Free Republic

Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) gave no room for nuance during Wednesday's House Judiciary Committee hearing about the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives new rule on arm braces, stating either people are for strict gun control laws or they are with mass shooters. "l look at this is very binary. You can protect your home, you can take your kids hunting, you can shoot for sport. But if you’re not on the side of protecting our kids, you’re on the side of helping their killers, that’s it. You either can help the kids or help the killers," Swalwell said....

Former Rep. Gabby Giffords saw her political career, as it was going, put to an end by a madman. No one thinks what happened to her was justified, but it happened. It’s not surprising that she recovered and started a gun control group. I don’t think anyone was overly shocked by that. However, many of Giffords’ supporters have argued over and over again that people like her respect the Second Amendment, they just want what they term “common sense” gun control. The problem is that Gabby didn’t get that memo. As we wrap our interview in her office, I ask...

Let’s face it: Many armed Americans are deathly — and irrationally — afraid of others. And so they have become a menace to the rest of us. According to a 2021 Gallup Poll, as many as 88 percent of gun owners are apparently terrified of being harmed, since they say the guns are for self-defense. Yet very, very few gun owners end up defending themselves and their families from the sort of random crime they fear. According to The Trace, fewer than 3 percent of gun owners ever use a weapon in self-defense, and apparently some of those involve misrepresentation...

On Wednesday, lawmakers in Nebraska passed a bill allowing residents to carry concealed guns in the state without a permit. Opponents of the bill filibustered for 14 hours over three rounds of debate. The bill was opposed primarily by lawmakers in the areas of Omaha and Lincoln, where the majority of gun violence in the state occurs. The bill ended up passing 33-14 (via the Associated Press): Republican Gov. Jim Pillen is expected to sign the bill into law. It will go into effect 90 days after he signs. Earlier this month, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) signed permitless concealed carry...

CNN anchor Don Lemon abruptly ended a segment with Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy after a tense back-and-forth about gun rights and black Americans. What happened? During an interview on "CNN This Morning," co-host Poppy Harlow asked Ramaswamy about his speech last week at the NRA convention. In that speech, Ramaswamy connected gun control laws and the campaign to oppress black Americans after the Civil War. We fought a civil war in this country to give black Americans the equal protection under the law that we failed to secure them in 1776. But then, you want to know what happened?...

The world’s first ever “smart-gun” that features a life-saving fingerprint unlocking feature hit the market this week. The 9mm handgun from Biofire Technologies uses fingerprint recognition technology to lock out anyone besides the owner of the firearm and users who are approved by the owner. A press release from the company explains that it “enables firearm owners to defend themselves against external threats while preventing unauthorized access and misuse.” “Your Smart Gun only fires for the people you choose, so your firearm can never cause a tragic outcome in the hands of a child, criminal, or anyone else,” Biofire’s website...

New York’s strict concealed carry law is under challenge, as a panel of federal judges considers a slew of legal challenges from firearm owners and dealers across the state. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments Monday morning on a handful of lawsuits that argue the Concealed Carry Improvement Act — passed days after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the state’s prior concealed carry law — violates New Yorkers’ 2nd amendment rights. “Gov. Hochul promised that she was going to fight back, and the New York Assembly and [she] did just that,” said Stephen Stamboulieh, an attorney...

President Joe Biden issued an executive order that will expand background checks on gun sales, the White House said Tuesday. According to an fact sheet from the White House, Biden traveled to Monterey Park, California, where a mass shooting occurred in January, to announce the order. “The Executive Order will also keep more guns out of dangerous hands by increasing the effective use of ‘red flag’ laws, strengthen efforts to hold the gun industry accountable, and accelerate law enforcement efforts to identify and apprehend the shooters menacing our communities,” the announcement said. “President Biden is also encouraging the Federal Trade...

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney (D) addressed the shooting death of Temple University police officer Christopher Fitzgerald and made clear his view that one cannot claim to back the blue if they do not back gun control. Breitbart News reported that Fitzgerald was shot and killed while investigating a carjacking Saturday night. The alleged cop killer, 18-year-old Miles Pfeffer, was arrested Sunday morning without incident. The Philadelphia Inquirer quoted Kenney reacting to the slaying, saying, “There’s too many [guns] and they’re too easy to get.”

Scarcely a day goes by that we don't hear in the news of another gun rampage. The latest, on the campus of Michigan State University in East Lansing, caused me to have more than the usual pause about such incidents. It was personal for me. I did my graduate work at MSU, lived on campus and worked in those buildings. To read of shootings, injuries and death to students in those same buildings that I had been in many times, gave me more than the usual chllls I experience when reading of such incidents. The loss of life and the...

Guns save lives. That's a slogan gun-control activists on the left despise, for obvious reasons. But two recent incidents confirm the common-sense truth behind it. And perhaps you can add these words to the politically incorrect motto, based on the heroic actions of two American women, one in Florida, the other in Texas. Guns, properly used to defend self and property, also stop crime. And criminals. In Interlachen, Florida, a 67-year-old woman "fatally shot an armed man who barged into her home early Wednesday morning," according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office, the Blaze reported Thursday. The local sheriff called...

While speaking to the National Association of Counties Tuesday, President Biden pushed for more gun control and said there is “no rationale…for magazines that hold 50, 70 bullets.” He did not say what he believes to be a rational magazine capacity nor did he note whether 70-round magazines exist. Biden said, “I’m going to say something that’s always controversial, but there is no rationale for assault weapons and magazines that hold 50, 70 bullets.”

A Michigan state representative released a statement in the aftermath of the Michigan State University mass shooting that left three dead and five others wounded, saying, "F**k your thoughts and prayers," and the state needs more gun control laws on the books. "I want to extend my deepest condolences to the Michigan State University community," said Michigan House Majority Whip Ranjeev Puri (D). "What happened in East Lansing is unfortunately far too common. Going to school in America, whether it's pre-school or college, means risking your life every day to the threat of a mass shooting. Yet all we have...

The gun control group Newtown Action Alliance is responding to the constitutional carry push in Florida by tweeting that “there is no such thing as ‘constitutional carry.'” Twenty-five states have constitutional carry, and Republicans in Florida and South Carolina are now racing to see which state will be number 26, but Newtown Action Alliance says it does not really exist. Newtown Action Alliance’s tweeted their opinion: Newtown Action Alliance @NewtownAction Just to be clear, there is no such thing as “constitutional carry”. The constitution didn’t give anyone the right to carry guns publicly without permits, background checks, or training. This...

The first question any reasonable person asks after a horrible crime is, "What could have been done to stop it?" Yet after every mass shooting, gun controllers suggest unworkable, unconstitutional, completely ineffectual ideas that target people who will never commit a crime. After the twin mass shootings in California last week, Gov. Gavin Newsom (flanked by armed guards) told CBS News more federal gun-control laws were needed because the Second Amendment is "becoming a suicide pact." What he didn't mention was that California has passed not only every law Senate Democrats are proposing in Washington but a slew of others....

In the wake of yet another horrific mass shooting in our nation, the left is going after the Second Amendment once again and demanding that gun control measures be put in place. But one journalist, in a rare piece of actual journalism, pushed back on those demands and exposed a flaw in the left’s gun logic. On Monday, CBS News journalist Norah O’Donnell interviewed California’s leftist Gov. Gavin Newsom following a mass shooting in Monterey Park on Saturday that left 11 people dead. Predictably, Newsom repeated the leftist talking points about guns. He even went so far as to describe...

At SHOT Show University, the FBI provided an update on the Nation Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). What they shared was staggering and sure to make the anti-gunners throw up their hands in frustration. For those unfamiliar with NICS, it is a system used by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to conduct background checks on individuals who want to purchase firearms from a licensed firearms dealer in the United States. The NICS system was created in response to the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act of 1993, which required background checks for all firearms sales made through licensed dealers....

FOX News personality Geraldo Rivera backed President Biden’s push for an “assault weapons” ban and said that the “AR” in AR-15 stands for “automatic rifle” on Tuesday’s The Five. Newsweek quoted Rivera telling the co-hosts, “I submit to you, ladies and gentlemen, there is no legitimate reason … to have an AR-15.” He described the AR-15 as a “machine gun” that people own in order to make them feel “macho.”

--A Brazilian Supreme Court judge on Wednesday issued a four-day ban on carrying firearms in the capital as a precautionary measure ahead of the January 1 inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. In his ruling that temporarily suspends the licenses of registered gun owners, Judge Alexandre de Moraes wrote that "terrorist groups financed by shameless magnates" have been committing crimes against the rule of law in recent weeks, which is why public safety had to be made secure via a temporary firearms ban. If a registered gun owner is caught in Brasilia with a firearm in those four...

BALNEÁRIO CAMBORIÚ, Brazil — Take away the açaí smoothies and the skewers of barbecued Brazilian meat and the four-day Texas ExpoTiro here could be a gun show anywhere in the United States. Firearms dealers from all over the world have rented booths to market Glock pistols and AR-15s, and gun rights advocates are offering lectures on how to confront violent urban crime. “This is a triumph of liberty!” said retired military police chief Marcelo Venera, the executive director of the two-year-old expo, the largest gun show in the country and the first open to civilians. “We are here to show...