Free Republic

Gun control groups don't like it when life is peaceful. They may say they want a reduction in so-called gun violence, but they also can't raise money when people aren't freaking out about that so-called gun violence. With that in mind, it shouldn't be surprising that they're willing to misrepresent the facts.

California Democrats are pushing legislation to require background checks for gun barrel purchases, effectively taking the “ghost gun” regulatory push to its logical conclusion. The bill, Senate Bill 704, is sponsored by state Sen. Jesse Arreguín (D). SB 704 singles out firearm barrels among the many other parts of firearm, requiring a background check for any replacement barrel or aftermarket barrel upgrade purchase. […] Moreover, SB 704 specifically outlines how the costs of performing background checks for barrels must be handled, making clear that the legislation literally creates “a new crime,” albeit a misdemeanor, in the state California. …

Gov. Jared Polis on Thursday signed into law one of the most restrictive gun regulations ever adopted in Colorado. Senate Bill 3 bans the manufacture and drastically restricts the sale of certain semiautomatic firearms in Colorado. It’s aimed at reducing the carnage that can be inflicted during a mass shooting. “I really think this will make Colorado safer,” Polis said before signing the bill in his office at the Colorado Capitol. Here’s how the measure will work. What it would do Starting in August 2026, the manufacture, sale and purchase of certain semiautomatic firearms that can accept detachable ammunition magazines...

Hundreds of students at Madison High School marched to the state Capitol on Friday to demand an “assault weapons” ban after the December 16, 2024, Abundant Life Christian School handgun attack. The Cap Times reported the students chanted “books, not bullets” and “no more silence, end gun violence.” The Wisconsin Examiner quoted the high schoolers saying, “Graduations not funerals.” Once at the Capitol, the students called for an “assault weapons” ban and enhanced background checks. The students did not mention that the alleged 15-year-old shooter did not use a firearm categorized as an “assault weapon” nor did she buy her...

A federal judge in the Southern District of Illinois issued a permanent injunction Friday enjoining the state from enforcing the “assault weapons” ban contained in the Protect Illinois Communities Act (PICA). The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) was among the plaintiffs in the case. SAF founder Alan Gottlieb responded to the decision, calling Friday “a great day for gun rights.” The judge’s order allows 30 days before the injunction goes into force, giving the state that period of time in which to file an appeal.

Mandatory gun confiscation is a great idea — if Congress doesn’t act within the first hundred days of my administration, i will take executive action. 一 Kamala Harris

Chris Kaba, who was elevated to George Floyd-esque martyrdom status in Britain after being killed during an altercation with police in 2022, has now been revealed to have been a serial violent criminal offender and a member of one of London’s most feared gangs, which put out a hit on a police officer following Kaba’s death. In September 2022, Kaba was stopped by police over suspicion that his car was tied to a firearms offence the previous day. Rather than complying with the officers, Kaba refused to leave his vehicle and ultimately used his car as a “battering ram” against...

The City of Okeechobee, Florida adopted an illegal ordinance shortly before Hurricane Helene made landfall last week, which banned the sale of guns and ammunition and prohibited firearm possession in public by anyone other than law enforcement or members of the military. Donald C. Hagan, the Chief of the Okeechobee Police Department, signed the illegal ordinance, copies of which quickly rebounded around the internet. Chief Hagan did not immediately return calls or emails seeking his comments for this story.

First came the guns — the Mausers from Germany, the Carcanos from Italy — and then came the moral pretexts. These days, the American right is forever touting firearms as matters of principle or heralding them as hallmarks of a certain sort of rugged identity. But guns, before fetishists succeeded in converting them into symbols, were simply commodities, as unglamorous as washing machines. In his crisply written and incisive new book, “,” historian Andrew C. McKevitt chronicles the transformation of guns from tangible weapons to ideological ammunition. Sharp, fascinating, devastating, exhaustively researched and often wryly funny, this indispensable book —...

Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed the Sunshine State won’t abide by potential bureaucratic restrictions on Second Amendment rights after the U.S. surgeon general declared firearm violence a “public health crisis.” The Biden administration’s surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said guns “[pose] a serious threat to the health and well-being of our country.” The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ webpage for the advisory does not list any new legal action taken on restrictions, but DeSantis warned that similar advisories were issued at the start of the coronavirus pandemic – preceding lockdowns and other government mandates. “During COVID, unelected bureaucrats used...

The six Republican justices handed down a decision on Friday that effectively legalizes civilian ownership of automatic weapons. All three of the Court’s Democrats dissented. The Court’s decision in Garland v. Cargill involves bump stocks, devices that allow ordinary semiautomatic weapons that can legally be owned by civilians to automatically fire, much like a machine gun designed for that purpose. Bump stocks cause a semiautomatic gun’s trigger to buck against the shooter’s finger, repeatedly “bumping” the trigger and making the gun rapidly fire. A semiautomatic weapon refers to a gun that loads a bullet into the chamber or otherwise prepares...

Out of curiosity, I asked the following question to 3 different Artificial Intelligence Chatbots. QUESTION: “Do you know about the Byrna non-lethal pistol”?Here are the respective responses from each ChatBots: Google Gemini Chatbot ( formerly Bard ) I'm a text-based AI, and that is outside of my capabilities. My response: Why is the question outside your capability? Gemini’s response: I understand that you're asking why it's outside my capabilities to provide information about the Byrna non-lethal pistol. There are a few reasons for this: Safety concerns: As a large language model, I am not able to provide information that could...

Afederal judge has declared that a law banning Americans from possessing guns in postal offices is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Kathryn Kimball Mizelle in Florida ruled Friday that a landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling from 2022 made the postal office gun ban illegal. As part of the decision, she dismissed part of an indictment charging postal worker Emmanuel Ayala with illegally possessing a gun in a federal building. She said the criminal charge violated Ayala’s 2nd Amendment rights. [link to judge's opinion included in article]

Gun control advocates like to pretend that the facts are on their side. Of course, we also know that the research they like to push has…let’s just say it has problems. The truth of the matter is that there is a tendency among the anti-Second Amendment types to simply ignore anything inconvenient. When the polls say that the public no longer supports infringements on our right to keep and bear arms, they simply cite older polls that tell them what they wanted to hear in the first place, just to name one example. But I came across another example. It...

A large number of Israeli citizens are stocking up on firearms and ammunition in the aftermath of the Hamas Oct. 7 attacks, The New York Times reported on Friday. Hamas killed over 1,200 civilians and kidnapped hundreds of others as part of a mass terrorist attack against Israel on Oct. 7. Hundreds of thousands of Israelis who previously did not own weapons are now buying up firearms to protect themselves against possible future attacks, according to the Times. “God forbid, if something similar happens here, I want to know that I have a firearm,” Zvika Arran, an Israeli citizen living...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House is hosting nearly 100 lawmakers from around the country on Wednesday to work on how their states can try to reduce gun violence. The gun violence prevention office, the first of its kind, was launched this year by President Joe Biden. It has formulated a set of guidelines to help states take action across six areas, including creating state-run offices like the federal office, strengthening support for survivors and families of victims, and reinforcing responsible gun ownership. “We’ve been meeting with the state legislators ever since the start of our office, and one thing...

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham (D) is pushing a ban on AR-15s and other semiautomatic rifles in an upcoming 30-day legislative session in her state. The Santa Fe Reporter noted Grisham wants to do what Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-NM) unsuccessfully attempted at the federal level. Heinrich, together with Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), put forward the Gas-Operated Semiautomatic Firearms Exclusion Act (GOSAFE), and it went nowhere. Breitbart News reported the focus on the AR-15’s gas operation came some 64 years after the gun was designed to use spent gas from a shell casing to reset the bolt group and ready...

Now more than ever with the rise in antisemitism, I feel we have a responsibility as Jews to speak up and speak out, and also know how to protect ourselves because the reality is people don’t seem to want us around, and it’s hard," she said. But it appears that the rise of hate against Jews is changing a lot of minds on the efficacy of the Second Amendment. "I think a lot of people were hoping that we were past that – I know I definitely was – but I think current events have shown us that may be...

The British Ministry of Defence (MoD) is preparing to deploy the army after hundreds of police officers handed in their guns in protest of a murder charge brought against an unidentified officer who shot and killed Chris Kaba, a young black man who tried to evade a police roadblock by ramming his vehicle into theirs. The MoD announced it has “accepted a military aid to the civil authorities request from the Home Office to provide routine counterterrorism contingency support to the Metropolitan Police” and to “keep the public safe and respond to any eventualities.” The ministry further stated the soldiers...

Liberty Safe, which describes itself as “America’s #1 heavy-duty home and gun safe manufacturer,” has come under fire after a report revealed that its parent company has donated almost half a million dollars to pro-gun control Democratic officials. On Wednesday, Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk shared FEC filings on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that show Liberty Safe’s parent company, Monomoy Capital Partners, has donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to Democrats. “I pulled the FEC reports on the company and found approximately $400,000 over the last 10 cycles of max donations to Democrats,” Kirk...