Free Republic

And who pulled the trigger?Alec Baldwin.It's that simple.

While acting on four seasons of FX’s “American Horror Story,” Leslie Grossman estimates she’s been called upon to shoot a gun “several times.”“They’re never real guns,” she says. “Nine times out of 10, I’m using a rubber gun.” When the scene does call for a more dramatic close-up of a gun firing with a physical recoil, Grossman says she usually shoots an air gun instead, with effects added in post-production to enhance authenticity. On the most recent season, “American Horror Story: Double Feature,” Grossman recalls only using rubber guns, even while shooting them.“I even said, ‘Wait, is this gonna look...

It is, apparently, Hollywood movie set custom to shout out 'cold gun' before handing an actor a firearm on set. It's meant to confirm that the weapon is not real, or at least not loaded with a real bullet, but here's the question that's puzzling the non-movie world ever since we heard the shocking news that Alec Baldwin had accidentally shot a camera-woman dead on set last Thursday- how could a real bullet get into a film set in the first place? Why require reassurance about something, a 'hot gun', that should never be remotely possible in the such a...

The economic and cultural hub has seen the most shootings in years in 2021. The rise mirrors a citywide violent crime wave and threatens downtown’s recovery. Deserted during the pandemic and battered by looting, downtown Chicago is grappling with a rise in violent crime that threatens the reputation of the city and its economic viability. Murders, shootings, rapes and car thefts are all up sharply in the downtown area, prompting fears among residents and business owners similar to those that have long been a reality in struggling neighborhoods beyond the skyscrapers. And some of the same frustrations. “How do you...

WASHINGTON, D.C.—With the pandemic still ongoing, the White House has been on the alert for anything that might cause resistance to the vaccine mandates. And they just realized that there was a constant anti-vax sentiment right under their noses: the national anthem. The last line of “The Star-Spangled Banner” is “O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave,” implying that the U.S. is a place where people are free to make their own choices and aren’t motivated by fear — pretty much a call to ignore the government during a pandemic. “So basically, at the beginning...

The right to keep and bear arms is, at a last resort, our most important right, thus it’s one that should be exercised with the utmost care and attention to detail.The investigation into the fatal shooting of movie camerawoman Halyna Hutchins by actor Alec Baldwin with a prop gun on the set of the latter’s movie, “Rust,” last Thursday is ongoing, with new information and speculations appearing daily, so prudent people will let the investigation run its course before reaching conclusions. The fact that Mr. Baldwin has been a hard-core leftist activist, particularly against the right to keep and bear...

Many Americans fervently believe that the Second Amendment protects their right to bear arms everywhere, including at public protests. Many Americans also believe that the First Amendment protects their right to speak freely and participate in political protest. What most people do not realize is that the Second Amendment has become, in recent years, a threat to the First Amendment. People cannot freely exercise their speech rights when they fear for their lives. This is not hyperbole. Since January 2020, millions of Americans have assembled in public places to protest police brutality, systemic racism, and coronavirus protocols, among other things....

Smearing parents fed up with their kids’ schools as “domestic terrorists” seems to be a wild, incendiary charge with little basis in reality. Yet it’s the basis on which the U.S. attorney general has convened an FBI task force to surveil and intimidate parents who object to what their children are being taught, and how they are being treated, with public tax dollars. The organization that colluded with the Justice Department to create the pretext for chilling voters’ speech has backed down, but the FBI threat remains. School lockdowns have clarified and accelerated the deep, irreconcilable differences among American parents...

Several religious denominations have seen memberships fall in recent years, including among young adults and teens. A new survey suggests that many young people perceive a disconnect between themselves and the houses of worship that need believers to sustain their congregations. Half of young people ages 13 to 25 surveyed said they don’t think that religious institutions care as much as they do about issues that matter deeply to them, according to a report released Monday by the Springtide Research Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit. Those issues include racial justice, gender equity, immigration rights, income inequality and gun control. Springtide tracks...

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) said on Twitter today that leftists are pushing a fake “scandal” about Facebook making exceptions to its rules to justify censorship of conservatives. “The Facebook “scandal” is a false flag intended to justify an oncoming wave of censorship against the Right,” said Rep. Gaetz on Twitter. The Florida congressman was responding to allegations from leftists at Facebook that the site makes exceptions to its rules in order to protect political figures on the platform.

On Thursday, October 21, AD 2021, actor Alec Baldwin, a well-known anti-gun extremist, allegedly killed a cinematographer and injured the director, by firing a loaded gun directly at them during the making of a western movie called “Rust” on a remote film set in New Mexico. As more information comes out every day, it is too early to write a definitive account of the incident, or even to completely rule out intentional homicide. At this writing, it appears to be agreed that an assistant director took a gun from a table, announced “Cold Gun” and handed it to Baldwin, who...

As the party began trying to piece together its big social-spending and climate package, a split emerged between lawmakers who wanted to pass fewer programs (but do them well) and those who wanted to pass more programs (even if it means doing them poorly). A big part of this argument boiled down to how long policies should be funded for. The less-is-more crowd, dominated by party moderates, wanted to set policies in place permanently. The more-for-less brigade, dominated by progressives, wanted to fund programs temporarily in order to make their budget math work, essentially rolling the dice on the idea...

Normally I will not focus on little fish like Baldwin, but this time it's important. Baldwin represents everything unAmerican. Baldwin has openly called for his political enemies be locked up without trial. Not just locked up, but tossed into dungeons (paraphrasing) for especially harsh treatment. Without trial. Let's face it, a lot of US Citizens are just not American. Baldwin wants our Constitution ripped apart and burned. Wildly anti-gun and characterizes us as stupid, criminal, reckless, for demanding we stick to the Constitution -- the same one will stick to attempt to see he receives a fair trial for the...

The Constitution contains a powerful set of ideals and a wise system of governance, based on a deep reading of classical and medieval history as well as Renaissance philosophy. However, none of this matters if no system of force is in place to keep and defend the Constitution. Ultimately, this what the 2nd Amendment is about: A distributed capacity for violence guaranteed to private citizens so that they may serve as a check and balance on the power of the state. America’s Founding Fathers understood an uncomfortable truth: Behind every law is the implicit threat of force, and behind every...

Will the Hispanic Right Turn Last? Noah Rudnick is the director of research at Cygnal, a Republican polling firm, and writes a blog about historical election trends. One of the surprises on Election Night 2020 was how much Donald Trump gained among Latino voters, especially in such regions as Miami-Dade County and the Rio Grande Valley in Texas that had long been Democratic strongholds. Later Pew polling of 2020 voters would show that Hispanic voters nationwide went from voting in 2016 for Hillary Clinton by a margin of 38 percentage points to voting in 2020 for Joe Biden by a...

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — A judge has granted a request from wildlife advocacy groups and blocked Wisconsin’s fall wolf hunt two weeks before hunters were set to take to the woods. Dane County Circuit Judge Jacob Frost issued a temporary injunction Friday halting the season, which was set to begin Nov. 6. The order comes as part of a lawsuit wildlife advocacy groups filed in August seeking to stop the hunt and invalidate a state law authorizing annual seasons. The groups sued after the Department of Natural Resources board brushed aside calls to cancel the fall season after hunters exceeded...

In 2013, New York Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, Senate Majority Leader Dean Skelos, and Governor Andrew Cuomo conspired to pass rigid and likely unconstitutional restrictions on the right to keep and bear arms by residents of New York State. The law was passed with a rushed vote under a controversial measure in the New York Constitution which gives the Governor and legislative leaders enormous power. The members of the legislature were forced to vote on it without any time to read it. From syracuse.com: The NY Safe Act was passed with no hearings, no testimony, no time for opponents to...

A distraught Alec Baldwin repeatedly asked why was he given a “hot gun” after his prop weapon accidentally discharged on his New Mexico film set Thursday, killing a cinematographer and injuring the director, witnesses have claimed. The tragic accident unfolded while Baldwin was filming his upcoming western film “Rust” at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Sante Fe. Cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, died and director, Joel Souza, 48, was injured after they were both struck when the gun discharged, the Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Office said. Immediately after the incident, an eyewitness told Hollywood gossip site Showbiz 411 that Baldwin started asking...

In a significant win for supporters of Second Amendment rights, the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted a preliminary injunction order to William Drummond and the Second Amendment Foundation, Inc. on October 13, 2021. Drummond had sought to open a sportsman’s club at an existing range that had operated as the Greater Pittsburgh Gun Club since the middle 1960s. It consists of 265 acres in Robinson Township, Washington County, Pennsylvania.In December of 2017, Drummond entered into a lease to operate the club. On February 19, 2018, the Robinson Township Board of Supervisors commenced proceedings to...

An Austin-based political action committee has sent out “RINO alerts” calling for Republican members to hold local party chair Lee Lester accountable by “demanding that he stops attacking his own party or you’ll vote him out” in response to the Harrison County GOP executive committee’s decision to censure State Rep. Chris Paddie. The request has been sent in the form of political mailers by Project Red Tex. The treasurer of the PAC is listed as Cabell Hobbs; Shannon Oleary is listed as assistant treasurer. The “RINO alerts” were not only sent in reference to Lester, but also with regard to...