Free Republic

Policymakers aiming in the wrong directionTwo years ago — on September 27, 2001 — a lone gunman shot and killed shot 14 people in the cantonal parliament in Zug, near Zurich. To the Swiss justice minister, Ruth Metzler, the country's liberal gun laws were responsible. Joined by the Swiss People's party, the Radical party, and the Swiss business federation, Metzler has called for registering guns, banning others, and tightening controls on buying guns as obvious solutions to make sure nothing like that happens again. Ever since Switzerland's founding in 1291, an armed citizenry has been a cornerstone of its defense....

I found a great t-shirt while surfing the web over the weekend. It said, “Guns don’t kill people, abortion kills people.” I hope it arrives in time for my parents’ next visit. You see, my mom is a civil lawyer, a feminist and a Canadian. By contrast, I am a canon lawyer, a traditional Catholic and a legal resident of the United States. To the chagrin of my father, also a lawyer, bickering over gun control or abortion is a favorite past-time when talking to my mother. While going another round over the phone with mom the other day, she...

The drive to line up Republicans behind Arnold Schwarzenegger for governor bears all the elements that reduced the California Republican Party to a shambles by the end of the 1990s. Consider the message we have heard so far on the bedrock issue of taxes: Yes we're against taxes ... but, you know, property taxes are too low -- what? Did we say that? No, no, we love Prop. 13, don't listen to that man behind the curtain If he says that again, he'll have to do 500 sit-ups. No, I won't sign any pledge not to increase taxes, though Californians...

Long has the gun been there to protect the lives of innocent people all over the world, to put an end to dictatorships, and provide with recreation :). But as long as there has been the gun there have also been people that want it to be taken away from public hands, leaving us defenseless against our government, as well as common criminals (although the two are becoming more and more similar). Although i am only a freshman in high school in new york city, and i can't own my own firearms yet, my step-father owns several, and i have...

Ohio Amish Community Shaken by Shooting Thu Sep 4, 2:55 AM ET By JOE MILICIA, Associated Press Writer MOUNT HOPE, Ohio - It's an annual prank in this tranquil Amish community, where men wear straw hats and women bonnets and plain dresses: Youngsters hide in cornfields and hurl tomatoes at passing cars. This year, the mischief turned deadly. A motorist who had been pelted several times on Labor Day got out of his car and fired three to five rounds into the 7-foot-high corn, killing 23-year-old Steven L. Keim. No arrest has been made. Residents are reeling from shock, unable...

Moore alters "Bowling" DVD in response to criticism (9/2) By Brendan Nyhan In the newly-released DVD version of his Academy Award-winning documentary "Bowling for Columbine," filmmaker Michael Moore has altered a caption that he fictitiously inserted into a 1988 Bush-Quayle campaign commercial -- one of a number of misstatements and deceptive arguments we criticized when the film was released last year. Ironically, on the same day the DVD was released, Moore issued a libel threat against his critics on MSNBC's "Buchanan & Press," saying, "Every fact in the film is true. Absolutely every fact in the film is true....

Michael Moore, winner of the 2002 Oscar for Best Documentary for his controversial "Bowling for Columbine," failed to meet submission requirements of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, a WorldNetDaily investigation reveals. While critics of the filmmaker and author have called on the academy to investigate whether Moore fabricated scenes in the movie, it also appears he misled the academy about the film's eligibility on purely technical grounds. Candidates for Best Documentary feature have unique procedural requirements for eligibility. According to Rule 12, qualification for the 75th Annual Academy Awards in this category demanded that films be exhibited...

A student in a gun safety class accidentally shot his instructor in the leg Wednesday while unloading a Glock handgun at the instructor's home in Salina, Onondaga County sheriff's deputies said. Patrick Sacco, 48, a former Liverpool police officer, suffered the wound to his right leg about 10:45 a.m. in the basement of his home at 110 Tempo Circle, where he was instructing three students on firearms safety. Gary Kassel, 56, of Syracuse, was unloading the .40-caliber Glock and didn't realize there was still a round in the chamber when he pointed the gun at the cement floor and pulled...

<p>WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court's reference to foreign law in a ruling last month that overturned state anti-sodomy statutes stood out as if it were in bold print and capital letters.</p> <p>Writing for the majority in a landmark decision supporting gay civil rights, Justice Anthony Kennedy noted that the European Court of Human Rights and other foreign courts have affirmed the ''rights of homosexual adults to engage in intimate, consensual conduct.''</p>

Despite sniping by six colleagues, Reinhardt's gun ruling standsWith six judges dissenting, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Tuesday let stand a controversial ruling that found the Second Amendment doesn't give individuals a right to bear arms. Among the six who argued that the case should be reheard by an 11-judge en banc panel was the staunchly liberal Judge Harry Pregerson. But the yeoman's work in dissent was done by Judge Andrew Kleinfeld, who defended an individual's right to bear arms using the same means Judge Stephen Reinhardt employed in December to shoot it down: by weaving together...

(CNSNews.com) - When the U.S. Supreme Court upheld a copyright law last month, the decision had little to do with gun owners. But the ruling sent a signal to Second Amendment supporters, who say they now have another means with which to defend the individual right to bear arms. The court's 7-2 ruling on Jan. 15 in Eldred v. Ashcroft dealt with the copyright and patent clause of the Constitution and whether Congress had the right to arbitrarily extend copyrights, like it did in 1998 with the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act. While nothing in the language of the...

Effusively praised by President Clinton, Canada's gun-control laws are in a state of crisis, threatening the political future of many Liberal party politicians. Introduced in 1995 with a promised net cost of $2 million dollars (Canadian), the nation's gun registry is going to cost over a billion dollars, according to a new report from the auditor general. The report details pervasive malfeasance by the Liberal administration. Now, many Canadians who have no personal interest in gun ownership are turning against the deceit and self-dealing of the Liberals. On December 3, Auditor General Sheila Fraser released a scathing report. "This is...

INSIDE When a Syracuse man was struck last week by a bullet fired through the ceiling of his apartment, it marked the third time in eight years that an Onondaga County probation officer had unintentionally discharged one of the department-issued Glock pistols. Those three incidents, and similar cases in Central New York and elsewhere, come as no surprise to Joseph Cominolli. Cominolli was a Syracuse police sergeant in 1987 when he was assigned to find the best semiautomatic handgun to replace that department's revolvers. The hot new Glock pistol that other police agencies were then buying had two drawbacks that...

SEATTLE: Urban League chief charged with bringing gun to school The Associated Press James Kelly, president of the Urban League of Metropolitan Seattle, has been charged with carrying a gun onto school grounds. Kelly, 47, admitted in a written statement to police that he carried a handgun when he attended a community meeting at Rainier Beach High School the night of May 29. Under state law, it is a misdemeanor to have a gun on school grounds. If convicted, Kelly faces a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $5,000 fine. He also would lose his concealed-weapons permit...

American Voters Overwhelmingly Agree with Justice Department: Individuals Have Right to Bear Arms A wide majority of American voters (75%) agree with the Justice Department’s position that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of individuals to keep and bear arms. Just over a fifth (22%) disagree with the Justice Department, while 4% are unsure. This result follows a Supreme Court brief filed in early May in which the Justice Department stated its interpretation of the Second Amendment that individuals have the right to bear arms. Since 1973, the department has argued that the Second Amendment protects only gun ownership by...

Reversing long-held government policy, the Bush administration has told the Supreme Court that the Second Amendment protects an individual's right to possess a firearm that is not tied to the maintenance of state militias.The rest of the article here

Check out the story at http://www.coxnews.com/newsservice/stories/2002/index.html It seems that despite strict anti-gun laws, more Israelis are getting personal protection.

A friend of mine recently forwarded me a question a friend of his had posed: If I may, I'd like to try to answer that question. I certainly do not think the writer facetious for asking it. The subject is a serious one that I have given much research and considerable thought to. I believe that upon the answer to this question depends the future of our Constitutional republic, our liberty and perhaps our lives. My friend Aaron Zelman, one of the founders of Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership told me once: "If every Jewish and anti-nazi family...