Birthplace of the Second Amendment 1765

Possession of firearm necessary prerequisite to exercising right to bear arms'

By Bob Unruh - 12/13/2013

A federal judge in California has ruled in a Second Amendment case that a state-imposed waiting period to take possession of a firearm is a burden on the constitutional right to keep and bear arms.

The ruling came in a challenge brought by the Second Amendment Foundation to the state�s mandatory 10-day waiting period to obtain firearms. The case, Silvester v. Harris, continues.

It was Senior Judge Anthony Ishii of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California who said in an 11-page decision that California Attorney General Kamala Harris argues that the WPL (Waiting Period Law) is a minor burden on the Second Amendment, [but] plaintiffs are correct that this is a tacit acknowledgement that a protected Second Amendment right is burdened.

By Charles C. W. Cooke - 12/13/2013

The push to do something, anything, has nothing to do with preventing deaths.

Earlier in the year, as the gun-control movement tried clumsily to transform an abomination into a cudgel, the Washington Post's Kathleen Parker distilled its problem into a single sentence. Nothing proposed in the gun-control debates would have prevented the mass killing of children at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Parker contended plainly, and everybody knows it.

This was abundantly clear at the time, and it is even more so in retrospect. And yet I must nitpick ever so slightly with Parker's excellent contention, for it is missing the crucial word almost. Almost everybody knows it. The public seems to know it. Legislators seem to know it. But, judging by the abundance of vexed anniversary columns, a significant cabal of journalists and activists have never got the message. A year later, their cry is as it was at the outset: Why won't we act?

Yesterday, Michael Bloomberg delivered a speech in which he utilized what I have come to regard as the Newtown Template. Having established the tragedy in the audience's mind December 14 will mark a very somber anniversary, Bloomberg noted, correctly he went on to claim that unlicensed sellers of firearms were illegally flooding the Internet with weapons, causing a massive online, unregulated, second-hand firearms market that threatens public safety. Then, for good measure, he took a swipe at the government for doing nothing.

By Los Angeles Times - 12/10/13

SACRAMENTO -- California has the toughest gun control laws in the nation, receiving an A- grade in a state-by-state analysis by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, officials said Monday.

In the year after a gunman killed 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut, eight states, including California, passed "major gun reforms," said Amanda Wilcox, the legislation and policy chair for the California Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence.

California chapters of the Brady Campaign supported 18 bills sent to Gov. Jerry Brown.

"A record 11 bills were signed into law, including measures to keep guns out of dangerous hands and closing loopholes in California's law prohibiting large capacity magazines," Wilcox said. "The research shows that strong gun laws can keep people safe from gun violence. We know that California's strong gun laws are saving lives."

By Richard L. Johnson - 12/8/2013

Everybody should own a .22 pistol. They are incredibly valuable as a training tool, can be used to shoot competitively and can bag small game for dinner. Add to the mix that they are just plain fun to shoot, and you've got a winner of a platform. But the question becomes what is the best .22 pistol?

While there is no single best pistol for every person and situation, there are several exceptionally good guns on the market. This is a look at currently produced .22 LR pistols, and not a look at every rimfire handgun ever made. If I expanded the scope of the article to that level, I would have to include pistols like the old Hi Standard and Colt Woodsman. Likewise, there are some exceptional revolver and .22 Magnum options on the market.

I no particular order, here are some of the best 22 pistols currently being sold.

By CNN Political Unit - 12/5/2013

Washington (CNN) - As memories fade from last December's horrific school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a new national poll indicates that support for stricter gun control laws appears to be fading, too.

According to a new CNN/ORC International survey, 49% of Americans say they support stricter gun control laws, with 50% opposed. The 49% support is down six percentage points from the 55% who said they backed stricter gun control in CNN polling from January, just a few weeks after the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, where a lone gunman killed 20 young students and six adults before killing himself, in one of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history.

The poll's Wednesday release comes on the same day that 911 tapes from the Newtown shootings are being released.

4/2013

Brian Doherty - 12/4/2013

Since the 2010 Supreme Court case McDonald v. Chicago, which applied the ruling in the 2008 Heller case (which said the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right to bear arms) to states and localities, the Court has so far evaded any new case about the limits and meaning of the Second Amendment.
Those two cases, though, did not resolve all the important questions about how and when and why the government can restrict Second Amendment rights. Heller and McDonald said that the right to possess commonly used weapons for self-defense in the home cannot be infringed, but Justice Antonin Scalia in his majority opinion in Heller explicitly said this didn’t mean anything goes when it comes to Americans and their guns.

By Dom Raso, NRA News Commentator - 12/04/2013

Under Obama's administration, there's been a serious downsizing of our military. I've got my own thoughts on that, but I'll save them for another time. Reality is, we've got a large number of people getting out of the military with a ton of combat and military experience; men and women being thrown back into civilian life. There have been several incidents already involving these vets and their rights being taken away from them.

Recently, there was a vet that had to defend his home from a felon who was trying to break in. He fired a warning shot in the ground to scare the guy off and then told the police that his military training kicked in. Now whether that's true or not, or even if he went into combat mode, the guy was having his house broken into. He clearly stated to the guy that was trying to force entry into his home and that he was going to give him a warning shot if he didn't stop his forward progress. All he did was fire a warning shot into the ground, and then the criminal ran off.

By Michelle Malkin - 12/4/2013

The National Football League's hypocrisy and selective decency standards reek like a post-game locker room. On the one hand, the organization refuses to run a firearms manufacturer's self-defense Super Bowl ad under the guise of neutrality and taste. Yet, the professional football conglomerate routinely revels in raunchiness, gratuitous physical violence and anti-gun screeds.

Welcome to the National Frauds' League.

Guns and Ammo magazine first broke news last week of the sports empire's rejection of a commercial created by gun-maker Daniel Defense. The polished paid spot emphasized home security protection and self-defense without even showing or mentioning any of its actual products. But a quick flash of the company's logo at the end of the ad, which includes a DDM4 rifle, apparently violated the NFL's high-minded advertising regulations.

The Weimar Republic's well-intentioned gun registry became a tool for evil.

By Stephen P. Halbrook - 12/2/2013

The perennial gun-control debate in America did not begin here. The same arguments for and against were made in the 1920s in the chaos of Germany's Weimar Republic, which opted for gun registration. Law-abiding persons complied with the law, but the Communists and Nazis committing acts of political violence did not.

In 1931, Weimar authorities discovered plans for a Nazi takeover in which Jews would be denied food and persons refusing to surrender their guns within 24 hours would be executed. They were written by Werner Best, a future Gestapo official. In reaction to such threats, the government authorized the registration of all firearms and the confiscation thereof, if required for public safety. The interior minister warned that the records must not fall into the hands of any extremist group.

By Joe Saunders - 1/1/2013

The former law student who developed a one-shot gun that can be created on a 3-D plastic printer has been voted among Wired magazine's 15 most dangerous people for 2013.

And he still has higher ambitions.

I hope to make it back up the first, but I'll settle for 14, Cody Wilson said, according to the Daily Mail. It was a good run.

Governments around the world would probably agree with Wired that Wilson is a dangerous man even at the young age of only 25. The Obama administration's State Department certainly does.

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By: Raquel Okyay - 12/2/2013

Women seeking to arm themselves and their daughters are figuring out that guns are not taboo but a powerful means of protection.

Women are the holy grail of the Second Amendment movement, said Skip Coryell nationally recognized firearm expert and author of the newly released The Shadow Militia.

The Second Amendment will stand or fall depending on the way women vote, he said. Women make-up about 52% of the population and they vote with a mind of their own.

Women and particularly women with children have been raised with an idea that guns are dangerous. Yet once women get over their initial fear of the firearm, they feel empowered by it, he said. Women want to be armed and capable.

By Washington Times (DC) - 11/30/2013
Nothing like chiming in the Christmas season with a new gun. That's the message advertisers are blasting out, with deals that promise purchasers savings in the double-digit range.

Post-Thanksgiving gun buys have become a holiday tradition for America, The Huffington Post reported. In the past two years, the FBI has been besieged by applications for gun purchases made on Black Friday/Christmas.

In 2012, the FBI took in 154,873 background check calls on Black Friday -- a record-setting level three times what the agency fielded on any given day that year. The National Instant Criminal Background Check System couldn't handle the volume, and some data centers crashed, The Huffington Post reported.

Experts cite Supreme Court in arguing rights to multiple 'arms'

By Bob Unruh

Since the U.S. Supreme Court confirmed in two recent cases that the right to carry firearms under the Second Amendment applies to individuals, a multitude of local gun-control ordinances have been overturned, modified or dropped.

Now, a new argument prepared by three legal experts goes further, arguing that the Second Amendment's protection of arms includes knives as well.

The recent landmark Heller and McDonald case precedents could now be used against many local restrictions on carrying knives, the authors say.

By Raquel Okyay - 11/24/2013
Nationally-known gun rights expert told Guns & Patriots self-defense is a natural right that motivates the public to support the Second Amendment and encourages us to be gun owners.

The primary reason people own firearms in the U.S. is for self -defense, said Tom Gresham, host of Gun Talk Radio, the first nationally syndicated live, radio, talk show covering the world of firearms, personal safety and gun rights.

In 1995 Gresham started Gun Talk Radio because he wanted to discuss issues outside of the topic of hunting a market he said was not yet developed by news, radio or television. When I started the radio show 19 years ago it was the first of its kind; I made sure it was not about hunting.

Every survey done over the last 50 years shows hunting is not the primary reason for gun purchases, he said. I focused just on the gun side of things and not on hunting this includes self-defense training and competitive shooting from Olympic to collegiate.

Today we are seeing a trend of self-defense purchases by women, he said. Women of America have decided they can take care of themselves.

By Greg Sowinski - 11/20/2013

When Ohio first licensed citizens to carry a concealed handgun nearly 10 years ago, then U.S. Sen. Mike DeWine was a little skeptical.

He wasn't so sure it was a good idea.

But after nearly 10 years of concealed carry not only has DeWine, the current Ohio Attorney General whose office oversees the program, changed his mind but he became a supporter. He's also a licensed concealed carrier.

“People are just more comfortable with it and it's much more accepted that people can have a concealed carry permit,” DeWine said during a visit this week in Lima. “It's much more mainstream then it was when it started.”

Allen County Sheriff Sam Crish agreed.

People from all walks of life are getting their concealed carry license with women being one of the fastest growing groups. Crish also is hearing from a lot of people who opposed allowing citizens the right to carry concealed handguns but now support it, he said.

Moderators comment. . .

With few exceptions high profile government figures including those in law enforcement and all of the executive and legislative branches have the option of armed protection - this includes their families.

It is the pinnacle of anti-gun hypocrisy.

Posted By Chris Cox - 11/22/2013

Outgoing New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly has spent his career promoting an extreme gun control agenda.

Kelly is a longtime, vocal supporter of Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-Second Amendment policies. Kelly appeared on the Daily Show this year, and nodded up and down every time host John Stewart spewed propaganda about gun control and punch-lines that ridiculed America's law-abiding gun owners.

Kelly said that commonly-owned, semi-automatic rifles should be eliminated. He railed against handguns and blamed other cities and states for New York's problems.

By Salena Zito - 11/17/2013

Know your constituency. It's the first rule of local politics.

The second: What happens in New York City usually can only happen in New York City, and is best kept there.

Policies that fit The Big Apple don't fit a town that is, say, known statewide for its Apple Festival.

Just ask Democrat Pete Lagiovane, the mayor of this Franklin County town who won't return to office in January. He lost his bid for re-election to a seat he won unopposed the last time in part because he signed up Chambersburg as one of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's anti-gun cities.

By Richard L. Johnson - 11/11/2013

One of the most convenient ways to carry a handgun for self-defense is in a pocket. With the right sized gun and a good pocket holster, a gun can ride comfortably and unnoticed in all but the tightest of pants.

Here are my top six guns for pocket carry.

Kahr PM9/CM9

I think it is hard to beat the Kahr PM9 and CM9 pistols for pocket carry. They offer exceptional reliability and accuracy with a smooth trigger and good sights.

Like all of the guns on this list, these pistols are double action only. Both are chambered in 9mm, and use six round magazines. Unloaded, both guns weigh less than a pound in part due to their polymer frames.

The PM9 and CM9 are substantially the same gun, with the CM9 being the lower cost version. The CM9 uses a number of MIM parts instead of machined parts, a conventional barrel instead of a match grade one, and a pinned front sight instead of a dovetailed one.

I personally own a CM9 and have gotten great reliability with it. The added machining of the PM9 is nice, but I am satisfied with the CM9. MSRP on the PM9 is $786, while the CM9 is $517.

By Wayne LaPierre - 11/15/2013 NRA

Barack Obama, the candidate who promised Americans in 2008 that I will not take your guns away, now, as President of the United States in 2013, has embraced the universal firearm confiscation of Australia and England schemes that saw the destruction of hundreds of thousands of registered, legal firearms that had been outlawed and taken under threat of force from licensed gun owners by their governments.

Obama revealed his gun control endgame in a Sept. 22, 2013, political speech at a solemn memorial for the 12 Washington Navy Yard victims murdered by a deranged killer on Sept. 16, 2013.

Obama coldly used the madness of a delusional lone mass-murderer to claim that the rampage ought to lead to some sort of transformation it ought to obsess us.

In the same breath, Obama defined his personal obsession and his notion of transformation for ordinary American gun owners:

That's what happened in other countries when they experienced similar tragedies. In the United Kingdom, in Australia they mobilized and they changed.

By Joe Nocera - 11/8/2013

On the contrary, he's a gun guy through and through, such an unyielding defender of the Second Amendment that last year he led the charge to push through a law giving the residents of Pike County, Ill., where he lives, the right to carry concealed guns without a permit. He called the practice constitutional carry rather than concealed carry.

In the early 1980s, he and a handful of friends started a successful gun club, called the Pike Adams Sportsmen's Alliance, which is located on Metcalf's farm in Barry, Ill. A few years later, he played an important role in lobbying for the federal Firearm Owners Protection Act, which loosened many of the gun restrictions that had become law after the assassination of Robert Kennedy. A friend of his told me that Metcalf had even written some of the language in the bill.

Mostly, though, Metcalf, 67, was known as a writer for magazines owned by InterMedia Outdoors, a publisher of gun periodicals that include the industry bible, Guns & Ammo. He did videos on subjects like Guns for Family Home Defense and wrote articles with headlines like Smith & Wesson's 12 Most Important Guns.

By Associated Press - 11/6/2013

The Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife says hunters contribute $292 million to the state's economy every year.

The state says a survey by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Census Bureau determined that hunters spend $39 million on travel, $190 million on equipment and $62 million on other items.

Fish and Wildlife Commissioner Patrick Berry says hunting is also especially important because much of it occurs after foliage season and before skiing and the spending takes place throughout the state, including in the state's most rural areas.

In 2012, more than 74,000 people purchased Vermont hunting licenses, including about 64,600 residents and 9,400 nonresidents.

About 90 percent of hunting licenses are bought for deer hunting.

Voters, opinions of the NRA may partially explain why the race for governor of Virginia is tightening. A poll conducted for the NRA by ONMessage Inc., found that those Virginians who favor the NRA outnumber its opponents by 51% to 38%. A slight majority (46% to 43%) oppose NRA in Virginia's Washington, D.C., suburbs, but outside the D.C. media market, NRA's supporters outnumber its opponents by 19 percentage points.

The poll's findings may be significant, because the two leading candidates in the race--Ken Cuccinelli, the state's Republican Attorney General, and Terry McAuliffe, a former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and campaign operative for President Bill Clinton and then-Senator Hillary Clinton--have radically different views on gun control.

By NRA - 10/30/2013

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) � West Virginia will now legally recognize concealed-carry handgun permits issued by the states of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Attorney General Patrick Morrisey announced the reciprocity agreement Wednesday in Charleston. He says it brings the total number of states that will honor West Virginia's concealed-carry permits to 36.

West Virginia, in turn, recognizes permits from a total of 29 other states.

Iowa and New Hampshire residents can now carry their guns in West Virginia as long as they're 21 or older, and they have their permits with them.

Morrisey says the agreements grew from weeks of negotiations. He looks forward to securing similar deals with more states.

Since this summer, his office has also added Idaho, Colorado and Georgia to the list of states with full reciprocity agreements.

By JW Ross

This year, 2013, is the 248th Anniversary of the "Sideling Hill" Incident which many scholars believe was the beginning of the Revolutionary War on the frontier. Historians point to the incident at "Sideling Hill" in March of 1765, as the cause of the Smith rebellion and the spark that started the American Revolution. It is important to note, and commemorate, because it is contrary to what we have been taught - "the shots heard round the world" were not on Lexington Bridge and the commons in Boston in 1775, but in Pennsylvania at Sideling Hill in 1765.
That said, Sideling Hill was, for the settlers in the Conococheague, the end not the beginning. For years they had suffered at the hands of marauding Indians, corrupt public officials, greedy merchants, ethnic bigotry, and a pacificist colonial government unwilling to protect them. The beginning of the end for the settlers of the Conococheague was the Enoch Brown Massacre, a year earlier in 1764.

The Enoch Brown Massacre gutted all human sensibilities. Although you would have to be divine to sort out which of the multitude of murderous behavior, on both sides, was the "worst", the killing of 10 young children fractured any sense of personal security that the settlers in the Conococheague may have had. The children weren't killed accidently, nor were they incidental casualties of war. Rather the Indian perpetrators waited in the woods surrounding the school house, set upon the children with purpose, killing the teacher who begged for mercy, and when some of the children ran for their lives they were chased down and butchered. Some were even scalped. The barbaric murder of these school children by the "savages" (as the Indians were called) was so horrific that even the Indian elders found them disturbing.

By Richard L. Johnson - 10/27/2013
As the 2014 SHOT Show draws near, several gun manufacturers are jumping out ahead of the others with new gun announcements. The guns run the gamut from the modern to the traditional, aiming to meet the desires of a broad range of gun owners. Here are four guns that were recently introduced.

Ruger Red Label Shotgun

After being pulled from production several years back, an updated Ruger Red Label shotgun is on the market. The over and under shotgun is chambered in 12 gauge (3� shells), but I would expect to see a 20 gauge offering later if the market responds well to the gun.

The guns all feature American walnut stocks with a polished stainless steel receiver and blued barrels. A Pachmayr buttpad is standard. There are no exposed pins or screws in the receiver, giving it a very attractive look.

The single mechanical trigger does not need to be recocked before firing the second barrel. Ruger offers the Red Label with three barrel length options: 43�, 45� and 47�. A brass bead front sight tops each barrel. Weights range from 7.5 to 7.9 pounds.

By Huffington Post - 10/22/20
A pistol license may not be the first thing that pops into your mind when you think "First Lady," but Eleanor Roosevelt was far from ordinary. Among the historical artifacts housed in the FDR Library, is Mrs. Roosevelt's heat-packing permit. But its the reason why she had such a license that we find fascinating.

According to Slate, it was Roosevelt's desire to travel independently that necessitated her getting certified to carry a gun:

It was Eleanor�s determination to drive her own car that led to her pistol ownership. The Secret Service begged her to take an agent, a police escort, or at least a chauffeur; she refused. The pistol was a compromise: a small bit of protection to put their minds at ease.

She told interested press that she was a "fairly good shot." We totally believe it.

One of the many tactics that anti-gun opponents are "selling" is a technology that technologically matches guns to owners. . .it is a political diversion and at present a pipe-dream.

So-called smart guns are in the news again. These are guns equipped with technology that ensures they can be fired only by their owners.

You're forgiven if you've never heard of such guns. They don't exist yet.

And the last time they were in the news was back in 2002, when the Legislature passed and Gov. James E. McGreevey signed a law that required all handguns sold in New Jersey to be smart guns within three years after the technology became commercially available and was approved by the attorney general.

But The Record newspaper recently reported that a German company says it will soon be ready to sell a gun that will fire only within range of a sensor to be worn on the gun owner's wrist.

By Christopher Sherman / AP and Simon Moya-Smith, Staff Writer, NBC News

Gun rights advocates gather at the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, on Oct. 19, to demonstrate in support of a Texas law that permits the open carry of long arms, such as rifles and shotguns.

Hundreds of gun-rights advocates, many toting rifles and shotguns, gathered early Saturday at the Alamo in San Antonio to rally in support of gun ownership and the right to bear arms.

The rally, called "Come and Take It San Antonio," comes in response to what organizers called San Antonio police's "disregard for Texas law and The Constitution." Organizers said the police department has harassed gun owners and created a hostile environment for legal gun ownership.

Female, off-duty D.C. cop shoots assailant, but the rest of us are sitting ducks

By Emily Miller - October 11, 2013 / The Washington Times

The District of Columbia is the only place in the country that refuses to abide by the constitutional mandate that individuals have the right to bear arms. The city is a playground for criminals because they know the law-abiding aren't armed. This week, however, one bad guy picked the wrong woman.

On Tuesday at 6:30 a.m., an off-duty, female police officer was getting out of her car on 18th Street, S.E. when a man approached her.

Metropolitan Police Department Spokesman Gwendolyn Crump told me that 28-year-old Marcus Young of Southeast indicated that he had a weapon while reaching in his waistband. Mr. Young threatened the officer and tried to rob her.

Harvard study comparing international gun laws shows that getting rid of firearms might not be the solution to reducing overall violence.

By Steve Annear /Boston Daily - 8/30/2013
As Bostonand the country as a whole looks for ways to reduce gun-related deaths and violence, a study from 2007 published in a Harvard University journal is suddenly regaining increased attention for its claims that more control over firearms doesn't necessarily mean their will be a dip in serious crimes.

In an independent research paper titled Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide?, first published in Harvard's Journal of Public Law and Policy, Don B. Kates, a criminologist and constitutional lawyer, and Gary Mauser, Ph.D., a Canadian criminologist and professor at Simon Fraser University, examined the correlation between gun laws and death rates. While not new, as gun debates nationwide heat up, the paper has resurfaced in recent days, specifically with firearm advocates.International evidence and comparisons have long been offered as proof of the mantra that more guns mean more deaths and that fewer guns, therefore, mean fewer deaths. Unfortunately, such discussions [have] all too often been afflicted by misconceptions and factual error and focus on comparisons that are unrepresentative, the researchers wrote in their introduction of their findings.

Katie Jones - University of Arizona

By Katie Jones - University of Arizona on October 8, 2013

Chad Westerland, an associate professor of political science and associate director of the School of Government and Public Policy, recently told the Arizona Daily Wildcat that “the Second Amendment is not clearly written.”

“It doesn’t say you have a right to carry a gun; there’s a right to bear arms that’s connected to maintaining a well-regulated militia.”

Subsequently contacted by The College Fix, Westerland said he was quoted accurately and stands by his statement in the campus newspaper.

By GOPUSA Staff - 10/9/2013
The Law of the Sea Treaty. The Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. The Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women.

When it comes to international agreements that may seem harmless until you read the fine print, the United Nations' Arms Trade Treaty has plenty of company. Like the aforementioned pacts, this treaty has been signed by the United States, but not ratified by the Senate.

Nor is it likely to be. That doesn't mean, though, it won't prove damaging to the United States and its interests.

The Arms Trade Treaty has numerous flaws. Start with the most obvious: the fact that it won't do what it sets out to do - regulate the flow of arms to and from rogue states. Major arms exporters such as China and Russia don't support it, and the idea that it will stop, say, Cuba from continuing to arm North Korea, to name two other notable nonsigners, is a joke.

By: George L. Lyon -10/5/2013

Madison on the 2nd Amendment & milita clause

The Supreme Court in the Heller decision explained that the second amendment guarantees an individual right of the people to keep and carry arms for their defense in the event of a confrontation.

The anti-gun crowd, however, refuses to accept this common sense reading of the amendment. The best way to interpret the Constitution begins with actually reading it. The next best thing is to read what the Constitution's chief drafter, James Madison, had to say about America's founding document. Madison was the chief author of the Federalist Papers, along with John Jay and Alexander Hamilton. The Federalist Papers offer great insight into the political theories of the day that led to our system of government.

Students of the second amendment should be familiar with both Federalist 29 and 46, which discuss the role of an armed populace in protecting the precious freedom which had so recently been won. It was that thinking that led to the adoption of the second amendment.

By: Richard L. Johnson - 10/5/2013

Useful Shooting Gear

Here is a short list of a few pieces of gear that I have found to be useful to my shooting endeavors. Three items can help protect you against an attacker, while the fourth can protect your long-term health.

AmeriGlo Pro Glow Front Sight

For a self-defense handgun, I like to have a big, bright front sight. Most factory sights are somewhere between marginal and poor for my defensive needs. There are a number of aftermarket sight replacements I have tried, but the one I recently had installed on my pistol is the ProGlo Tritium front sight from AmeriGlo.

The ProGlo Tritium is a normal sized sight with a bright tritium vial in the center that glows in the darkness. What sets the ProGlo apart from other night sights is that a large, lime-green circle surrounds the tritium vial. This neon-bright circle is with width of the sight and nearly as tall, which is very easy to see.

More firearms sold this year than in previous two combined

By Erin Cox, The Baltimore Sun - 10/2/2013

Maryland gun dealers have sold more firearms in the first nine months of this year than in all of 2011 and 2012 combined, the state police said Wednesday.

Buyers have applied to purchase 117,009 guns this year as lawmakers debated and enacted some of the toughest new gun laws in the country. More than 15,000 gun purchase applications were sent to the state police in the 10 days before Maryland's ban on assault rifle sales and a new handgun licensing requirement took effect Tuesday.

"Maryland is armed to the teeth," said Del. Luiz Simmons, a Montgomery County Democrat who voted for the law but argued that the assault rifle ban was not strong enough. "We caused this rush, this stampede really, to purchase guns."

By Walter Williams - 10/2/2013

Every time there's a shooting tragedy, there are more calls for gun control. Let's examine a few historical facts. By 1910, the National Rifle Association had succeeded in establishing 73 NRA-affiliated high-school rifle clubs. The 1911 second edition of the Boy Scout Handbook made qualification in NRA's junior marksmanship program a prerequisite for obtaining a BSA merit badge in marksmanship. In 1918, the Winchester Repeating Arms Co. established its own Winchester Junior Rifle Corps. The program grew to 135,000 members by 1925. In New York City, gun clubs were started at Boys, Curtis, Commercial, Manual Training and Stuyvesant high schools. With so many guns in the hands of youngsters, did we see today's level of youth violence?

By: Richard L. Johnson - 9/30/2013

Need a concealed carry pistol, but don't want to break the bank? You might want to take a look at the USA-made pistols from SCCY Industries.

I recently headed out to the range with Randall of the Thin Blue Florida. In his range bag was a SCCY CPX-2. Do you want to shoot it, he asked.

Well, I didn't come here to watch, I replied.

By Alan Prendergast - 8/27/2013

David Gunn knows he's stepping into the crossfire. He knows the gun-control folks are likely to view him as a crank while gun owners denounce him as the Antichrist. But the former gun shop owner is an inventor by inclination and has been a firearms buff ever since he was a kid, and he can't help tinkering. Let others rage on about gun violence and the Second Amendment; Gunn's busy working on a technological fix to the problem. And he thinks he has it -- a "firearms safety management system" both sides can embrace, once they understand it.

Growing up on a ranch near Granby, Gunn did his share of hunting and screwing around with guns; at fourteen he got shot in the heel when an untended .22 fell over and went off. In the 1970s, Gunn operated a gun-and-fishing-rod shop on Kipling. (Yes, it was called Gunn's Guns.) "We sold a lot of guns, including backup guns for cops," he recalls. "These days, nobody wants to deal in used guns, but we did."

By NRA 9/27/2013
Last week, the FBI released its national crime report for 2012. By a slight margin, the nation's violent crime rate decreased in 2012--relative to 2011--making it the lowest it has been since 1970. Compared to 1991, when it hit an all-time high, violent crime is down by 49 percent. The nation's murder rate was unchanged in 2012; still lower than any time since 1963 and at nearly an all-time low.

Between 2011 and 2012, 24 states and the District of Columbia experienced decreases in their murder rates. There was no correlation of these trends with the severity of the states' or the District's gun control laws. Troubled Detroit, under Michigan's law requiring a permit to purchase a handgun, had the highest murder rate among large cities, followed by Baltimore, under Maryland's law imposing a seven-day waiting period on handgun purchases. But there was no relationship between other large cities' murder rates and their gun control laws.

Joanna Slater and Steven - The Globe and Mail 9/25/2013

Pime Minister Stephen Harper continues to engage the United Nations on his own terms, refusing to sign a landmark UN treaty regulating the arms trade while pushing his maternal health agenda.

Canada is holding off signing the treaty, citing concern over how it affects firearm owners' even though the United States has now joined the global accord over the objections of that country's powerful gun lobby.

Canada's reluctance to join the multilateral effort on the arms trade is a tacit example of how Mr. Harper, far from the biggest fan of the UN, prefers to engage with the international body at arm's length. For the third year in a row, Mr. Harper declined to address the main body of the UN, the General Assembly. Instead, he stayed on the margins of the conclave, holding bilateral meetings and promoting Canada's maternal health efforts but steering clear of its highest-profile venue.

By Cheryl K. Chumley - The Washington Times 9/26/2013

The Senate's official website page on the Constitution says the Second Amendment right to bear arms could be a collective right, not an individual freedom.

The website explains the Second Amendment this way: Whether this provision protects the individual's right to own firearms or whether it deals only with the collective right of the people to arm and maintain a militia has long been debated.

The Bill of Rights, however, was the Founding Father's way of guaranteeing each and every individual their unalienable rights, as endowed by God. On top of that, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled at least twice in the past five years that the Second Amendment is an individual right, Breitbart reported.

In 2008, the court ruled on District of Columbia vs. Heller and found that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia.

And in 2010, Breitbart reported, the Supreme Court ruled the same held true in McDonald v. Chicago that the Heller case showed that individual self-defense is the central component of the Second Amendment rights, Associated Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote in his opinion.

Daniel J. Mitchell - 9/25/2013

The English are an interesting tribe. There is much to like about their country, including the fact that repeatedly elected Margaret Thatcher, one of the world's best leaders in my lifetime.

On the other hand, the United Kingdom has veered sharply to the left in recent decades, and Thatcher must have been very disappointed that her Conservative Party now is but a hollow shell, controlled by statists who actually think people should voluntarily pay extra tax to support wasteful and corrupt government.

And the politicians openly pursue Orwellian tax-collection tactics!

No wonder the country now faces a very grim future.

By John Hayward - 9/24/2013
The UK Daily Mail recounts the astonishing deeds of a man who must remain nameless for security reasons: a British ex-marine who was having coffee at the Westgate Shopping Center when a gang of cowardly terrorist thugs attacked. He drew his gun, leaped into action, and never stopped leaping:

A former marine emerged as a hero of the Nairobi siege yesterday after he was credited with saving up to 100 lives.

By: Raquel Okyay - 9/22/2013

One man's journey to obtain pistol permit from New York county police department finds him humiliated and dumbfounded that local government freely institutes an administrative prohibition on the Second Amendment.

The whole process is intimidating and mind-boggling, said Mark a Suffolk County resident who requested anonymity since his permit application is still being processed. I would hate to see anything happen that would prevent approval.

Having a population of about 1.5 million, Suffolk County is an affluent suburb approx. 80 miles East of New York City.

Mark said he submitted his initial two-page permit application with the Suffolk County Police Department Pistol License Bureau on Jan. 16 together with a $10 money order made payable to Suffolk County Police. The form is similar to the one needed to purchase a rifle in New York State.
However, in addition to requesting basic information such as; name, address, social security number, contact information, and criminal/mental health history, he said the application requires four reference letters from mere acquaintances. The referral cannot be a blood relative, of a spousal relationship, or a member of law enforcement.

By Charles Dharapak, AP

With a series of domestic and international crises coming to a head at once, President Obama made clear on Sunday that he won't be pouring a great deal of his own political capital into reigniting the debate on the country's gun laws.

During a memorial service, the president offered warm tributes to the 12 victims of last week's mass shooting at the Navy Yard.

But his tone also had an edge of frustration that was absent from his December remarks at the memorial honoring the victims of the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the site of the last major mass shooting in the U.S. where 20 young children and 6 adults were slain. There he choked back tears and set the goal -- which would prove to elude him -- of overhauling the nation's gun laws. In Sunday's memorial, he made clear that he's all but given up hope that he can persuade Congress.

By GOPUSA

National Rifle Association leader Wayne LaPierre said Sunday if more personnel had been armed, the Washington Navy Yard shooting would have ended sooner.

In an appearance on NBC's "Meet the Press," LaPierre, NRA executive vice president, said "there weren't enough good guys with guns" to stop Aaron Alexis, the shooter who killed 12 people at the Navy Yard.

"When the good guys got there, it stopped," LaPierre said in his first televised interview since the rampage.

John Ransom - 9/19/2013

Starbucks really knows who its customers are. And if you're not one of them, I guess you just don't count. For many people besides the good folks at Starbucks.

I can't tell you how the whole Starbucks gun controversy started. I lack sufficient brain cells to waste them on minutiae, trivia and events long forgotten, yet reported to us at the time with breathless drama by pretty blond men and women on TV.

But I know now how the controversy is going to end.

Pushy liberals are going to special plead marginal cases as they always do in order to try to curtail gun rights and laws established by federal, state and local governments.

In the face of a resounding defeat on gun control, President Obama takes 25 executive actions and there's little the NRA can do to stop them.

By Patrick Reis and Matt Vasilogambros - 9/17/2013

President Obama addressed the Navy Yard shooting before a speech on Monday from the White House. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Gun-control legislation failed loudly following the Newtown school shooting, but that has not stopped President Obama from leaving Congress behind to launch a broad gun-control campaign of his own.

Between the December 2012 massacre and the Navy Yard mass shooting Monday, Obama has taken 25 separate gun-control initiatives, all of which came from executive actions that did not require congressional authorization.

The president's highest-profile move was to nominate and get confirmed Todd Jones as director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, filling a seat that had sat empty for more than six years. But Obama has also initiated a series of quieter initiatives, including new rules to keep guns away from felons, better coordinate mental-illness screenings, and better preparing local law enforcement and schools to respond to shootings.

By Natalie Foster - 9/16/2013

Female gun ownership has surged over the past five years, and it's easy to understand why. Women who own guns consistently list the self-confidence and the sense of protection that having a firearm gives them, and the way it makes them feel in general: that rush of adrenaline, that inner strength, and perhaps even a little glamor. But nobody becomes a gun person overnight. There are many building blocks that go into making someone a gun enthusiast. For me, it was a combination of empowerment and education on the fronts of both feminism and firearms that eventually led to my passion for the Second Amendment.

As a child of the Eighties, I grew up on Wonder Woman and Supergirl and Charlie's Angels reruns. In school I was given role models like Sally Ride and Jane Goodall: women who were breaking down barriers and doing amazing things for humanity.

As for firearms, though I learned to shoot only as an adult, I cannot recall a period in my life in which my family did not have a gun in the home. The guns were always stored carefully, of course, and my parents were serious about safety, teaching my siblings and me the basic firearm rules. That exposure to guns from a young age left me unafraid: I respected their power, but never believed they had power over me.

By JW Ross

Not-so-new firearm innovations are sweeping the nation of gun enthusiasts.

The innovations (mostly stock modifications) facilitate what is known as "Bump Firing".

Bump Firing is the act of using the recoil of a semi-automatic firearm to fire multiple shots in rapid succession, which very crudely simulates the discharge of a fully automatic firearm.

This process involves holding the foregrip with the non-trigger hand, releasing the grip on the firing hand (leaving the trigger finger in its normal position in front of the trigger), pushing the rifle forward in order to apply pressure on the trigger finger from the trigger, and keeping the trigger finger stationary.

During a shot, the firearm will recoil considerably ("bump" back) and the trigger will reset itself; then the non-trigger hand would naturally force the firearm back to the original position, pressing the trigger against a stationary finger again, thereby firing successive shots.

Moderator's Comment: This is the first rejection of anti-gun proponents (elected officals) through the democratic process of "recall" in a western state.

By Associated Press - 9/11/2013 DENVER - Voters ousted two Colorado Democratic lawmakers Tuesday in the state's first ever legislative recall launched over their support for stricter gun laws after last year's mass shootings.

Senate President John Morse and Sen. Angela Giron both lost their jobs in an election seen as a national measure of popular support for gun legislation.

Morse faced a tough election in the Republican stronghold of Colorado Springs, where he won re-election by just a few hundred votes in 2010. He lost by 343 votes, with 51 percent of voters backing the recall.

By Martha T. Moore, USA TODAY - 9/9/2013
Supporters of the recall election to oust Senate President John Morse rally outside the Pioneer Museum in Colorado Springs on Sept. 4.(Photo: Michael Ciaglo, AP)

Correction: This story has been corrected to reflect that the outcome of the recall election in Colorado will not change partisan control of the state legislature. Democrats control the Colorado state Senate 20-15, and two Democrats are being challenged in the recall.

Million-dollar campaigns, saturation advertising and massive canvassing have become commonplace in U.S. elections, especially in a swing state such as Colorado. A campaign underway there has all of the above � in a recall vote for two state senators that has become a showdown over gun policy and political dominance in a changing state.

Democratic state Sens. Angela Giron and John Morse voted to require universal background checks for gun purchases and to ban large-capacity ammunition magazines. Colorado passed the restrictions in March, within a year of mass shootings in Aurora, Colo., and Newtown, Conn. Gun control opponents have mounted a campaign to kick them out of office; voting ends Tuesday.

By Chattanooga Times Free Press (TN) - 9/9/2013
A 50 percent federal tax on ammunition and a 20 percent federal tax on guns -- up from 11 percent on both now -- has been proposed by two Democratic lawmakers in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Revenue from the steep new taxes in "The Gun Violence Prevention and Safe Communities Act of 2013," introduced by U.S. Reps. Danny K. Davis, D-Ill., and Bill Pascrell, D-N.J., would be earmarked to pay for such things as school resource officers and programs to reduce violence.

The bill likely won't make it out of the Republican-controlled U.S. House -- but it has caught the attention of local firearms enthusiasts.

NRA - September 6, 2013

Yesterday, the Oklahoma House of Representatives voted 92-0 to approve House Bill 1004, authored by state Representative T.W. Shannon (R-62) and state Senators Brian Bingman (R-3) and Anthony Sykes (R-24). HB 1004 contains critical protections against attempts to bankrupt the American firearms industry through erroneous lawsuits that would threaten the availability of firearms to consumers.

By Luchina Fisher - 7/292008

The scene is a sprawling estate in southern France. Two men dressed in camouflage slip onto the grounds carrying sophisticated recording equipment. The targets, actors Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, are unaware of the lurking menace, which is quickly dispatched by an elite security team who ambush the intruders.

That was no Hollywood script. It took place last week at the Brangelina home, where the most hunted celebrity couple in the world were relaxing with their six children, including newborn twins Vivienne Marcheline and Knox Leon.

The men in camo were paparazzi.

By Richard L. Johnson - 8/29/2013

Maybe you've heard the internet tough guy on the local gun forum talking about being prepared for when the big one hits. What the big one is in his mind is anyone's guess, but other than some really cool airsoft equipment this guy picked up on eBay, he isn't likely to be prepared for the reality of a true survival situation.

A disaster could mean any number of things from losing a job to a nuclear attack. For the purposes of this article, lets focus on the localized disaster where normal services will be interrupted for a few days to a few weeks. This could be a hurricane that hits south Florida, an earthquake in the San Francisco Bay area or a tornado in the Midwest.

In any of these events, you can expect to lose communications, access to stores and a loss of utilities. While the readers of this column are more likely than the general population to provide for their own protection, there are a number of other things to consider beyond looting and civil disorder.

By Michelle Malkin - 9/4/2013

Out: The boy who cried wolf. In: The girl who cried birth control. Desperate Democrats are imposing false-alarm feminist politics on a high-stakes recall election in Colorado this month. It's a golden opportunity for independent-minded women to reject empty femme-a-goguery and tear up the Sandra Fluke card.

On September 10, Colorado Springs and Pueblo will decide whether to boot two top state Democrats (state Senate Majority Leader John Morse and state Sen. Angela Giron) over their support for radical gun- and ammo-control measures spearheaded by outside special interests. Left-wing billionaires Michael Bloomberg of New York City and Eli Broad of Detroit have poured $700,000 between them into defending the endangered Colorado Democrats.

By: John Stossel - 8/21/2013
We need police to catch murderers, thieves and con men, and so we give them special power the power to use force on others. Sadly, today's police use that power to invade people�s homes over accusations of trivial, nonviolent offenses and often do it with tanks, battering rams and armor you'd expect on b attlefields.

In his book "Rise of the Warrior Cop", Radley Balko recounts the rise of police SWAT teams (SWAT stands for Special Weapons And Tactics) armed with heavy military equipment. SWAT raids began as rarely used methods of dealing with violent situations, like hostage-takings.

But government always grows.

In the 1970s, there were about 300 SWAT raids per year. As of 2005, says Balko, 100 to 150 per day.

By George Mathis

There are people that love children and people that love guns.

Some people love both, and will admit as much even in the throes of tragedy.

A 3-year-old Michigan boy, Damon Holbrook, died from a gunshot wound Sunday after finding a loaded gun in a bedroom closet.

By Richard L. Johnson - 8/18/2013

Smart consumers will frequently shop around before making a major purchase. With the advent of e-commerce, gun owners have an unprecedented ability to compare prices and services online.

Unfortunately, there are also an unprecedented number of people looking to make a quick buck by selling you a counterfeit product that looks like the real deal. Some consumers might unknowingly buy a knock-off thinking it is the genuine article. Others might know it is counterfeit, but can't resist the low price.

Lets take a look at some of the problems associated with counterfeit products.

By Seattle Times (WA) - 8/19/2013

Shirts and shoes required, and guns prohibited?

Mayor Mike McGinn plans to unveil a program Monday to encourage Seattle businesses to go "gun free" by not allowing customers to carry firearms inside their establishments.

About a dozen businesses have already signed up for a "Gun Free Zone" decal, including Cafe Racer, where a customer shot and killed four others last year. Other participants include Neumos, Oddfellows Cafe & Bar, Sweatbox Yoga and Cupcake Royale, with more expected in the coming days.

"This is something businesses can do to be on the front lines of preventing gun violence," said Ralph Fascitelli, board president of Washington CeaseFire, a gun-control group that approached McGinn three months ago with the idea and has since been recruiting participants. "It's a good incremental step."

By KPRC - 8/8/2013

A woman and her family were dining at a Denny’s in Houston, Texas when a group of six men armed with guns attempted to rob her husband while she was in the restroom. When the woman exited the restroom and spotted the hold-up, she drew a pistol and exchanged gunfire with the criminals, causing them to flee.

Following the incident, a local media outlet spoke with the victim’s brother who noted that his brother’s wife is a Right-to-Carry permit holder. The brother went on to add, “Self-defense saved my brother’s life.”

By Sharyl Attkisson - 8/14/2013
CBS News
Three more weapons from Fast and Furious have turned up at crime scenes in Mexico, CBS News has learned, as the toll from the controversial federal operation grows.

According to Justice Department tracing documents obtained by CBS News, all three guns are WASR-10 762-caliber Romanian rifles. Two were purchased by Fast and Furious suspect Uriel Patino in May and July of 2010. Sean Steward, who was convicted on gun charges in July 2012, purchased a third. The rifles were traced yesterday to the Lone Wolf gun shop in Glendale, Ariz.

During Fast and Furious and similar operations, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) encouraged the Lone Wolf and other gun stores to sell massive amounts of weapons to questionable purchasers who allegedly trafficked them Mexican drug cartels.

By Chris Cox

It deserves bipartisan protection at every level of government

Your right to defend your life and the lives of your loved ones when faced with a deadly threat is not bestowed on you by government. Indeed, self-defense is the most fundamental of all human rights, and it's the duty of our elected officials to preserve it.

That is why the 5 million men and women of the National Rifle Association will not allow self-defense to be used as a scapegoat so that President Obama and his administration can continue to exploit tragedies to push their political agenda. We will continue to defend the right of every law-abiding American regardless of race, color and creed to defend themselves and one another.

Attorney General Eric Holder shockingly claimed that pro-self-defense laws "sow conflict." Last week, President Obama demonstrated that he, too, does not recognize that your right to save your own life is a fundamental human right.

By Jim Fitzgerald - 8/7/2013
(AP)Associated Press
A firearms manufacturer in New York, partially blaming the state's new gun control law, said Wednesday it's moving its corporate offices and its plans for expansion to Pennsylvania.

Kahr Firearms Group of Pearl River is the first gunmaker to announce it's leaving because of the Secure Ammunition and Firearms Enforcement Act, which was put into law after closed-door negotiations in January. It was the first law in the nation prompted by the killing of 20 first-graders and six educators in Newtown, Conn., in December.

By Jeremy A. Kaplan - 8/8/2013
FoxNews.com
Reports of a Canadian man successfully firing 14 single rounds from a rifle manufactured by a 3D rinter has the weapon's American designer wondering whether the apparent breakthrough will force the U.S. government to rethink its ban on posting his plans online.

While early models based on firearms designer Cody Wilson's plans backfired or fired only once before breaking, the latest test appears to prove that homemade plastic guns are viable -- and that the Internet may have dramatically changed how we look at regulating the trade in arms.

I'm expecting some interesting decisions from the State Department soon regarding the legal status of the disclosures of the plans, Wilson told FoxNews.com Thursday.

By Sun Journal (Lewiston, ME) - 8/7/2013

We can't imagine why a 20-year-old man was carrying around a toy gun Thursday night in Farmington, but he must have had his reasons.

Instead of a night on the town with his toy pistol, John Cushman ended up at the Franklin County Detention Center charged with terrorizing.

Cushman "made lots of people nervous," according to Deputy Chief Shane Cote of the Farmington Police Department, as he strolled around the downtown.

Indeed.

By Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA) - 8/5/2013

Gun-related violent crime continues to drop in Virginia as the sales of firearms continue to soar, a pattern that one local criminologist finds interesting "given the current rhetoric about strengthening gun laws."

Major gun crime collectively dropped for a fourth consecutive year statewide, while firearms sales climbed to a new record in 2012 with 490,119 guns purchased in 444,844 transactions -- a 16 percent rise over 2011, according to federally licensed gun dealer sales estimates obtained by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

The proliferation of guns occurred as the total number of major reported crimes committed with all types of firearms in Virginia dropped 5 percent, from 4,618 offenses in 2011 to 4,378 last year, according to Virginia State Police data.

Looking back over seven years, total firearm sales in Virginia have risen a staggering 101 percent from 2006 to 2012, while gun-related crime has dropped 28 percent during that period.

By Jack Baruthon - 12/26/2012

Two days ago, a man whom I've known and respected for over a decade launched into a more than slightly incoherent Facebook rant in which he explicitly blamed the NRA and law-abiding civilian shooters for the Newtown killings. Those children died, he wrote, so you could have your toys without any reasonable restrictions. I didn't know how to respond to the post.

After all, none of the reasonable restrictions now being proposed would have prevented Adam Lanza's affluent, well-educated mother from purchasing a gun. I tried pointing that out to my friend, only to have him dismiss me as a gun nut. Although he's normally a reasonable fellow, since Newtown happened he's clearly decided to let emotion take the wheel, at least for now. He's not the only intelligent person I've seen swept away towards irrationality in the past two weeks. Again and again, I've heard that reasonable gun control is now necessary, even inevitable. In my struggles to understand this, I thought back to World War II and the failure of what was perhaps the first-ever government-sponsored zip gun . . .The FP-45 Liberator.

By Robert A. Dahlquist

California Sen. Dianne Feinstein is proposing an AR-style rifle ban while ignoring school security to save our children. Yet on this 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, she doesnt mention the 54 million abortions conducted in this country nor show remorse for this disrespect for human life.

Speeches at every Democratic National Convention reference abortion or a pro-choice platform to huge cheers from the rabid convention hall audience. Mother Teresa identified abortion as the greatest destroyer of peace today because it is a war against children, a direct killing of the innocent child, murder by the mother herself. If a mother can kill her own child and then tell young people not to kill one another, it is the ultimate hypocrisy in the eyes of the young.

By The Cleveland Plain Dealer, Cleveland, Ohio - 7/29/2013

Timothy Peak and a female companion were getting inside a car in his driveway in Cleveland, Ohio when a pair of armed and masked men confronted them. After one of the criminals pistol-whipped Peak, the homeowner and Right-to-Carry permit holder retrieved a handgun from his car and fired at his attacker multiple times, killing him. The deceased criminal's accomplice managed to escape the scene with Peak's companion's purse.

Following the incident, Cleveland Councilman Mike Polensek showed support for Peak's actions, stating As far as I'm concerned, [the criminal] got exactly what he deserved lead poisoning. Polensek went on to say of the homeowner, If he hadn't had that gun, we'd be reading about him in a two paragraph story in the paper as another innocent victim of violent criminals looking to prey on him like jackals. [the criminal] picked on the wrong man this time.

By McClatchy-TribuneWinston-Salem Journal - 7/30/20

Gun suppressors are now legal for hunting in North Carolina.

For decades, the closest most people got to a gun suppressor those metal cylinders that reduce a gun's bang was seeing one on a movie screen in the hands of an assassin or gangster.

But sweeping gun legislation has made suppressors, also known as silencers, legal for hunting in North Carolina. Law enforcement authorities are now trying to figure out how to shape polices to implement the new law.

Last week, the N.C. legislature passed a far-reaching bill that expands the places where permit holders can legally carry concealed weapons, including bars, restaurants and parks. But the legislation also deleted a provision that prohibited hunters from using suppressors.

Internal Security Minister Aharonovich announces reform to reduce number of available weapons in Israel from 290,000 amid wave of murders, suicides

By Omri Efraim - 7/31/2013
Israel News
This year, 11 individuals were murdered and five committed suicide in Israel using privately owned weapons, said Internal Security Minister Yizhak Aharonovich Wednesday.

At a meeting of the the Internal Affairs Committee on reducing weapons, headed by MK Miri Regev, Aharonovich stated that as part of the gun reform in Israel, anyone who wishes to receive a gun permit will be required to undergo a medical and psychological examination. "If they won't pass the psychologist's test, they'll have to see a psychiatrist," he said.

The minister announced that a new police order will be introduced under which an individual who has not renewed his license in over six months will be subject to criminal investigation. Aharonovich said that over 290,000 guns are in the hands of private individuals and security guards, and that he strives to lower that number.

Pew pollsters find people who want more gun restrictions don't vote with their wallets
By Elizabeth Flock - 7/29/2013

Poll also found that gun rights activists are more politically involved than gun control supporters.

Gun rights supporters donate four times more and are more politically involved than gun control advocates, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center published this weekend.

In May 2013, six months after the Newtown school shooting that sparked a national conversation on guns � and a month after the Senate failed to pass a major gun bill � Pew found that 25 percent of people who support gun rights had contributed money to a second amendment group, while just 6 percent of people who support gun control had donated on the issue.

By Associated Press - 7/30/2013

As Cheyne Dougan rounded the corner at Clarksville High School, he saw three students on the floor moaning and crying.
In a split-second, two more ran out of a nearby classroom.

"He's got a gun," one of them shouted as Dougan approached with his pistol drawn. Inside, he found one student holding another at gunpoint. Dougan aimed and fired three rounds at the gunman.

Preparing for such scenarios has become common for police after a school shooting in Connecticut last December left 20 children and six teachers dead. But Dougan is no policeman. He's the assistant principal of this school in Arkansas, and when classes resume in August, he will walk the halls with a 9 mm handgun.

By Montgomery Advertiser (AL) - 7/25/2013
A Democratic lawmaker said Tuesday there would be an effort to repeal Alabama's version of Florida's Stand Your Ground law in the next legislative session, but acknowledged it could be a difficult fight.

"We know it will not just be uphill, but up mountain," said Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, at a news conference.

The Stand Your Ground law came into focus following the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old Florida teen, on Feb. 26, 2012. George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer, was acquitted earlier this month of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges in Martin's death.

By The Canadian Press - 7/23/2013
Quebec has come out on the losing side yet again in its gun-registry battle with Ottawa.

The province's highest court has dismissed a Quebec government bid to force Ottawa to keep data related to the federal long-gun registry.

The same court ruled last month that the federal government's destruction of the data was constitutional.

By Jeremy Gorner - 7/24/2013
Chicago Tribune

More of a hub of violent crime than a shopping destination?

That's what the volunteer anti-crime group Guardian Angels claimed Tuesday as it handed out fliers referring to the elegant stretch of North Michigan Avenue as "Muggers Mile."

But Chicago police quickly panned the Guardian Angels' concerns as overblown. The department's crime data suggest strong-arm robberies, like the most recent high-profile one last weekend, have dropped sharply over the past couple of years, according to a Tribune analysis.

The move by the Guardian Angels came after a group of teens on Michigan Avenue mugged a woman from Michigan, stealing her iPhone, and punched a 15-year-old girl from Florida who tried to intervene Friday night.

By Don Babwin - 7/20/2013
Associated Press

CHICAGO — Faced with a new state law that gave them until Friday to ban or restrict assault weapons, the vast majority of villages, towns and cities in Illinois did nothing but let the deadline come and go.

On Friday, the Chicago suburb of Winnetka became one of the last communities to get something on the books, when it approved an ordinance that, while not banning assault weapons, regulates how they are transported and stored. It joined the fewer than 20 municipalities that rushed to enact a restriction within 10 days allowed by the state's new concealed carry gun legislation. That's out of 1,300 municipalities around the state.

By Cooper Sterling - 7/18/2013

. . .A Tale of Two Trials: What the George Zimmerman and O.J. Simpson Verdicts Reveal About Racial Denial

One transparent outcome of the “not guilty” verdict in the George Zimmerman trial is the racial disconnect between the average American and the nation’s powerful elites (the mass media, politicians, and “civil rights” leaders). The ever-widening gulf between racial reality and racial fantasy—the daily repetition of Black violence in contrast with the media-driven narrative of nonstop injustices of an oppressed minority—seems more pronounced in the wake of the Zimmerman verdict.

We live in an era of extreme racial denial. The nation’s media and political elites—what Joseph Sobran termed the “hive”—live in a fantasy realm that dismisses latent racial differences, an existence defined by unrealistic egalitarianism and hyper-liberalism; racial disparities are merely symptomatic of the lingering impact of slavery, racism, and discrimination. The emphasis is always on some inanimate object—“mean” streets, “gun” violence, “epidemic of violence,” “crack” cocaine, “heat waves,” “underfunding” of Head Start, the lack of upward “middle class mobility”; or the fault of law enforcement—“police brutality,” “deficient” law enforcement strategies, “racial profiling,” or “Stand Your Ground” laws.

By David T Hardy - 7/18/2013

. . . .The anti-gun crowd doesn't want "compromise." They want confiscation and control.

In April, the Senate rejected the Toomey-Manchin gun control proposal. In the wake of its defeat many asked why gun owners and their organizations resisted so limited a measure. Granted, it would have had little but symbolic benefit. Its core was to require background checks at gun shows (which Bureau of Justice Statistics concluded involved a whole 0.8 percent of crime guns) and on Internet gun sales (a miniscule proportion, most of which probably go through licensed dealers anyway). But why not accept something so modest, in light of the draconian ideas then being floated as alternatives?

Understanding the rejection requires understanding gun owners'shared experiences. Compromise requires that both parties relinquish something. If your counterparts position is give me this now, and I'll take the rest later, there is no real compromise to be had. Over decades, that has been precisely the experience of American gun owners.

By Kim Hilsenbeck
Walking along Goforth Road in Buda last week, two young adults carrying rifles on their backs created quite a stir. But the aftermath may be even more controversial.

Part of a group call Open Carry Texas, which, on the internet, seems to be associated with Opencarry.org, the two young adults were trying to make a statement, videotaping their interaction with police and posting it on YouTube.

What statement? That, by law, they are allowed to openly carry long guns in Texas.

7/16/2013

In 1994, the United States was home to about 200 million privately owned guns. Today, that number has ballooned to between 270 million and 300 million. That's almost half of all privately owned guns worldwide, according to a new essay from the Brookings Institution.

By USA Today - 7/17/2013

Would George Zimmerman have left his car if he hadn't been carrying a gun?

Gun control advocates argue that Zimmerman's Kel-Tec PF-9 brought out his inner Dirty Harry, leading to the tragic shooting of a Florida teen. They reckon restricting firearms ownership would prevent this kind of murderous machismo, making both individuals and society safer.

It's an insidious, irrelevant argument that betrays a profound ignorance of the truth about guns.

Whatever you think about Zimmerman's decision to exit his vehicle, there's no question he had the legal right to do so. Also beyond dispute: Zimmerman was motivated by a desire to safeguard his neighborhood.

The legally carried firearm resting on Zimmerman's hip was there to protect life, not project personal power or facilitate a "hate crime." Don't take my word for it. Lest we forget, a Florida jury accepted his lawyers' argument that their client acted in self-defense.

By Paul Craig Roberts - 7/15/2013

Are Citizens of the U.S. oppressed by an illegitimate ruling government?

The American people have suffered a coup d'etat, but they are hesitant to acknowledge it. The regime ruling in Washington today lacks constitutional and legal legitimacy. Americans are ruled by usurpers who claim that the executive branch is above the law and that the US Constitution is a mere scrap of paper.

An unconstitutional government is an illegitimate government. The oath of allegiance requires defense of the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. As the Founding Fathers made clear, the main enemy of the Constitution is the government itself. Power does not like to be bound and tied down and constantly works to free itself from constraints.

The basis of the regime in Washington is nothing but usurped power. The Obama Regime, like the Bush/Cheney Regime, has no legitimacy. Americans are oppressed by an illegitimate government ruling, not by law and the Constitution, but by lies and naked force. Those in government see the US Constitution as a chain that binds our hands.

By Orlando Sentinel (FL) - 7/17/2013

ORLANDO, Fla. - U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, the nation's first black to hold that post, urged NAACP members convening in Orlando on Tuesday to help overturn stand-your-ground laws that "senselessly expand the concept of self-defense."

The law was expected to be at the center of the second-degree-murder trial of George Zimmerman in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, but it was not raised at trial. The issue did surface when Zimmerman was arrested.

Rather than prevent violence, Holder said, such laws can encourage it.

"We must stand our ground," Holder said to thunderous applause, "to ensure our laws reduce violence."

US Georgia police chief: Gun control talk all wrong

By Raquel Okyay - 7/14/2013

The new police chief for a Georgia county that includes 10 percent of Atlanta, Cedric L. Alexander told Guns & Patriots Americans need to hit the reset button when they talk about gun rights and responsibilities.

Today, we have a total disrespect for firearms, said Dr. Cedric L. Alexander, recently appointed chief of the DeKalb County police department. DeKalb County is Georgia's third largest county with more than 730,000 residents.

There is no easy solution to ending gun violence, he said. Unfortunately we are talking about the wrong things.

By Richard L. Johnson - 7/14/2013
When Dirty Harry hit the scene in 1971, the .44 Magnum forever became pop culture's most powerful handgun. But, when dealing in terms of self-defense, more power isn't necessarily better. In fact, there are many people who argue the .44 Magnum is a poor choice for personal protection from a violent attack by a human due to the recoil and deep penetration associated with the cartridge. I believe the Magnum's parent cartridge, the .44 Special, is a better choice for self-defense.

The .44 Special was developed by Smith & Wesson in the early 1900s to replace the .44 Russian cartridge. The .44 Russian was a respected blackpowder cartridge, but the case was too small to directly convert to smokeless powder. S&W lengthened the case of the Russian, made adjustments to the powder charge and used the same bullets as the Russian in the Special. The result was a cartridge that is widely regarded as being one of the most accurate big-bore handgun cartridges.

By Elizabeth Flock - 7/11/2013

The American Rifle and Pistol Association wants to be a nonpartisan alternative to the NRA, but critics are calling it a Democratic gun control group.

When the American Rifle and Pistol Association launched July 4, it hoped to attract gun owners across the political spectrum who were looking for a "sane" alternative to the NRA. So far, that effort doesn't appear to be going well.

On various gun forums and blogs, the reception has been anything but friendly. Instead of being depicted as the new and improved NRA, the group has been described alternately as a "false flag group," "astroturf phonies" and "frauds."

Blog Commentator - There is a troubling number of "Brown Shirt" events occurring throughout the US under the Obama adminstration - Not dissimilar to those in the 1930s in Nazi Germany.

By: Raquel Okyay 7/10/2013

Popular libertarian and gun rights’ activist is arrested July 9 after publishing YouTube video loading and cocking a shot-gun between the White House and Capitol building.

“The United States Park Police are terrorist thugs,” said Liz Delish, the producer of Adam vs. The Man, a daily video podcast featuring peaceful activist, Adam Charles Kokesh. USPP functions as a full-service federal law enforcement agency with responsibilities and jurisdiction over federal public parks.

Kokesh released July 4 a short YouTube video calling for an open carry march on Washington for July 4, 2014. The video was allegedly taken at Freedom Plaza, a few blocks from the White House which falls under the jurisdiction of USPP.

During the 21-second video, Kokesh loaded and cocked what appears to be a shotgun, which launched a federal investigation because carrying a firearm on public property is a felony at our nation’s capitol.

By Christopher G. Adamo - 7/10/2013

In 1776, the thirteen American colonies declared themselves free and independent states and during the decade following emerged victorious against Great Britain in the Revolutionary War. They then proceeded to ratify the Constitution, thereby establishing the fledgling United States of America. And although that era was marked by its own series of trials and challenges, the nation overcame them and was thus set on the course to eventually becoming a world power.

Bolstered by the glorious success of the Americans, the revolutionaries of France decided to undertake their own societal makeover, expelling the monarchy and eschewing such mundane and inconvenient traditions as the Church. In their place, these revolutionaries established a government of citizens, espousing liberty, equality, and brotherhood as their defining ideals. The Judeo-Christian ethic, which had guided Americas founders in their creation of the Constitution, was merely an inconvenient impediment to the philosophically superior French. Surely, in the absence of those stodgy clerics and their dreary thou shalt not proscriptions, the freedom and happiness of the common people could be expanded to a degree never imagined, even by the Americans.

By NRA-ILA

A pair of armed robbers entered a Kangaroo convenience store in Mount Pleasant, S.C. and demanded money from the clerk. Despite the clerk complying with the demand, one of the criminals fired at the employee while leaving, grazing his arm. However, also inside the store was a Right-to-Carry permit holder, who drew a pistol and confronted the robbers as they were leaving. Upon seeing the armed citizen, one of the criminals surrendered and waited for police to arrive, while the other fled on foot only to be captured by U.S. Marshals the next day.

Following an investigation, law enforcement officials now believes the duo is responsible for a rash of convenience store robberies in the Mount Pleasant area.

By William Saletan

Background checks are back. Last month, Vice President Joe Biden said that five U.S. senators - enough to change the outcome - have told him they're looking for a way to switch their votes and pass legislation requiring a criminal background check for the purchase of a firearm. Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat who led the fight for the bill, is firing back at the National Rifle Association with a new TV ad. The White House, emboldened by polls that indicate damage to senators who voted against the bill, is pushing Congress to reconsider it.

The gun control debate is certainly worth reopening. But if we're going to reopen it, let's not just rethink the politics. Earlier this year, President Barack Obama ordered the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to assess the existing research on gun violence and recommend future studies. That report, prepared by the Institute of Medicine and the National Research Council, is now complete. Its findings won't entirely please the Obama administration or the NRA, but all of us should consider them. Here's a list of the 10 most salient or surprising takeaways.

By Thomas Sowell - 7/2/2013

When teenage thugs are called “troubled youth” by people on the political left, that tells us more about the mindset of the left than about these young hoodlums.

Seldom is there a speck of evidence that the thugs are troubled, and often there is ample evidence that they are in fact enjoying themselves, as they create trouble and dangers for others.

Why then the built-in excuse, when juvenile hoodlums are called “troubled youth” and mass murderers are just assumed to be “insane”?

Gun-friendly states court gunmakers

By Jason Rearick/USA Today - 7/1/2013

More than a year removed from his failed bid for the Republican presidential nomination, Texas Gov. Rick Perry is a headliner in a new and equally crowded campaign.

Perry and governors representing other gun-friendly states are aggressively attempting to lure gunmakers, suppliers and other vendors away from Connecticut and the surrounding region, which for generations has drawn much of its identity from the firearms industry.

Two weeks ago, Perry made one of the boldest public splashes, hosting gunmakers at a posh Hartford restaurant reception.

By Gazette (Colorado Springs, CO) - 7/1/2013

DENVER -- New Colorado gun laws linked to recall attempts aimed at two senators and a legal challenge filed by 55 county sheriffs will take effect Monday.

Starting Monday, no one will be able to buy magazines that hold more than 15 bullets. And background checks will be required for every gun sale, including those between private individuals.

It's legislation that Democrats, especially Rep. Rhonda Fields who sponsored the bills, heralded as a significant step toward keeping guns out of the hands of criminals and reducing the carnage in mass shootings.

But for Republicans -- particularly a large group of county sheriffs who lobbied against the laws at the Capitol -- the laws are the latest step in an infringement of Second Amendment rights that will do little for public safety.

One corner of the controversy is occupied by people such as Paul Paradis, owner of Paradise Sales Firearms for three decades in downtown Colorado Springs.

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Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution - Bill of Rights

Preservation and Proposition

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By Richard L. Johnson - 11/11/2013

One of the most convenient ways to carry a handgun for self-defense is in a pocket. With the right sized gun and a good pocket holster, a gun can ride comfortably and unnoticed in all but the tightest of pants. Here are my top six guns for pocket carry. Kahr PM9/CM9

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One of the most convenient ways to carry a handgun for self-defense is in a pocket. With the right sized gun and a good pocket holster, a gun can ride comfortably and unnoticed in all but the tightest of pants.

Here are my top six guns for pocket carry.

Kahr PM9/CM9