Free Republic

Like millions of other Americans, I’m exhausted. But I’m not tired from #Resisting or tired from screaming at a MAGA rally. I’m tired of the toxic tribalism infecting the very foundations of our democracy, straining our relationships, and poisoning our view of our fellow humans. I’m tired of everyone being outraged, getting worked up over the latest news cycle only to forget about it two hours later. Tired of being afraid to voice my own opinions, of knowing how saying the wrong thing at a barbecue while someone is filming on their iPhone could result in a nationwide clarion call...

President Trump’s approval rating has edged up, driven by long-term confidence in his economy and boosted by the lackluster performances of the two dozen Democrats trying to beat him in the 2020 election, according to the latest Zogby Analytics poll. The contrarian survey, provided exclusively to Secrets, pushes back on some other recent polls showing a surge in Trump’s disapproval rating. Namely, it found that recent issues portrayed as trouble for Trump haven’t hurt him and that he is growing in support among Africans Americans, Hispanics, independents, and younger voters. “President Trump's job approval has continued to rise the last...

White House hopeful Joe Biden doubled down on his vow to cooperate with Republicans should he be elected president, saying he successfully worked across the aisle as vice president. “There’s an awful lot of really good Republicans out there,” he said Saturday at a Massachusetts fundraiser. “I get in trouble for saying that with Democrats, but the truth of the matter is, every time we ever got in trouble with our administration, remember who got sent up to Capitol Hill to fix it? Me. Because they know I respect the other team.” Biden acknowledged that while Republicans and Democrats appear...

In reaction to the mass shooting in El Paso earlier this month in which Hispanics were specifically targeted, members of that community “crowded into a class over the weekend to become certified to carry a concealed gun in public in Texas,” according to Reuters. They have deprived the Left of its bully pulpit militating against gun ownership, and all it took was these people exercising their Second Amendment Rights under the U.S. Constitution! The classes are just the tip of the iceberg: Michael McIntyre, general manager of Gun Central, one of the largest gun shops in El Paso and the...

A jury found a grocery clerk guilty of killing a 17-year-old boy who ran out of the store with a beer he didn't pay for in Memphis, Tennessee, in a case that had sparked protests, authorities said. Anwar Ghazali was convicted of second-degree murder after a four-day trial, Shelby County District Attorney General Amy Weirich said Friday. "This defendant took it upon himself to be the judge and jury and the executioner over a $2 beer," prosecutor Lora Fowler said, according to CNN affiliate WMC. The shooting happened in March 2018, after Dorian Harris walked out of the Top Stop...

For every person who fits the profile of the El Paso shooter, there are likely thousands who fit the profile of Maurice Hill, the man arrested for shooting six cops in north Philadelphia yesterday. Based on a quick look at court documents from Philadelphia and Delaware Counties, Hill has a rap sheet dating back to 2001 that includes charges for illegal gun possession, drugs, driving offenses, assault, burglary, theft, robbery, kidnapping, and attempted murder. However, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer, he was only “convicted six times on charges that involved illegal possession of guns, drug dealing, and aggravated assault.” Will...

A gun rights group in San Diego sued Thursday to block California from enforcing an assault weapons ban, citing a federal court ruling earlier this year that struck down a state prohibition against high-capacity magazines...The lawsuit...likened the term assault weapon to "a politically concocted pejorative term" for weapons lawfully used "in virtually every state,"...further asked the court to declare California's definition of an assault weapon unconstitutional and issue an order permanently barring enforcement of laws that prohibit them based on magazine capacity.

The Second Amendment guarantees American citizens the right to bear arms, but both federal and state governments determine how citizens may legally exercise that right. And while both federal and state gun control laws regularly change, laws at the state level change more frequently and often without the media coverage that surrounds changes at the federal level. This results in a constant challenge for gun owners to keep up with the latest state laws, especially for those who carry their weapons across state lines. Because while some states have more restrictions than others, state gun control policies across the country...

President Trump on Thursday told supporters in New Hampshire that he would "always uphold the Second Amendment" and suggested that the construction of new mental health facilities would help curb gun violence. The president lamented the lack of mental health institutions as he spoke about the need to keep guns away from people with mental illnesses. The comments come as the White House and Congress examine new gun laws in the wake of recent mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas. "It's not the gun that pulls the trigger. It's the person that pulls the trigger," Trump said,...

As political Washington mulls what -- if anything -- to do legislatively to address the latest in a long line of mass murders committed with guns, a new Fox News poll has a number in it that is an absolute stunner. That number is 67%, which reflects respondents who told pollsters that they support a ban on assault weapons. For you non-math majors out there, that's two-thirds of the American public! Yes, there is something of a partisan divide on the question -- with 86% of Democrats favoring a ban on automatic and semiautomatic weapons, while 46% of Republicans feel...

When tragedy strikes, as it did in two mass killings earlier this month, there is always the urge to pressure the government do something. Governments are animated by the belief that doing something -- any demonstrable overt behavior -- will show that they are in control. I understand the natural fears that good folks have that an El Paso or a Dayton episode might happen again, but doing something for the sake of appearance can be dangerous to personal liberty. When the Constitution was written, the idea of owning arms and keeping them in the home was widespread. The colonists...

Senator Chuck Schumer (D) New York, has proposed radical new infringements on the Second Amendment.   Schumer proposed that body armor be prohibited to citizens, and that body armor sales be metered out by the FBI. None of his proposals were in the form of a bill or written proposals. The proposal is blatantly unconstitutional on its face. Body armor is legal to purchase in all 50 states and is in common use. It is clearly a portable arm, even though its use is primarily defensive in nature. From the nypost.com: Sen. Chuck Schumer on Sunday proposed new legislation to...

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., blasted his Democratic colleagues on Wednesday for sending a stern and unusual warning to the Supreme Court earlier this week in connection with a gun case. Judiciary Committee members Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and Richard Durbin, D-Ill., along with Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., wrote in a brief filed Monday that the "Supreme Court is not well.” They suggested the court “heal itself” or face public pressure to be “restructured.” Graham said this was a clear reference to expanding the number of justices on the court to make it...

Beth  touched on this yesterday, but I think the extraordinary nature of what's happening here needs to be highlighted repeatedly.  In an effort to bully the Supreme Court, a group of Senate Democrats are warning that if the conservative justices refuse to "heal" the court -- in this case, "healing" constitutes declining to take up a specific gun rights case -- the Court will face a "restructuring."  This is nothing less than a threat against the independent judiciary by hardcore partisans: Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental...

Several high-profile Senate Democrats warned the Supreme Court in pointed terms this week that it could face a fundamental restructuring if justices do not take steps to "heal" the court in the near future. The ominous and unusual warning was delivered as part of a brief filed Monday in a case related to a New York City gun law. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, Richard Durbin, D-Ill., and Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., referenced rulings by the court's conservative majority in claiming it is suffering from some sort of affliction which must be remedied. "The Supreme Court...

A handful of Democratic Senators signed onto an amicus curiae brief in New York State Rifle and Pistol Association v. City of New York, defending New York City's blatant attack on the Second Amendment. For years, those who live in NYC could transport handguns, as long as it was to a few select gun ranges in the area. If you were a gun owner in NYC and wanted to take your firearm outside of city limits to a different gun range, that wasn't allowed.The Senators who signed alongside New York City include Sheldon Whitehouse (RI), Mazi Hirono (HI), Richard Blumenthal (CT),...

Show me where Bread Line Bernard Sanders has voluntarily implemented "democratic socialism" into his own life. You can't, because he hasn't. Ever. Politics is sales. Why should any of us buy what Sanders is selling if he himself won't buy what he's selling? Sanders wants businesses to pay $15.00 per hour to their employees, but some of his own campaign staff earn less than that due to the number of weekly hours they work. Now some of those employees are demanding they be paid what Sanders wants to force upon all business-owners. Sanders has responded by limiting the number of...

Attorney General Bill Barr said the Trump administration will move next month to speed up the use of capital punishment against convicted mass murderers, marking the first policy development in the wake of the two shootings earlier this month that left scores dead in Texas and Ohio. Legislation that allows for the "imposition of any death sentence without undue delay" in cases of mass murders, as well as slayings of police officers, will be proposed after Labor Day, when lawmakers return from recess, Barr told a national law enforcement gathering in New Orleans. "Punishment must be swift and certain," he...

As Congress wrestles with how to respond to a wave of mass shootings, leading Democrats are raising an idea once viewed as political suicide: reviving the ban on assault weapons, which barred Americans from purchasing certain military-style firearms for a decade until Republicans let it expire in 2004. The idea is gaining traction on the presidential campaign trail, where former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., an architect of the original 1994 assault weapons ban, and nearly all of the other Democratic candidates have embraced it. In an opinion piece published Monday in The New York Times, Mr. Biden vowed...

(WCMH) — Walmart employees are expected to walk out in protest of the retailer’s gun sales policies Wednesday afternoon. The Washington Post reports hundreds of workers at Walmart e-commerce offices in California, Portland and Brooklyn are planning to walk out at 3 p.m. The walk out comes after a gunman opened fire in an El Paso Walmart Saturday, killing 22 people and wounding dozens. Last week, a Walmart employee shot and killed two co-workers at a store in Southaven, Mississippi. Organizers started a Change.org petition calling on Walmart and the retailer’s president and CEO Doug McMillon to “cease the sale...