We began with the shot heard ’round the world.  How ironic will it be if the next iteration of declaring our independence comes as a result of a free people refusing to abide an overreaching centralized government coming yet again for their weapons? Everything old is new again.

Andrew Cuomo, who has his eye on a 2016 White House run — and who irreparably damaged himself when he took to shouting about bullets and deer in what will I hope prove to be his Howard Dean “yeeeeeaaaaarrrrrrghhh!” moment — hurried through legislation meant to capitalize on the death of 26 children and adults in Newtown, in the process using manufactured hysteria to whittle away the already attenuated 2nd

Jacob Sullum, Reason: Last night, by a vote of 43 to 18, the New York State Senate, which is run by a coalition of Republicans and breakaway Democrats, approved the new gun restrictions demanded last week by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, including a seven-round limit on magazines (down from 10) and a broader, California-style ban on “assault weapons.” Today the New York State Assembly, controlled by Democrats, followed suit by a vote of 104

Just like those who commit violent crimes with unregistered weapons — only without the “committed violent crimes” part.  The opposite in fact:  they keep their guns to protect themselves and their families against violent criminals who don’t much seem to care about gun control measures.  Fairness! But let’s not be too hard on the political class: to run a thriving police state, you need a steady supply of new criminals. 

You don’t say. Complying with a court order minutes before Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline, the Environmental Protection Agency yesterday released 2,100 emails received or sent by EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson on one of her non-public accounts. But which one? The name on the email account was redacted. The information provided by the EPA under court order doesn’t satisfy the man who discovered that Jackson has been using the alias “Richard

Rand Paul: Racist. Who hates children. Just like this guy.

ROS at Victory Girls argues that Hobby Lobby, far from being principled martyrs against the onslaught of a tyrannical government that has determined that religious freedom doesn’t apply to individuals, is instead a den of capitalist hypocrites who need be exposed for their posturing perfidy: Oh, sweet, sweet Hobby Lobby, holder of my heart AND my wallet…………….drop the hypocritical outrage. […] […] when I peruse the gilt aisles of cupcake

“Americans Buy Enough Guns in Last Two Months to Outfit the Entire Chinese and Indian Armies”.   God bless the rednecks, eh?  And bless Barack Obama for reminding us of the 2nd Amendment principle that Americans should indeed be armed, and present themselves as a corporate force against any threat to the Constitution and their individual liberties. Still, I wonder how many of those firearms were in fact purchased by blustery

Which is just a nice way of saying we’ve allowed ourselves to be boxed into a governmental paradigm in which the administrative state has authorities that exceed checks placed on other branches by the Constitution.  That is, we’ve created the bureaucratic army necessary for a red-tape coup, and the President and the leftists are figuring out ways to deploy them to that purpose. Again, the way out of this top-down

CNS: According to the FBI’s unified crime report, 77.3% of justifiable homicides, defined as the killing of a felon during the commission of a felony, committed by private citizens in 2011 involved firearms. That’s 201 involving a firearm out of 260 total justified homicides. For justifiable homicides committed by law enforcement officers in 2011, the number is even higher. According to the same FBI unified crime report police used firearms