Free Republic

Another day, another series of embarrassing errors and obfuscations by gun controllers who are ignorant of how guns, and the laws that seek to control them, actually work. In its quest to drive up gun sales even further and make gun control even less popular, the New York Times published yet another overwrought editorial on Friday demanding more gun control. Here's how the editorial, given the very measured and objective title of "Gunmakers' War Profiteering on the Homefront," began:

Another mass shooting, another round of liberal venom hurled at people who oppose further gun control measures. In the wake of the slaughter in San Bernardino, the charges were particularly shrill. “Dear ‘thoughts and prayers’ people: Please shut up and slink away. You are part of the problem, and everybody knows it,” said one liberal Washington Post columnist, in a representative tweet. Most gun control advocates know that the push for federal gun laws is futile. Public support for gun rights is near historical highs, the structure of the U.S. Senate favors pro-gun forces, and—as many observers pointed out at...

Concludes a blanket ban of carry of handguns outside the home cannot survive ANY level of scrutiny, and is therefore unconstitutional.Well, well, well–I guess the big guy upstairs knew I could do with a pick-me-up while I struggle through this respiratory infection. And boy, did he deliver big (with a h/t to Ace of Spades HQ). "In light of Heller, McDonald, and their progeny, there is no longer any basis on which this Court can conclude that the District of Columbia’s total ban on the public carrying of ready-to-use handguns outside the home is constitutional under any level of scrutiny....

Bat Man: A Chicago store owner beats off two armed thugs with a baseball bat as Missouri illegally shares concealed carry records with feds and New York matches private health records with gun permits to take firearms. President Obama, who campaigns for gun control between concerts at the White House and golf outings with Tiger Woods, once famously used the metaphor that in politics if they bring a knife to a fight, you bring a gun. On Tuesday, in the gun-controlled murder capital of Chicago, the president's hometown, store owner Luis Quizhpe, an Ecuadorean immigrant, had no gun, but he...

Gun Laws: Before the tragedy in Connecticut, a shooter at an Oregon shopping mall was stopped by an armed citizen with a concealed carry permit who refused to be a victim, preventing another mass tragedy. In the target-rich environment of the Clackamas Town Center two weeks before Christmas, the shooter managed to kill only two people before killing himself. A far worse tragedy was prevented when he was confronted by a hero named Nick Meli. As the shooter was having difficulty with his weapon, Meli pulled his and took aim, reluctant to fire lest an innocent bystander be hit. But...

Second Amendment: The United Nations is putting the finishing touches on an Arms Trade Treaty that transcends borders and may even trample our Constitutional right to bear arms. Every indication is that the president will sign it. Like the New Start and Law of the Sea treaties before it, as well as the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21, the Arms Trade Treaty being finalized at the U.N. this month is one of those feel-good, can't-we-all-get-along pieces of parchment whose net effect is to accomplish little except to eat away at American sovereignty and freedom. Just as the world's worst human...

Gun Control: The gun-controlled Windy City is on a pace to have 450 murders this year, an Aurora every 10 days. Meanwhile, the mayor of New York ignores his own body count to say the police should go on strike. I don't understand why the police officers across this country don't stand up collectively and say we're going to go on strike," New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg told CNN's Piers Morgan. "We're not going to protect you unless you, the public, through the legislature, do what's required to make us safe." He was speaking about the massacre in Aurora, Colo.,...

Gun Control: Colorado is a concealed-carry state, as a noted film critic points out, but so was Virginia when a college campus there was racked by violence. Like the school, the theater chain was also "gun-free." In December 2007, two church members were shot to death and three others injured after a gunman opened fire outside the New Life Church in Colorado Springs as Sunday services were wrapping up. That tragedy could have been much worse, but the gunman was shot by a church security officer and was found dead when police arrived at the scene. On April 22 of...

Second Amendment: The United Nations is putting the finishing touches on an Arms Trade Treaty that transcends borders and may even trample our Constitutional right to bear arms. Every indication is that the president will sign it. Like the New Start and Law of the Sea treaties before it, as well as the Kyoto Protocol and Agenda 21, the Arms Trade Treaty being finalized at the U.N. this month is one of those feel-good, can't-we-all-get-along pieces of parchment whose net effect is to accomplish little except to eat away at American sovereignty and freedom. Just as the world's worst human...

Scandal: Rather than a botched attempt to catch criminals, was the ATF program actually an attempt to advance gun-control efforts by an administration that has blamed Mexican violence on easy access to U.S. weapons? If "Operation Fast and Furious" was merely a botched attempt at law enforcement, why was a supervisor of the operation, David Voth, "jovial, if not, not giddy but just delighted about" marked guns showing up at crime scenes in Mexico, as career Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives agent John Dodson told Rep. Darrell Issa's House Oversight Committee? Perhaps because all was going as planned...

Vanity Post.... I heard on WLS radio (Chicago, IL) that the recently passed bill exempting gun retailers and manufacturers from lawsuits has been declared "unconstitutional" by a Lake County IN judge and that the City of Gary, IN can proceed with suits (approx 30) against retailers and makers. Has anyone else heard this tidbit?

State police and federal agents blocked Williamson Road while searching the gun shop of Darrell Sivik. (JACK HANRAHAN/Erie Times-News) By JOHN BARTLETT john.bartlett@timesnews.com MEADVILLE: A Crawford County gun dealer known for his outspoken criticism of government power was arrested on firearm violations Thursday after heavily armed federal agents raided his West Mead home and adjacent business. Agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives served a search warrant and took self-proclaimed "patriotic, Christian American" Darrell Sivik into custody at about 9 a.m. He was arraigned at about 4 p.m. in Erie before Federal Magistrate Susan Paradise Baxter....

<p>People applying for gun permits in Hawai'i were rejected at a significantly lower rate than the national average, the state attorney general's office reported yesterday.</p> <p>Of the 6,990 firearms permit applications processed in Hawai'i in 2002, only 103, or 1.5 percent, were rejected. The national average was 2.3 percent.</p>