Free Republic

The windows of restaurants and businesses are often crowded with signs and stickers denoting store hours and accepted credit cards, but a Leesburg restaurateur is looking to add one more decal in the name of constitutional rights. Bryan Crosswhite has created 2amendment.org, an online database where gun-rights businesses can register their names and addresses and get stickers for their windows that signal they are friendly to legal gun owners who exercise their right to bear arms. “We want to make it something for business owners who are pro-Second Amendment,” said Mr. Crosswhite, owner of The Cajun Experience. “A sticker on...

A sign on a restaurant door that reads “No Guns Permitted” isn’t likely to turn many heads at most restaurants. But when the other, bigger sign heralding the name of the establishment reads “Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill,” you can bet a few feathers are getting ruffled. And indeed that’s one of the biggest reactions since the country music star’s restaurant opened last week in Woodbridge, Va., a Washington, D.C. suburb about a half hour south of the nation’s capital. The big sticking point is that gun-rights advocates note that Virginia law lets citizens enter restaurants and bars...

Country star, actor and restaurateur Toby Keith sparked a controversy after banning guns from his newly opened eatery in Virginia. The 52-year-old Oklahoma native held a grand opening last week for his newest venture, Toby Keith’s I Love This Bar & Grill in the DC suburb of Woodbridge. But many of the singer’s fans who turned up for the event were shocked to discover a sign in the window that announced: “NO GUNS PERMITTED.” …

MANASSAS, Va. (CBSDC) — A server at Buffalo Wild Wings refused to serve Prince William County police officers because they had their guns displayed. The Manassas Park Patch reports that the employee wouldn’t serve them despite the plain-clothes officers showing him their badges. The server reportedly told the officers that it was a gun-free establishment. Scott Lupton, general manager of the Manassas Buffalo Wild Wings, apologized for what happened

Aggravated Malicious Wounding – On March 7th at 1:16PM, police responded to the Pawn City located at 4124 Dale Blvd in Woodbridge (22193) for an initial report of a robbery. The investigation revealed that a known customer to the business, identified as the accused, was in the process of completing a transaction with the victim, a 62 year old man of Burke. The victim is an employee of the business. After completing the transaction, the accused displayed a knife and stabbed the victim in the neck. The victim fell to the ground, at which point, the accused got over the...

The Washington region has emerged from the recession looking even more affluent compared with the rest of the country, boasting seven of the 10 counties with the highest household incomes in the nation, new census numbers show. With a median household income surpassing $119,000, Loudoun County heads the list. Fairfax County, at nearly $106,000, is second. Both have held the same positions for several years running. More surprising, Arlington County leapfrogged from the fifth spot to third, with a median household income of almost $101,000, a $6,000 gain in one year. Four in 10 households in the county are single...

A black helicopter hovering overhead can lead those below to become worried, scared or suspicious. But when a large aircraft positioned itself over a Prince William County high school’s football field last Wednesday afternoon, students who had just been released for the day excitedly watched as a stuffed bulldog with a red-bandanna parachute emerged. The big-eyed pup drifted to the turf, delivering a message from a junior boy to a senior girl: “Fall Fest?” As students look to one-up their classmates for the most outrageous way to ask a girl on a date — in this case Patriot High School’s...

Manassas, VA, February 11, 2012 -- Although he will not appear on the Virginia Presidential primary ballot on March 6, it did not stop Manassas Tea Party members from selecting Rick Santorum as the overwhelming winner in a straw poll conducted at its monthly meeting of members last evening. In the straw poll which also contained the U.S. Senate Virginia seat and Manassas City Council races, Santorum swept the Presidential poll with 67% of the vote but equally interesting was Mitt Romney received no votes. Newt Gingrich was second in the poll with 27% and Ron Paul last with only...

PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. -- Prince William County filed a lawsuit today against the Department of Homeland Security, according to a county press release. In 2007 the Prince William Board of County Supervisors passed an ordinance that requires county police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they arrest. If police find that they have arrested someone who is in the country illegally, they turn that person over to the department for deportation. To date the county has turned over more that 4,000 people over to DHS, the release stated. After Carlos Martinelly Montano was charged in Aug. 2010...

Schools remove filters on gay, lesbian websitesBy Keith Walker Published: May 27, 2011 PRINCE WILLIAM COUNTY, Va. - Prince William County Public Schools has removed filters that block access to certain websites with content relating to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender is­sues. In April, the American Civil Liberties Union of Virginia sent a letter to the school system asking officials to remove the software blocking the sites. The ACLU learned of the blocking of LGBT sites through its “Don’t Filter Me” initiative, which shows students how to re­port that their school is filtering content. At the time, ACLU spokesman Kent...

On February 10, 2011, Prince William County police arrested Jose Oswaldo Reyes Alfaro, 37, after he allegedly went on a shooting and stabbing spree which left three people dead and three others wounded. When he was taken into custody, the Salvadoran national had in his possession, a machete as well as a .38 caliber revolver...According to Manassas Police Chief Doug Keen, the suspect was ordered deported in 2002, but was never detained by federal immigration authorities and never left, despite two more arrests after his deportation order.... After only a brief mention the day after the attacks occurred, this case...

This Wed., March 2, the Prince William County School Board will be voting on what to name the new elementary school opening Fall 2011 on Linton Hall Road.  The naming committee came up with the lame name of "Piney Branch Elementary School" -- Ronald Reagan didn't even make the top 18 suggestions of the committee despite it having strong supporters.  I first suggested that name early last October and encouraged people to submit it to the naming committee by the Dec. 1 deadline.  Following is the message that I sent to the naming committee: Since the new elementary school on...

I think the ironic celebration of the holidays in the form of gaudy Christmas sweaters is kind of lame. But one Virginia high school’s punishment of a group that called themselves the “Christmas Sweater Club” just seems ridiculous, even by oversensitive public school standards. Ten students at Battlefield High School in Manassas, Virginia faced detention and other punishment as a result of their involvement in the Christmas Sweater Club. One of the students involved told WUSA that the school said they were “maliciously wounding other kids.” The Club believes that the accusation stems from them throwing candy canes to other...

WOODBRIDGE, Va. - Be careful who you choose to hold up. That's the message two alleged robbers got from a clerk at a gas station in Woodbridge, Va. The clerk did not want to be identified, but told FOX 5 his story. He's hoping by speaking out, it could help find the suspects and also help deter other criminals from attacking citizens. The clerk said he was just finishing up a shift at the gas station and was sitting in his car warming it up. He said two men approached him and used a taser to stun him. Because he...

Prince William County's high-profile crackdown on illegal immigration was smoothly implemented by the county police department and staff, and had few unintended consequences despite falling short of some of its original goals, according to a three-year report on the policy released Tuesday. The number of illegal immigrants in the county dropped by between 2,000 and 6,000 individuals between 2006 and 2008, though it was unclear to what extent that decrease could be attributed to the policy and how much was due to the sluggish economy, according to the report prepared by the University of Virginia's Center for Survey Research.

breaking........ At least one shot has been fired into a Coast Guard recruiting center in Virginia, reports say. It's unclear exactly when the shooting occurred, but an investigation is ongoing at a Coast Guard recruiting center in Woodbridge, Va., MyFoxDC.com reports. The incident marks the fifth shooting at a military facility since Oct. 17.

Prince William County police and the FBI responded to shots fired at a Coast Guard recruiting center in Woodbridge, Virginia Tuesday morning, the latest in a series of five non-lethal shootings at military related facilities in the Washington D.C. area. So far the FBI has concluded three of the shootings are connected, saying last Thursday ballistic evidence shows the same weapon was used during shootings at the Pentagon, the Marine Corps Museum in Triangle, Virginia, and a Marine Corps recruiting station in Chantilly, Virginia. More testing is underway to determine if that same gun was used at today's shooting, and...

A 20-year-old Bristow man pleaded guilty Wednesday to aiding the Somali terrorist organization al-Shabaab. Zachary A. Chesser pleaded guilty in federal court in Alexandria to providing material support to a terrorist organization, communicating threats and soliciting crimes of violence. Chesser admitted that he encouraged attacks on the creators of the television show "South Park" for mocking the prophet Muhammad on their show.

Virginia has long had localized tensions over immigration: places like Prince William County and towns like Herndon where influxes of day laborers and other immigrant Latinos have been followed by police crackdowns, anti-solicitation ordinances and laws empowering the police to check people’s immigration status. But now that Arizona has gone to unconstitutional extremes in its anti-immigration campaign, Virginia’s highest officials are trying to take their whole state farther down that dark road. Gov. Robert McDonnell and the attorney general, Ken Cuccinelli, both Republicans, are leading the charge. Mr. McDonnell is pushing to expand the authority of the state police to...

Gov. Robert F. McDonnell avoided taking a strong stand on Virginia’s future in the illegal immigration debate, but there were rumblings yesterday that could propel the Commonwealth to the center of the issue. “I believe strongly we need to follow the rule of law,” the governor told WRVA radio in Richmond. “We need to do a much better job of securing the borders, but we need to permit lawful immigration in the United States consistent with the economic needs of our country … It’s too early to give any comment on what’s happening out there.” Later in the morning, Prince...