Free Republic

As fears of a coronavirus pandemic sweep across the nation, Americans have been buying up face masks, hand sanitizer and oat milk at skyrocketing rates. Sales for medical face masks in the U.S. jumped 319% in the four-week period that ended on Feb. 22, according to data from the consumer research firm Nielsen. Household maintenance masks sales were similarly up 262% in that same period. Hand sanitizer sales spiked 73%, though Nielsen predicts that the demand for sanitizer hasn't even begun to peak. Sales of thermometers were up by 47%, and aerosol disinfectant purchases climbed 32%. The data also indicated...

Citing “gun violence,” the University of Virginia has canceled the 21-gun salute portion of its Veterans Day ceremony, an annual tradition that dates back at least a decade. In a statement posted to social media on Saturday, university President James Ryan stated the reason was two-fold: “to minimize disruptions to classes, given that this event is located at the juncture of four primary academic buildings and is held at a time that classes are in session; and second, recognizing concerns related to firing weapons on the Grounds in light of gun violence that has happened across our nation, especially on...

A 12-year-old Kansas girl was arrested – as in, hauled out of school in handcuffs, charged with a crime, and was handed a court date – for making a “finger gun” and pointing it at fellow students. According to the Kansas City Star, police in Overland Park “hauled her out of school in handcuffs, arrested her and charged the child with a felony for threatening” after the middle-schooler pointed the “finger gun” at other students before pointing it at herself. Johnson County District Court documents obtained by the Kansas City Star claim the child “unlawfully and feloniously communicated a threat...

A massive police presence and the lockdown of three college campuses in Davie led to the eventual discovery of a man with a colorful toy gun that apparently launched the incident. About 1 a.m. Friday, Davie police tweeted out a picture of the gun that was found after the lockdown had been lifted. An officer found the man walking with the toy gun on Stirling Road, police said. Davie police conducted an extensive search of the FAU campus while helicopters flew overhead. Police presence was heavy throughout the area just south of Interstate 595 and Davie Road.

Attorney General Eric Holder was just months into the job when he announced plans to prosecute the accused mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks and other alleged co-conspirators in a New York courtroom, rather than through the Guantánamo Bay military commission process. It was an audacious idea, but immediately beset by political opposition and public safety concerns. The Obama administration’s eventual decision to walk away from the proposal was a stinging defeat for Holder and a reminder of the complexities of the legal fight against terrorism. […] … (U)nder his watch, the department authorized targeted drone strikes against Americans abroad,...

Between the struggle to fold a sport jacket so it doesn’t wrinkle, the 45-minute wait on a security line if I’m flying, the price of gas if I’m driving and the worry either way that I left the coffee maker on, I thought I was pretty well versed in the inconveniences and stresses of domestic travel. Hardly! Things could be much, much worse, namely if I were a gun owner with a permit to carry a concealed firearm in my home state and an itch to do so in any other state I visited as well. As matters now stand,...

LOUISA, VA (WWBT) – A Louisa County man is behind bars, charged with breaking into an elderly woman's home and beating her up.19-year-old Remone Houchens was arrested last night in connection to the attack on 87-year-old Lois Rossen. Officials at the Louisa Sheriff's Office are thrilled to already have a suspect in custody. They say this attack is one of the most brutal crimes they've ever seen in this county--and they want criminals to know they will not tolerate this type of violence. Lois Rossen's son Monte says she was robbed of her happy go-lucky spirit when she was attacked...

A Swedish man who saved a woman from assault has been sentenced to prison rather than being applauded for performing a civic duty. In a case which has provoked outrage across the country, Per-Anders Pettersson was found guilty of aggravated assault despite the would-be Samaritan’s claims he was acting in self-defence on behalf of 66-year-old Gard Forsgren who was being attacked in her car. Forsgren, now 69, was assailed in 2006 while inside her vehicle near Nas in the central Swedish county of Dalarna when Pettersson intervened. He dragged the woman’s attacker from the car and hit him two times...

WASHINGTON – President Barack Obama says he would not have used the same language that Eric Holder did last month when the attorney general declared that the United States is a nation of cowards on matters of race. "We've made enormous progress and we shouldn't lose sight of that," Obama told The New York Times in an interview posted on the newspaper's Web site Saturday. The president said he understood Holder to be saying the country often is uncomfortable talking about race until there's a racial flare-up or conflict and that the nation probably could be more constructive in facing...

Barack Obama gave Attorney General Eric Holder a mild spanking yesterday in an interview with the Times. Last month, Holder called America a "nation of cowards" when dicussing race in our country. But one question? Why did it take almost 3 weeks to rebuke Mr. Holder? And what's this crap about "if I had been advising my attorney general"? Isn't that The President's freaking job to supervise his Cabinet? Is Obama just letting these fools run amok while he's off "saving the world" with The Radical American Communist Experiment (R.A.C.E.)? This would have been nice to hear... I don't know......

Newt Gingrich, at CPAC, challenges Attorney General Holder to a dialogue about race after Holder's comments that America is a "nation of cowards" when it comes to talking about race.

A NATION OF COWARDS Jeffrey R. Snyder OUR SOCIETY has reached a pinnacle of self-expression and respect for individuality rare or unmatched in history. Our entire popular culture -- from fashion magazines to the cinema -- positively screams the matchless worth of the individual, and glories in eccentricity, nonconformity, independent judgment, and self-determination. This enthusiasm is reflected in the prevalent notion that helping someone entails increasing that person's "self-esteem"; that if a person properly values himself, he will naturally be a happy, productive, and, in some inexplicable fashion, responsible member of society. And yet, while people are encouraged to revel...

NATIONWIDE knife amnesty to end the carnage on our streets was launched yesterday. The five-week initiative, running throughout the UK, is aimed at repeating the success of Operation Blade, which took thousands of weapons off the streets of Strathclyde in 1993. Justice Minister Cathy Jamieson yesterday vowed it would be just one of many measures to battle knife crime in Scotland. Victims of the scourge have included policeman Lewis Fulton, knifed through the heart in Glasgow in 1994 as he tried to arrest a teenage schizophrenic. Knives are becoming an increasing menace in the hands of young girls, too. Kirsty...

Doctors seek kitchen knife ban EDWARD BLACK Key points • Doctors claim long kitchen knives serve no purpose except as weapons • 55 out of 108 homicide victims in Scotland were stabbed last year • Police superintendents say a ban would be difficult to enforce Key quote "Many assaults are impulsive, often triggered by alcohol or misuse of other drugs, and the long pointed kitchen knife is an easily available, potentially lethal weapon, particularly in the domestic setting" - Dr Emma Hern, writing in British Medical Journal

April 13, 2004 Banning Guns Equals Saving Lives Lauren Flynn Two months ago this week a senseless tragedy hit the streets of Detroit. Matthew Bowens and Jennifer Fettig, two Detroit police officers, were gunned down and killed during a routine traffic stop. Amendment II of the Constitution states a well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. There is a clear public support for enacting stronger gun control legislation to reduce the chance of accidental or deliberate gun violence. Six in ten Americans...

<p>Washington -- A grimly determined Steve Sposato is back in the capital this week to campaign against assault weapons, nine years after a gunman toting two of the semiautomatic weapons killed his wife, Jody, and seven others at 101 California St. in San Francisco.</p>

'Packing' for trip just invites troubleSeptember 27 2002Jim Spencer Homeboy tightened the Velcro strap on the holster around his ankle and shoved in a snub-nosed semiautomatic pistol. My God, I said, as I walked in the room, what are you doing? "Packing," he said. I can see that, I told him. You must be headed to downtown Newport News where those three guys got murdered and three others got wounded last weekend. Click HERE for the rest of the article.