dozens of concertgoers at the hands of a mass murderer. The city that styles itself as the entertainment capital of the world is also now the holder...

Australians have handed in nearly 26,000 firearms in the nation's first gun amnesty since its landmark response to a mass shooting in 1996. The amnesty began on 1 July to help counter a growing terrorism threat and an influx of arms in the country. It is illegal to own an unregistered firearm in Australia. Those caught outside the amnesty period face fines of up to A$280,000 (£172,000, $225,000) and up to 14 years in jail. The current programme, running until 30 September, means Australians can surrender unregistered firearms and related items without fear of prosecution. Justice Minister Michael Keenan said...

SDF commander Clara Raqqa announced that the greater proportion of the city is under their control. Since the start of Raqqa operation, SDF forces have liberated 14 of the 23 neighbourhoods from ISIS gangs, and control 65 percent of the city, SDF commander Clara Raqqa said. Within 90 days the 'Great Battle' campaign to capture Raqqa, 14 of the 23 neighbourhoods are liberated by SDF. There are 9 neighbourhoods under ISIS control. As the battles intensify in the neighbourhoods of al-Barid, Mirûr and Nehda, commander of the operation, Clara Raqqa, shared details on the current situation. THE BATTLE FOR RAQQA...

The press can be dealt with in a professional manner. You need someone who has been in the business to do it. That person would understand inside out how the system works and why. Also, that individual would know how to address a journalist, good or bad. Another key point is to separate them from each other and stop the hyena vs lion dynamic. One-on-one interviews with selected reps from each outlet would be a good start. In a school classroom, you do not get into a major verbal conflict with one student in front of all of the rest....

Newly appointed White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has posted his support for stringent gun-control laws – a position that would be at odds with President Trump’s views. “I have always been for strong gun control laws,” Scaramucci tweeted after the December 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in which 20 kids were gunned down. In August 2012, he tweeted: “We (the USA) has 5% of the world’s population but 50% of the world’s guns. Enough is enough. It is just common sense it apply more controls.”

We all know the truth is not being revealed to the public. For instance, the incident involving the shooting of Representative Scalise and other Republicans is being covered up by the FBI. Another example is the Special Counsel Mueller’s conflict of interest in his connection to James Comey. Now Tom Fitton is calling for the Counsel to be shut down, as Mueller just hired an employee of fired New York federal prosecutor Preet Bharara. Preet was fired by President Trump, as Trump had his own appointees assigned to that office. Also, Bharara used to work for Ex-FBI Director James Comey....

While the National Rifle Association (NRA) has long insisted that allowing Americans to carry guns make communities safer, an analysis of nearly 40 years’ worth of data has found that is not necessarily true. A Stanford Law School professor, John Donohue, and his team analyzed crime data from 1977 to 2014 and didn’t find evidence that areas where more Americans carry guns enjoy enhanced public safety or less crime. On the contrary, the researchers discovered that states that have enacted so-called right-to-carry (RTC) concealed handgun laws have experienced higher rates of violent crime than states that did not adopt those...

About 1,300 US children under the age of 17 die from gun-related injuries per year, a government study has found. Researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) also found that guns seriously wounded about 5,800 children each year. Boys accounted for 82% of all child firearm deaths while black children were 10 times more likely to be killed by a gun, according to the study. More than half of these deaths were homicides while 38% were ruled suicide. The study, published in Pediatrics on Monday, also found 6% of firearm-related deaths were fatalities from accidental gun...

California’s Department of Justice (DOJ) is working on 60 pages of regulatory changes for “assault weapons” and “high capacity” magazines behind closed doors. The California DOJ was forced to turn over documentation related to the changes because of public records request that the Firearms Policy Coalition and the California Rifle and Pistol Association made. Guns.com obtained and then published the regulatory changes, which include a revamped online registration system to allow Californians to register their “assault weapons” prior to January 1, 2018, when California’s latest “assault weapons” ban takes effect. The Firearms Policy Coalition reports this ban requires registration of...

Once they blur all the distinctions, they can do anything, and justify it in their minds. And that is why the Left is always so violent when they are out of power, and why they control or try to control everything, when they are in power. The problem with all Leftist arguments and debates on any position is that they completely blur any distinction between lawful and lawless, in an effort to confuse, distort, and force their position that since everyone is lawless in some way, no one is, and individualism still means everyone is the responsibility of everyone else,...

The facial recognition database used by the FBI is “out of control,” according to a new report by The Guardian. “Approximately half of adult Americans’ photographs are stored in facial recognition databases that can be accessed by the FBI, without their knowledge or consent, in the hunt for suspected criminals,” reported The Guardian on Monday. “About 80% of photos in the FBI’s network are non-criminal entries, including pictures from driver’s licenses and passports. The algorithms used to identify matches are inaccurate about 15% of the time, and are more likely to misidentify black people than white people.” “These are just...

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights was informed by several reliable sources that the Euphrates Dam which is located on the Euphrates River north of al-Tabaqa city in the western countryside of al-Raqqah has stopped working, the reasons are still unknown until now, where the sources of the observatory suggested that the Dam has stopped because of a power outage, which is being generated from the dam automatically, also the intersecting sources confirmed to the Syrian observatory for Human Rights that the main body of the Dam and the main turbines are still under the control the “Islamic State” organization...

In this age of waxing laws and waning freedoms, a notable exception to the pattern of ever-tightening restrictions is gun prohibitions. New Hampshire no longer requires a license for the carrying of a concealed, loaded firearm; Florida is considering eliminating all “gun-free zones” (e.g., at schools); and Iowa may institute a “Stand your ground” provision and lower the age at which children could use handguns, to cite a few examples. [...]All this stokes another fear: that the U.S. will become a gun free-for-all zone of murder and mayhem. But does data justify this concern?

In early November, without warning, the Indian government declared the two largest denomination bills invalid, abolishing over 80 percent of circulating cash by value. Amidst all the commotion and outrage this caused, nobody seems to have taken note of the decisive role that Washington played in this. U.S. President Barack Obama has declared the strategic partnership with India a priority of his foreign policy. In the context of this partnership, the US government’s development agency USAID has negotiated cooperation agreements with the Indian ministry of finance to push back the use of cash in favor of digital payments in India...

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) and a group of his colleagues are calling on the newly appointed Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to immediately investigate how US taxpayer funds are being used by the State Department and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) to support Soros-backed, leftist political groups in several Eastern European countries including Macedonia and Albania. According to the letter, potentially millions of taxpayer dollars are being funneled through USAID to Soros' Open Society Foundations with the explicit goal of pushing his progressive agenda.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement says it possesses a “limited amount” of 9mm bullets for agents in the field as well as for training purposes, and it is rationing its ammunition based on internal requests until it can award a new contract. [ ] The apparent role poor planning, or another agenda, played in the issue came to light when ICE said it would have run out of 9mm ammo by June 2017 in the absence of a modified contract with its supplier, Vista Outdoor Inc. So, the agency last month approved a $363,307 ceiling increase to contract No. HSCEMS-11-D-00002....

During a lively discussion centered on fears that President Trump is "trying to undermine the media," MSNBC's Mika Brzezinski let slip the awesome unspoken truth that the media's "job" is to "actually control exactly what people think."(video at link) SCARBOROUGH: "Exactly. That is exactly what I hear. What Yamiche said is what I hear from all the Trump supporters that I talk to who were Trump voters and are still Trump supporters. They go, 'Yeah you guys are going crazy. He's doing -- what are you so surprised about? He is doing exactly what he said he is going to...

PBS has produced a new short documentary called “Guns on Campus,” a look at campus carry at the University of Texas at Austin (UTA). The film is set to air in conjunction with another PBS short film called “Tower,” about the 1966 sniper attack at the University of Texas at Austin. While the documentary is made out to be a fair and balanced reporting of the facts, Students for Concealed Carry (SCC) are claiming otherwise. According to the activist organization, PBS had very little interest in hearing the pro-campus carry stance. “How does someone produce a documentary on Texas’ campus...

“We are going to have to do something about Chicago. Because what is happening in Chicago should not be happening in this country.” Last month also saw 234 shooting incidents and 299 shooting victims – compared to 242 shooting incidents and 291 victims during the same time period last year. Despite the grim numbers in January, police have said a new plan is helping get guns off the streets. Police recovered more than 600 guns last month, an increase of more than 60 percent over January 2016. Police said gun arrests also were more than double the total from January...

Last, the law enforcement executives engaged in this project agreed that it is essential, in order to address gun violence at the national level, to put in place a federal firearms trafficking and straw purchasing law – neither of which exist today – and comprehensive and universal background checks, which most Americans support