Free Republic

Edward Burke Jr. was arrested at his home in Winnetka after a family member told police he pushed her and authorities reported finding him “highly intoxicated” and “belligerent.” But by the end of the next business day, the domestic battery charge had been dropped. The swift reversal occurred after the accused man — the son of Edward Burke, Chicago’s longest-serving alderman who is now charged with attempted extortion — managed to get his case before a Cook County judge, apparently without the assistance of an attorney and despite the fact he wasn’t due in court for another week. The arrest...

In 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that cities and states may not abridge “the right to possess a handgun in the home for the purpose of self-defense.” It has not heard a Second Amendment case since, leaving most lower courts to assume that the right to bear arms applies “in the home,” as the justices ruled. But on Tuesday, the court agreed to review a New York City law that limits gun owners’ ability to transport their guns outside the home. And it appears quite likely that the new conservative majority will, for the very first time, extend the Second...

The Baltimore City school board voted unanimously to oppose a measure that would have allowed school police officers to carry weapons during the day. The school board’s vote effectively kills HB31, which would have overturned a previous prohibition on school police officers carrying guns in schools. Del. Cheryl D. Glenn, a Democrat who sponsored the bill, said she would be withdrawing the proposed legislation from the General Assembly. “I can’t move a bill that doesn’t have the support of the school board and the mayor,” she said. “The votes wouldn’t be there.” The 10-0 opposition vote took place at a...

Newly elected Speaker of the Texas House of Representatives, Republican Dennis Bonnen, campaigned as a pro-Second Amendment candidate. However, actions speak far louder than words and we now see he lied. For the first time in decades, a Speaker has appointed anti-gun Democrats to chair the two most important House Committees for Texas gun owners. Speaker Bonnen appointed D-rated, anti-gun Democrat Poncho Nevarez as Chair of the Homeland Security & Public Safety Committee and F-rated, anti-gun Democrat Nicole Collier to Chair the Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. These are the two committees that hear all gun and self-defense related bills. Committee chairmen...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Supreme Court on Tuesday granted review in the first Second Amendment case in almost a decade, a case supported by the National Rifle Association (NRA), and perhaps signaling what to expect from the new membership of the Supreme Court. New York law forbids residents from owning any handguns without a permit, and that permit allows the holder to possess guns only in their home or en route to or from one of seven shooting ranges in the city. A gun owner cannot transport a firearm outside the home for any other purpose, even if it is...

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said it will examine New York City’s ban on carrying a licensed and unloaded handgun outside the city limits, the first Second Amendment challenge it has accepted in nearly a decade. The decision to hear the case in the term that begins in October may signal that the reinforced conservative majority on the court is ready to consider more laws that restrict gun rights. New York’s law is not replicated elsewhere: It permits transporting handguns only to firing ranges within the city. Those who challenged the law have a licenses to keep a handgun at...

Mueller, the wall impasse, the shutdown, the "postponement" of the SOTU – all are skirmishes in the undeclared war on President Trump waged by Democrats, the Deep State, and the compliant media. A decisive battle will be enjoined if Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies or resigns this year. Nothing scares the left more than the prospect of Trump filling another seat on the SCOTUS with a young, fire-breathing constitutionalist who would join with Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh to form a conservative bloc for the ages. Pelosi and Schumer are praying that Justice Ginsburg survives and remains on the bench until...

After a two month-long hiatus, Real Time With Bill Maher returned to the airwaves Friday. This episode was true to form when it comes to Trump-bashing, with the eponymous host calling President Trump a “dangerous menace” and a “terrorist.” Maher weighed in on the government shutdown. According to Maher, “Trump was very mad that he didn’t get his, you know, Lego wall set for Christmas.” Maher expressed his wish that “Democrats don’t cave” and argued that their position should be “Trump is holding this country hostage, you don’t deal with terrorists,” effectively comparing the President of the United States to...

A mother of a child who appeared in the viral video of students from Covington Catholic High School being confronted by Nathan Phillips, a leftist activist with a drum, tells the Gateway Pundit that the children have been victimized twice, “first by the media, then their own Diocese.” The students and the mothers hope that the Trump administration will stand up for them. On Sunday, we spoke with a friend of the most prominent student in the video, as well as a 14-year-year old who is currently being targeted for being in the video. We additionally interviewed the boy’s mother...

Barr told Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday that his top gun priority will be gun confiscation orders: "I also think we need to push along the ERPOs [or Gun Confiscation Orders], so we have red flag laws to supplement the use of the background check....This is the single most important thing I think we can do in the gun control area to stop these massacres from happening in the first place."

On Thursday, the Travis County District Court ruled that the City of Austin, Texas, violated the law by barring handguns in City Hall and assessed a nine thousand dollar penalty against the city for the violation. The concealed carry of handguns has been legal in Texas for decades and open carry for Texas’ concealed handgun license holders became legal on January 1, 2016. In the January 17, 2019, ruling, Judge Lora J. Livingston explained that the Plaintiff was able to show that open carry was refused on April 4, 2016, April 6, 2016, April 12, 2016, July 1, 2016, July 29,...

U.S.A. -(Ammoland.com)- On January 15, just a little before 5 p.m. Senator John Cornyn asked Attorney General nominee William P. Barr about his views on the Second Amendment. The question and answer were recorded as part of C-SPAN coverage of the nomination process. The question and answer, with some more commentary by Senator Cornyn occur from about 4:56:33 to 5:00:04 on the C-SPAN timer.  There is a transcript on the C-SPAN link, but it has a few errors, perhaps introduced by the automated computer transcription process.For example, the transcript misses the first half of Senator Cornyn's opening sentence, where...

The scandal-plagued, tiny New Mexico border town of Columbus is dissolving its police department and asking the county sheriff to protect its citizens. An employee at Columbus City Hall confirmed to The Lookout that the police force has been dissolved. The Luna County Sheriff's Office will now take over patrolling the town. The town has been upended since federal authorities arrested Police Chief Angelo Vega, Mayor Eddie Espinoza, Village Trustee Blas Gutierrez and nine other residents for conspiring to smuggle hundreds of guns to drug cartels over the border in March. All of the accused have pleaded not guilty, and...

More than a year after the Sandy Hook school shooting, President Obama’s directive to amp up prosecutions of federal gun laws hasn’t made much difference in how many people are charged with gun crimes. U.S. attorneys that prosecute such cases charged 11,674 people with breaking federal gun laws in the fiscal year that ended in September, compared to 11,728 people the year before. “The federal gun charge numbers are not an accurate reflection of the Department's efforts to investigate and prosecute gun violence,” said Allison Price, a spokeswoman for the Justice Department, in a statement. “The fact that we may...

Leaked govt memo: Shooter may be linked to hate groupBy Liz Goodwin 29 mins ago According to a leaked memo obtained by Fox News, the Department of Homeland Security is looking into the possibility that suspected shooter Jared Loughner was linked to a white supremacist group called American Renaissance, or AmRen. AmRen founder Jared Taylor, however, tells Fox he'd never heard of Loughner and that according to his group's records, Loughner never received AmRen publications. His group's events are all held on the East Coast, he said, far from Loughner's hometown of Tucson. According to the memo, Loughner "is possibly...

–In August of 2016, Terry Holcomb, a Second Amendment activist, wrote a letter to Waller County, Texas. The letter asked Waller County to stop breaking the law, according to what had been passed in the 2015 legislature.  Some county officials disagreed with the Texas Attorney General, on what the law meant. So Waller County sued the Second Amendment activist, in an attempt to undercut the Attorney General. This was a direct violation of Texas Law, the Texas Constitution, and the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.A Government entity cannot sue a citizen merely for complaining against it and...

Based on the 2016 Survey of Prison Inmates (SPI), about 1 in 5 (21%) of all state and federal prisoners reported that they had possessed or carried a frearm when they committed the ofense for which they were serving time in prison (fgure 1) . More than 1 in 8 (13%) of all prisoners had used a frearm by showing, pointing, or discharging it during the ofense for which they were imprisoned. Fewer than 1 in 50 (less than 2%) of all prisoners had obtained a frearm from a retail source and possessed, carried, or used it during the ofense...

Veteran broadcaster Bob Costas is stepping down from his longtime role with NBC Sports. Costas told the New York Post of the decision Tuesday, which the network confirmed with the paper. “It’s all settled quietly and happily for all concerned,” Costas told The Post. Costas also told The Post he will continue to do work for MLB Network and is considering pursuing a long-form interview show.

The gun control currently being pushed by House Democrats is unenforceable without a national firearm registry. On January 8, 2019, Breitbart News reported that House Democrats introduced legislation to criminalize private gun sales. They are using universal background checks as a means of criminalizing the sales, and they do not mention such checks are unenforceable without firearm registration. Instead, the Democrats keep talking of how their bill will “prevent” or reduce “gun violence.” But the reality is that universal background checks open the door to a gun registry inasmuch as the government has to know every gun owners’ name and...

The Supreme Court denied an effort to strip acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker’s name from a pending case, swatting down a push to force the justices to send a signal that President Trump’s temporary pick is illegal. Lawyers had asked the justices to remove Mr. Whitaker and substitute Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, arguing that he should be the rightful head of the Justice Department under the law, after former Attorney General Jeff Sessions was ousted last year. The request came in a case involving Barry Michaels, who is challenging a law denying him the right to purchase a firearm...