Free Republic

Bud’s Gun Shop is my go-to resource when I need to figure out a fair price for a gun or if I’m looking to pick a new one up. Even with shipping and transfer fees they have a tendency to beat out the local competition. Turns out a few other people have the same opinion, and the result is that Bud’s currently has five times more orders for guns than they did the February following the 2008 election. You know — the month after Obama was sworn in, an event many blame for sky high firearms and ammo prices. They...

For decades now, gun control advocates have been trying to convince people that the nation needs stricter gun laws, that more guns means more crime. Well, an op-ed on Forbes.com says it is time to put that "myth" to rest. Larry Bell writes that gun ownership is at an all-time high in the United States and a time when crime is plummeting to historic lows: A Gallup poll indicates that “Americans’ preference regarding gun laws is generally that the government enforce existing laws more strictly and not pass new laws.” Caroline Brewer of the anti-gun Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun...

The Ministerial Law Committee is set to consider a law that could put an end to arbitrary demolition of homes in new communities (“outposts”), preventing raids by soldiers and police to force families from their homes in places like Ramat Gilad, as occurred earlier this month. The law would require that a building or caravan placed on land be removed only if a court determined that the land where the structure was located belonged to someone else. Currently, homes in such communities in Judea and Samaria can be demolished by a court order, based on a claim by an Arab...

(CBS News) The face of the American gun owner is changing. More women than ever are picking up rifles, shotguns, and handguns. And target shooting is one of the fastest-growing female sports. But, looks can be deceiving. We're not talking "Dirty Harriet" here, notes "Early Show" contributor Katrina Szish. Female participation in target shooting in the U.S. has nearly doubled in the last decade, growing to nearly five million women since 2001. Pistol-shooting mommas and rifle-wielding yoga instructors may not be the type of woman who comes to mind when you hear about female shooters, but they're dominating the sport....

Top of Chinese wealthy's wish list? To leave China By LOUISE WATT - Associated Press | AP – 1 hour 21 minutes ago BEIJING (AP) — Chinese millionaire Su builds skyscrapers in Beijing and is one of the people powering China's economy on its path to becoming the world's biggest. He sits at the top of a country — economy booming, influence spreading, military swelling — widely expected to dominate the 21st century. Yet the property developer shares something surprising with many newly rich in China: he's looking forward to the day he can leave. Su's reasons: He wants to...

The State Prosecution has submitted a petition to the Supreme Court that leaders of the Jewish Judea/Samaria settlement enterprise fear will cause the loss of many hundreds of acres of Jewish land. The petition, which was submitted in 2008, was heard shortly before the Passover holiday. Arutz-7 has learned that a high-level government meeting is to be held on the matter tomorrow (Wednesday). The petition was filed in the name of the Military Commander in Yesha (Judea and Samaria) against a decision by the Military Appeals Committee, which granted Jewish ownership to land based on the fact that Jews had...

65 Ways That Everything That You Think That You Own Is Being Systematically Taken Away From YouApril 12, 2011 Everything that you own is slowly being taken away from you. It is being done purposely and it is being done by design. Many Americans like to think of themselves as "well off", but as will be demonstrated below, we don't "own" nearly as much as we think that we do. The truth is that most of us have to frantically run around accumulating wealth as rapidly as we can so that we can somehow stay ahead of the rate that...

OTTAWA - On the eve on an election campaign the Conservative government has quietly extended an amnesty for long-gun owners who have not complied with the gun registry. The move was expected to come in May but was moved up due to the election. “This government is committed to improving public safety through effective gun control and tackling the criminal use of firearms, while reducing administrative requirements on lawful firearms owners,” Public Safety Minister Vic Toews said. It is the fifth time that the Conservatives have given licensed owners of unregistered long-guns an amnesty, meaning they will not face criminal...

As I pondered the direction our Government had taken over the previous year, I looked at the definition of socialism by typing "define: socialism" into Google. The first definition presented was from Princeton's wordnet and read as follows; "a political theory advocating state ownership of industry." The definition feels woefully lacking. Ownership denotes control, and the state is certainly getting into the business of controlling industry. Over the last year our government has exerted more control over enterprise via legislative fiat than at any other time since FDR's power grab during the Great Depression. From the thousands of pages of...

Housing: America still has far too many underwater debtors labeled as "homeowners," but Washington can't bear to let them liquidate. Instead, it saddles taxpayers with ever-costlier bailouts. The federal government has tried just about every trick in the book to revive the nation's housing market and forestall a feared tsunami of foreclosures. How well have they worked? The answer depends on how you judge success. If the object is to keep "owners" - really, maxed-out debtors - in their homes, the results have been so-so. But there's another way of framing the issue. What if it would have been better...

Bush's "ownership society" has collapsed under the dead weight of debt. There is too much debt and too little income to support it. Please consider President shifts focus to renting, not owning. The Obama administration, in a major shift on housing policy, is abandoning George W. Bush’s vision of creating an “ownership society’’ and instead plans to pump $4.25 billion of economic stimulus money into creating tens of thousands of federally subsidized rental units in American cities. The idea is to pay for the construction of low-rise rental apartment buildings and town houses, as well as the purchase of foreclosed...

Firearms play a large roll in Teller County. More than twice as many county citizens own firearms than the state average. “I think a lot more than 50 percent of county residents have at least one firearm in their homes,” Teller County Sheriff Kevin Dougherty said. “That’s a huge underestimation, it’s probably closer to 75 percent.” The state average for household firearm ownership is about 34 percent, according to a 2001 survey conducted by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System based in North Carolina. Firearm ownership figures often are inaccurate because they rely on self-reporting and many gun owners will...

Game, set, and match to the Statists and the big labor agenda. From this point forward, the government will be deciding what cars are made, and the unions will literally be negotiating with themselves to determine how much they’ll earn making them. The government was able to buy it's way into total control of the auto industry for only a few billion dollars. A tremendous day for Statism, a dark day indeed for the free market and for individual liberty. From the Associated Press: DETROIT – General Motors Corp. could be majority owned by the federal government under a massive...

One of the favorite mantras of the left is the need to protect people rather than property. But very often the best way to protect people is protect their property. Those with power and influence can steal what they want. Only when property rights are protected do average people have a shot at both liberty and prosperity. There are two major indexes of economic liberty -- Economic Freedom in the World (from a group of think tanks, led by the Fraser Institute) and Index of Economic Freedom (from the Heritage Foundation) -- of which property rights protection is a part....

Evil flourishes when good men, Do nothing. It is now closer to reality than you think. You're sound asleep when you hear a thump outside your bedroom door. Half-awake, and nearly paralyzed with fear, you hear muffled whispers. At least two people have broken into your house and are moving your way. With your heart pumping, you reach down beside your bed and pick up your shotgun. You rack a shell into the chamber, then inch toward the door and open it. In the darkness, you make out two shadows. One holds something that looks like a crowbar. When the...

WASHINGTON — When it comes to homeownership, Hispanics in New Jersey, single parents in California and senior citizens in Rhode Island all have something in common: More than a third have an unaffordable mortgage.

A New York Times reporter with pre-Castro family ties to Cuba tells us that the country is facing change (big surprise) and that it's not necessarily a good thing.I know what you're thinking: "Of course a Times reporter is afraid of what will come after Castro." Most of the story is a melange of boring personal reminiscences, thankfully free of paeans to what we're all supposed to think is the best healthcare and education on earth.The message we're probably supposed to get is that ordinary Cubans like the life they have now, even as they express this sentiment in furtive...

WASHINGTON - The Federal Communications Commission voted Tuesday to overturn a 32-year-old ban and allow broadcasters in the nation's 20 largest media markets to also own a newspaper. FCC Chairman Kevin Martin was joined by his two Republican colleagues in favor of the proposal, while the commission's two Democrats voted against it. Martin pushed the vote through despite intense pressure from House and Senate members on Capitol Hill to delay it. The chairman, however, has the support of the White House, which has pledged to turn back any congressional action that seeks to undo the agency vote. At Tuesday's meeting,...

Who owns your home? That seems like a pretty straightforward question. But the answer might not be as clear-cut as you think. A U.S. District Court judge in Cleveland tossed out 14 foreclosure cases Oct. 31 on the grounds that the bank suing to repossess the properties, Deutsche Bank National Trust Co., didn't actually own them. Deutsche Bank held debt securities that were linked to the mortgage loans on the properties, not the mortgages themselves. And the judge ruled that a security backed by a mortgage is not the same as a mortgage. ...Overall, the development of mortgage-backed securities has...

Presidential hopeful Hillary Rodham Clinton outlined a broad economic vision Tuesday, saying it's time to replace an "on your own" society with one based on shared responsibility and prosperity. The Democratic senator said what the Bush administration touts as an "ownership society" really is an "on your own" society that has widened the gap between rich and poor. "I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society," she said. "I believe our government can once again work for all Americans. It can promote the great American tradition of opportunity for all and special privileges for none." Clinton said she would...