Free Republic

Eight people were shot -- two fatally -- in four separate incidents in Brooklyn Wednesday night. Last month, 26 people were shot, three fatally, over the course of one weekend in Chicago -- grisly, but a marked improvement over the Windy City's previous weekend, when more than 50 were shot, with eight dying. An argument for tougher gun control? But New York City and Chicago already have some of the most stringent gun-control laws in America -- to no apparent good effect. So perhaps the real issue is a fundamental cultural disrepect for the value of human life -- and...

When Border Patrol Agent Ignacio Ramos pulled the trigger last February, all he knew was that his partner was lying on the ground behind him – bloodied from a struggle with a fleeing suspect – shots had been fired and now, it appeared, the drug smuggler he was pursuing had turned toward him with what looked to be a gun in his hand. In the split-second he had to respond, Ramos determined the course of his and his partner's lives – federal prison for the next 20 years for assault with serious bodily injury, assault with a deadly weapon, discharging...

In a recent criminal trial in Virginia, the prosecutor told the jury that the defendant couldn't be trusted to tell the truth, that he would lie to their faces -- all because of his religious beliefs. ADVERTISEMENT The defendant, an American citizen accused of supporting terrorism, was convicted. The religion in question, of course, was Islam. Now, the Virginia attorney representing Ali Al-Timimi is pushing for a new trial, saying that prosecutors secured the guilty verdict by appealing to religious bigotry against Muslims. The case illustrates the difficulty in prosecuting suspected terrorists who subscribe to a form of militant Islam,...