| A Bullard, Texas, storeowner caught a burglar stealing narcotics from his pharmacy and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. Tom Roper, owner of O.L. Ferrell's Drug Store, heard the store's alarm sound just after 10 p.m. He discovered a man had broken through a window, entered the store and forced open a locked cabinet containing narcotics. The suspect was loading the drugs into a 30-gallon trash can when Roper confronted him. On their way to the scene police were informed that the owner was holding the suspect at gunpoint, said Bullard Police Chief Gary Lewis. (7'yler Morning Telegraph, Tyler, TX, 09/20/02)
A McKinney, Texas, doctor has his wife's quick reflexes and .38-cal. revolver to thank for his life. Dr. and Mrs. Avery were returning from a gun show to their rural home when the doctor backed his car into the driveway and a small, green car pulled in. A strange man emerged holding a rifle. He ordered Dr. Avery out of his car and pushed him to the ground, holding the rifle to the doctor's head. Mrs. Avery quickly drew her revolver and fired five shots at the assailant, possibly hitting him at least once. The gunman returned fire, hitting the Avery's vehicle several times, then sped away in his car. Police later recovered an abandoned green car with a bullet hole in the window and blood on the seat, but had not apprehended the gunman (Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX, 09/ 11/02)
A Kent, Wash., jewelry store owner decided he'd had enough and wasn't going to take it anymore. Chuck Hohner waited on a customer one Friday for about a half hour when the man said he'd be back on Saturday to make a purchase. When the man returned the next day, the jeweler opened the secured door to let him in. Then the man pulled a revolver and forced Hohner to the back of the store where he tied him up with plastic ties and made him lie face down on the floor. "A pretty vulnerable feeling," said Hohner. "My life was really on the line." The jeweler was able to get his hands free, but waited until the robber was occupied pulling merchandise from the showcases. Then Hohner sprang into action, jumping to his feet, grabbing a shotgun and firing at the robber. The suspect fired four shots at Hohner, but the owner wasn't injured. "I just started letting loose toward the door" as the crook made his way toward the exit, Hohner recounted. "Cock it, shoot it, take a few steps." The robber escaped, but may have been injured. Hohner said he was scared, but could not just lie there. "I come from that old school that says you take care of your family, your property, your neighbors and your country." (South County Journal, Kent, WA, 09/24/02)
An 89-year-old Rochester, N.Y., man shot and killed an intruder who broke into his home in an apparent burglary attempt. Alfred Thompson said he was watching television early one morning when he heard someone break in through a side door. He saw the man's silhouette in the darkened kitchen and fired a .22-cal. gun twice, hitting the man in the chest. Thompson said the two exchanged no words, but the intruder seemed wild, as if he were on drugs. Thompson added that he was fearful for his safety. (Democrat and Chronicle, Rochester, NY, 09/18/02)
A woman armed with a handgun scared off an attacker who assaulted her as she entered a Bossier City, La., daycare center. The woman was just walking into the Old MacDonald's Day Care on a Saturday afternoon when a man came up behind her and began beating her. The woman was able to draw a small-caliber handgun from her purse and fire a shot, scaring off her assailant. (The Times, Shreveport, LA, 09/08/02)
A Randolph, Mass., resident caught a man breaking into his vehicle and held him at gunpoint until police arrived. The incident took place about I a.m. when a man broke into a car, setting off the alarm. The owner heard the alarm sound, armed himself and confronted the suspect. "The owner held the defendant there until police arrived," stated Randolph Police Lt. Arthur Sullivan. Police recovered a woman's wallet and other valuables that had been taken from the vehicle. (The Patriot Ledger, Quincy, MA, 09/02/02)
Pompano Beach, Fla., City Commissioner Lamar Fisher, his wife and two children were awakened when they heard the sounds of glass shattering. Grabbing his handgun, Fisher went to investigate and discovered a man in his underwear trying to enter the living room through a window. Fisher tried to push the intruder out with a TV tray, but the man would not be deterred. During the struggle, Fisher fired a shot at the man. When sheriff's deputies arrived in response to Mrs. Fisher's call, it took three officers to arrest the man, who turned out to be Fisher's neighbor, John Francis Laughlin. Records show Laughlin had two prior arrests on drug-related charges. (South Florida Sun-Sentinel, Fort Lauderdale, FL, 9/11/02) |
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Since our founding, the National Rifle Association membership has been joined by millions of Americans representing all walks of life. Though we surely have counted among us the famous and politically powerful, we are essentially an association of ordinary citizens who are bound by an unwavering will to fight to maintain our unique liberty. We are Americans who understand that we have inherited a unique liberty that was born of three simple words: "WE THE PEOPLE." In an association graced by the bedrock goodness and collective strength of ordinary Americans, Charlton Heston is an extraordinary, yet ordinary man - a man of the people. Though he has achieved remarkable greatness and fame in his life, he is one of the most humble persons any of us will ever meet. As an NRA member, he is one of us through and through. He has never lost sight of his simple Michigan roots. He has never lost sight of what is truly important in life: faith, family and freedom. He possesses great personal courage, political wit, wisdom and an ability to speak the truth with unique clarity. He has used his talents to help create what President Ronald Reagan called an "informed patriotism." It is Chuck Heston's courage and honesty of thought that has opened people's hearts and minds to his message about NRA and what we stand for - protection of Americans' civil rights. Because of his dedication to the cause of firearm rights - to our liberty - Charlton Heston, as a political force in American life, has been treated with disrespect and condescension by the national media elite. Much of that is because they know what he brings to our cause. Actor Richard Dreyfuss - no friend of the Second Amendment - recently paid homage in the National Review Online and other venues to Charlton Heston, saying, "The actor either gets you to where you have to go, or not. Heston did; priceless. He could portray greatness, which is no longer an artistic goal; he could portray a grandeur that was so satisfying. What he was able to personify so perfectly for us was a vision of ourselves called heroic. "Is this out of favor? Out of step? Antique? Yes. Antique as in gorgeous, incredibly valuable, and not produced anymore." But the Dreyfuss tribute was remarkable in what he said about the media disdain for Charlton Heston's deep commitment to the causes he holds so dear. "It has become fashionable to characterize his politics, almost as if they were separate from him. People are either defensive or patronizing (if not contemptuous). I can only say I wish all the liberals and all the conservatives I knew had the class and forbearance he has. Would I be as patient or serene when so many had showed me such contempt, or tried to make me feel stupid or small? I doubt it. This is dignity, simply and completely. A much more important quality than political passion at the end of the day, and far more lacking, don't you think?" Since his announcement about the state of his health, Mr. Heston has received tens of thousands of letters from well-wishers. I would share the words of one - from Mrs. Diane Henebry of Peachtree City, Ga. - a note that goes to the heart of what Charlton Heston stands for. With her letter, Mrs. Henebry, with justified pride, enclosed photos of her three sons - gifted young men doing well in life. "When you speak out for freedom, you speak for them and their future. Know that it is also their friends and every other son and daughter in this country that you are defending. "There are many parents like us today who are raising fine young sons and daughters. These young people need role models to help them develop into good citizens who respect others and value honor and integrity. They need role models to show them that the right road is not always the easy road. They need role models who teach by example, not empty words and false promises. Thank you for being that role model. Your courage under fire is helping all the young people in this country retain the freedom our forefathers had the wisdom to protect. Not everyone can be a leader. You, sir, are a leader." She closed with, "As you and your family face the uncertain and challenging days ahead, please take comfort in the knowledge that you have made a difference in the lives of so many." No truer words could have been said of a man whose selfless contributions and sacrifices to our nation have been made in the unshakable belief that America is Freedom. |
In the months and weeks before
the November elections, thousands of American families had the great
pleasure of seeing and hearing Charlton Heston speak out for NRA's
fight to save American liberty. For those of us who have traveled
with him, it has been a deeply moving life experience. His efforts
on NRA's behalf have been made at great personal sacrifice, but you
will never hear any such words from him. What he has done and will
continue to do for our cause is achieved with a singular grace - something
that just comes naturally to him.
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Hours after U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft correctly observed last spring that the Second Amendment refers to an individual right, the gun-ban partisans went into hysterical histrionics. USA Today shrilled, "The Justice Department wants to make personal gun possession a constitutional right." And Eric Lichthlau in the Los Angeles Times wrote, "The Justice Department has declared that the Constitution gives individuals the right to own a gun." But even in their opposition these critics just don't get it: The Justice Department can't "make personal gun possession a right." It already is a right! And the Constitution doesn't "give individuals the right" - the right belonged to individuals before the Constitution even existed. To say that the Constitution "gives" citizens their freedom is like saying that a birth certificate gives humans life or that a property survey gives a building and its grounds their concrete existence. The Bill of Rights, the birth certificate and the property survey all simply recognize what already exists. And even if any of those documents were destroyed, you'd still be alive, your house would still be standing and Americans would still be "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights," as our Declaration of Independence states. Indeed, the notion that individuals have certain fundamental, natural rights was so firmly established in the cultural and legal traditions of America that it wasn't until the 20th century that anyone even proposed the idea that the Right to Arms applied not to citizens, but to the state. But that's exactly what they're doing now - trying to misrepresent the meaning of the word "militia" in the Second Amendment, and thus argue that the Right to Arms doesn't apply to individuals, but to the government or to the states, to some nebulous notion of "collective society." In the New York Times, Stanford University professor Jack Rakove wrote: "The [Second] amendment refers to the right of the people, rather than the individual person of the Fifth Amendment." Now, I may not be a professor, but I don't know why the framers of the Constitution would have used the words "the right of the people" to mean a power of government. Nor do I know why they might have meant "the people" to refer to individual citizens in the First, Fourth, Ninth and Tenth Amendments - and then meant "the people" to refer to the state in the Second Amendment. Anyone who claims that the militia begins and ends with the National Guard is either laughably misinformed or lying. The National Guard didn't exist until more than a century after the Constitution was ratified. What's more, the National Guard amounts to a standing state army - and in times of emergency falls under federal control. Any high school civics student can tell you this is hardly the "militia" that the framers had in mind as a safeguard against a tyrannical national government. As George Mason, the father of the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution, said, "I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people." Our laws reflect that fact. Under U.S. Code (Title 10, Section 311), the "militia" is made up of two halves: the "organized militia," which is the National Guard; and the "unorganized militia," which is every male citizen between ages 17 and 45. The gun-ban lobby and its media allies know they can't change history and they can't change the law. So they're trying to rewrite history through little lies and misrepresentations. What they hope is that over time, with enough repetition, Americans will grow accustomed to them, and their little lies will become the larger truth for future generations. We owe it to the framers, and to the generations of Americans who've fought and died to protect our freedoms, not to surrender them to the anti-gunners' word games now. |
Those who want to ban firearm
ownership in America know they can't do so with our current Constitution.
They also know most Americans support the Right to Keep and Bear
Arms. So instead of trying to amend the Constitution through constitutional
means, they're trying to subvert and pervert it by misrepresenting
its meaning. Like engineers of disinformation, they're taking
key concepts from our U.S. Constitution and turning them upside-down,
insisting that the Bill of Rights "gives" Americans
their freedom and that the Second Amendment refers not to individual
citizens, but to the state. But they're wrong on both counts.
Americans who cherish their freedoms need to debunk and denounce
those misrepresentations for the lies that they are.