Free Republic

Does the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms apply to fully automatic machine guns? The US District Court for the Western District of Tennessee is poised to rule on the matter. Jaquan Bridges pleaded guilty to possessing a machine gun after engaging in a 2023 shootout with police officers on a Tennessee highway. Courthouse News reported that Bridges “was arrested with a Glock .40 caliber pistol with an attachment that converted the handgun into a machine gun, but fought to dismiss the charge on constitutional grounds.” He claimed the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in New York State...

SALEM, Ore. (AP) — An Oregon appeals court on Wednesday found that a gun control law approved by voters over two years ago is constitutional, reversing a lower court ruling from a state judge who had kept it on hold. The law, one of the toughest in the nation, requires people to undergo a criminal background check and complete a gun safety training course in order to obtain a permit to buy a firearm. It also bans high-capacity magazines holding more than 10 rounds. Measure 114 has been tied up in state and federal court since it was narrowly approved...

Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn introduced a bill Thursday to allow concealed carry license holders to carry their guns in any state. The bill, titled the Constitutional Concealed Carry Reciprocity Act, will compel states to recognize concealed carry permits from all states as a valid certification to carry a concealed firearm, according to the bill text. A similar bill was proposed in the House in 2023 by Republican North Carolina Rep. Richard Hudson...

Federal courts across the country are handing back disparate rulings over federal and state gun laws despite nearly back-to-back Second Amendment cases at the Supreme Court that sought to clarify the scope of the right to bear arms. Although the Supreme Court’s landmark 2022 decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen held that gun regulations must align with the nation’s “history and tradition” of firearms laws and a separate case this summer called Rahimi v. U.S. upheld firearm prohibitions for domestic violence offenders, lower federal courts are still struggling to achieve consistency, as shown by...

Gun law changes in New York City are opening up the path for nonresidents to carry firearms across the state.The New York City Police Department adopted an emergency rule last week that will allow nonresidents to apply for concealed carry permits through the city, a move that could create a backdoor for out-of-state residents to carry their guns in the state.New York City Mayor Eric Adams signed the changes into law last Tuesday, allowing for nonresidents to file carry applications in the city. Prior to the new order, NYPD rules did not contain formal procedures for applicants who do not...

In a landmark decision, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously sided with the National Rifle Association (NRA) on Thursday, ruling that the New York State Department of Financial Services violated the NRA’s First Amendment rights by effectively blacklisting the group. The decision, surprisingly authored by far-left Justice Sonia Sotomayor, affirmed that the NRA “plausibly alleged” that its free speech rights were stifled by the New York State Department of Financial Services (DFS) under directives perceived to be politically motivated.

A deal made by congressional leaders to avert a partial shutdown of the U.S. government includes an attempt to ease some veterans' access to gun ownership, even when they are deemed "mentally incompetent" to handle their own finances. The $436 billion funding package agreed on by congressional lawmakers Wednesday extended the deadline for the expiration of funding for government agencies—including the military and Department of Veteran Affairs—from March 1 to March 8. It was the fourth extension painstakingly agreed on by a divided Congress during this fiscal year, but it spelled optimism that a deal for the long-term budget plan...

The Remington gun factory nestled in New York’s Mohawk Valley is ready to shutter its doors and move to Georgia after more than 200 years in the Empire State. "Two hundred and eight years of history. Gone, gone," Ilion, New York, Mayor John P. Stephens told the New York Times. "Ilion is Remington. Remington is Ilion." Remington is the nation’s oldest gun manufacturer and told union officials late last year that company chiefs at RemArms, the current version of Remington Arms, made the decision to end its New York manufacturing come March. The remaining operations located in Ilion will move...

A man who killed five people at a bank in Louisville earlier this year wrote in his journal that he wanted to demonstrate the consequences of gun laws that he viewed as too lenient, according to police. The Louisville Police Department released a report Tuesday with quotes they said were taken from Connor Sturgeon’s journal entries in the days leading up to the shooting on April 10, 2023. “I have decided to make an impact. These people did not deserve to die, but because I was depressed and able to buy ___ (guns?), they are gone,” Sturgeon reportedly wrote on...

FRESNO COUNTY, Calif. (KFSN) -- Tuesday, Governor Gavin Newsom signed several landmark gun control bills into law but acknowledged there will likely be legal challenges that could make it to the Supreme Court.In total, he signed 23 new laws related to guns."It's great what we're doing, but it may not be enough," said Newsom.Senate Bill 2 (SB 2) will double the training time required of those renewing or seeking a concealed carry permit.SB 2 raises the age requirement to have a CW to 21.The law will also ban people from carrying guns in nearly all public places, including at public...

Gun control and blaming racism are no substitute for personal responsibility.“Structural racism” is to blame for mass shootings, CNN announced last month. The impetus was a study by the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), but CNN might have buried the lead: “There was no discernible association noted in this study between gun laws and MSEs [mass shootings] with other studies showing similar findings.”Journalist Daniel Greenfield picked that up and explained why JAMA and CNN still concluded it’s all about race:The issue wasn’t gun laws, it was race. “The study found that in areas with higher black populations, mass...

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott (D) took aim at states like Florida and Virginia for not having stricter gun control laws because he says their laws result in cases such as the mass shooting that took place in his city over the weekend. The mass shooting at a block party just after midnight resulted in almost 30 people being shot with two others killed. The New York Times reports most of the victims were teenagers and there was more than one shooter. At this time, it is not known where the firearms that were used originated from. "Mayor Scott, you said...

Killer Mike believes any new gun control laws in America will hurt Black people before any other group -- but the rapper's telling us a few other ways he thinks the spike in gun violence can be flattened. Mike joined us Wednesday on "TMZ Live" to discuss potential curfews for minors in Atlanta -- something he's all for as a measure to mitigate violence ... and, he says he had curfew when he was growing up in the area. However, he remains firmly against the passage of new legislation as a means to reduce gun-related crime. Mike says he's a...

Joe Biden is going ‘all in’ on subjecting our gun rights to the dictates of the United Nations Small Arms Treaty — and if he’s successful, the damage will be catastrophic! This is as serious as it gets! Here’s what’s going on: Joe Biden lost control of the House on election night last year, which means passing gun control through Congress won’t be near as easy as it was before. That’s why Biden’s turning to the United Nations Small Arms Treaty and that’s what makes this so dangerous — international treaties only need to be ratified by the Senate! To...

Feb. 7—In the wake of the mass shooting in Monterey Park, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Tuesday, Feb. 7 adopted two gun-control regulations, one that bans the sale of large-caliber handguns and ammunition and one that prohibits people from carrying guns in county parks, plazas, beaches and buildings — with exceptions for law enforcement, active military and others.

The Second Amendment guarantees our right to bear arms. And if you look at the lives that are taken by gun violence, it's a very minuscule percentage that are taken by these so-called weapons of war, which are not weapons of war. These are not weapons that the military uses. People actually use AR 15s for hunting. There's a lot of people who do. There's a lot of people who use it for home defense. And you have the right to have that. And to me, this whole assault weapon hysteria is just a precursor to putting restrictions on the...

At least 80 county sheriffs and prosecutors have vowed not to enforce the new Illinois gun control law that bans 170 kinds of semi-automatic rifles and places limits on ammunition magazines. “The right to keep and bear arms for defense of life, liberty and property is regarded as an inalienable right by the people,” said Iroquois County Sheriff Clinton Perzee. “I, among many others, believe that [House Bill 5471] is a clear violation of the 2nd Amendment to the US Constitution,” he added. Perzee said he would not use his jail to detain people solely for violating the new gun...

Several sheriffs in Oregon said they will not enforce the state’s new gun law that places a limit on magazine capacity, arguing that the provision violates the Constitution’s Second Amendment.Oregon voters approved Measure 114, also known as the Reduction of Gun Violence Act, during the Nov. 8 midterm elections. The rule, among other restrictions, outlaws magazines that hold more than 10 rounds—similar to rules that have been implemented in New York, California, and other Democrat-controlled states.Several county sheriffs have publicly announced they won’t enforce the law or parts of the law.“The biggest thing is this does absolutely nothing to address...

Eighty-four-year old Joan Jacobson never imagined she would be shot when she knocked on the door of a Michigan couple’s home, hoping to convince them not to vote for local pro-abortion ballot proposal. Sharon Harvey answered the door and quickly became “hostile, belligerent, and antagonistic” when she learned Jacobson’s mission, according to David Kallman, Jacobson’s attorney with the Great Lakes Justice Center. A social media account that appears to be Harvey’s features content strongly pro-abortion and heavily critical of Republicans. She did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Daily Signal. In a Thursday phone interview with The...

Every so often a problem child does something wrong just to get punished. Maybe it’s testing the limits to see where the boundaries are. But in the case of New York State, it appears to be much more malignant. Space prohibits an exhaustive review, but it’s quite certain that New York’s new gun law is an in-your-face, single-finger salute to the Supreme Court in response to the Bruen decision. It’s likely to get all the respect a parent should give to that misbehaving offspring.SCOTUS said that NY was not allowed to demand “good cause” to get a permit. So, NY...