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David Franklin's crime spree through a Milwaukee, Wisc., neighborhood was cut short when one of his intended victims produced a gun and shot him. Milwaukee police said Franklin was suspected in six break-ins within blocks of his home. He apparently chose to break into homes where women lived; and if he caught a woman alone, he raped her. If the woman was not home, he would burglarize the house. Women in three of those cases were raped at gunpoint. The tables were turned on Franklin when he broke into a house and the woman resident shot him in the arm. He was arrested at a local hospital after police interrogated him as to how he had been shot. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, Milwaukee, WI, 03/29/03)
Artelia Withers, a 72-year-old Little Rock, Ark., resident, returned from a church service one night to discover her home had been burglarized. The living room window was broken, and several items, including a cell phone and a television, had been stolen. Police investigating the burglary suggested Withers, who is affectionately known as "Big Momma," stay with relatives overnight. But Withers said she was not afraid to stay in her own home, even though she suspected the burglar might return for her other television sets and VCR. Her suspicions were validated at 6:20 the following morning when a man climbed through her living room window. Withers shot the intruder twice with a .25-cal. pistol, and police arrived shortly thereafter to arrest the man, identified as Dennis Smith, a former boarder in Withers' home. Lieutenant Hayward Finks said Smith would be charged with burglary and that the shooting appeared to be justified as Withers had felt threatened. “She had every right to defend herself," Finks said. Withers reiterated that she is not afraid to stay in her home alone. "I've got another pistol," she said. (Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Little Rock, AR, 04/02/03)
When a Rocheport, Mo., woman noticed a stranger outside her home banging on her doors and windows, she dialed 9-1-1. The man then broke a window and entered the home. Upon hearing the glass break, the homeowner grabbed a pistol and went out the back door to seek shelter in her garage. When the intruder entered the garage carrying a cooler filled with beer and food he had stolen from the house, the homeowner drew her gun and held the burglar until deputies arrived to take him into custody. (Columbia Daily Tribune, Columbia, MO, 04/19/03)
Tyrone McKnight, a Charlotte, N.C., man with a record of some 30 offenses committed over eight years, picked the wrong target for what would be his last crime. McKnight broke into an East Charlotte apartment about 2:30 a.m. Resident Jerene Haron O'Neal, awake and armed, pointed a gun at McKnight and fired at least three times, according to Charlottte-Mecklenberg police. McKnight was taken to a local hospital where he later died. (The Charlotte Observer, Charlotte, NC, 04/ 10/03)
One Sunday evening, a Custer, Wash., resident noticed a strange vehicle parked near a storage shed on his property. Seeing that the shed had been broken into, he picked up a shotgun and went to investigate. As a man came out of the shed, the armed homeowner confronted him. The trespasser then grabbed a gun out of his own car and pointed it at the homeowner who responded by shooting the burglar. Sergeant John Barribal reported that the suspect, Matthew Brown, was treated for facial wounds and booked on suspicion of first-degree burglary and assault. (The Northern Light, Blaine, WA, 04/03/03)
According to New Orleans police, an armed man entered Harrison Grocery in Lakeview, La., at 8:15 a.m. and demanded money from the owner, Ambrose Plakotaris. The grocer exchanged gunfire with the would-be robber, who died later at a local hospital. Plakotaris, who suffered a gunshot wound to the arm, was treated and released. (The Times Picayune, New Orleans, LA, 04/ 18/03)
In an apparent home invasion gone wrong, suspected burglar Deandre Williams was fatally shot by his intended victim. Juan Carlos Garcia, his wife and their two small children had been sleeping when Garcia was awakened by an intruder. Arming himself with a pistol, Garcia went into the living room to investigate. There he encountered an armed man standing by the front door. When the intruder fired at Garcia, striking him in the arm, Garcia returned fire. Williams then ran outside. Garcia followed, and Williams, who was waiting for him, fired at Garcia, hitting him several times. Garcia dropped to the ground and fired one more shot, fatally wounding Williams. (The Sun, San Bernardino, CA, 04/25/03) |
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After nearly six months deliberation, the special court created by Congress to hear constitutional challenges to the onerous McCain-Feingold Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act proved it was not interested in simplicity or clarity by delivering a mind-numbing 1,600 pages—a muddy constitutional mess confusing all the questions the Supreme Court must decide. In the process, the special court delivered a below-the-belt knockout to the First Amendment, which would leave the NRA three unacceptable choices for our year-round ongoing plans to reach the general public through paid issue advocacy programming: First, require NRA to seek pre-clearance of our message by the FEC. That's censorship flat-out and has no place in America. Imagine asking a government agency funded by Congress to tell us what we are permitted to say about members of Congress. In the fast-paced legislative world, by the time we got an answer through the molasses of the bureaucracy, a battle would be over. Second, don't air anything that refers in any way to Federal office holders. The Federal Election Commission has already ruled that we can't use the popular name of legislation in information broadcasts—so, it would be a crime for NRA to alert Americans to the danger of the "Schumer bill" while the broadcast news media interviewing its allies from the gun-ban crowd could call it the "Schumer bill" all they wanted. The final choice is to risk criminal punishment for educating the public on pending issues. These impossible choices exist for all organizations such as NRA and all labor unions and, thus, directly affect the free-speech rights of scores of millions of individual Americans who pool their resources to be heard. It came about when the judicial panel declared the pre-election broadcast speech ban, challenged by the NRA, was indeed unconstitutional. Instead of leaving it at that, two members of the three judge court replaced that language with new law that bans issue advocacy year-round. As part of the majority opinion, NRA's use of paid issue advocacy broadcasts came under direct attack, and they were labeled as "sham ads." There is nothing "sham" about telling the American people the truth about phony lawsuits in which law-abiding firearm manufacturers and dealers are made to pay for the acts of totally unrelated criminal misuse of products they make and sell, or about telling the American people that so-called campaign finance reform will destroy their First Amendment freedom. There is nothing "sham" about presenting the truth to the American people—as NRA must—through paid broadcasts that hold politicians accountable and dispel their media-made myths on gun issues. We must drive that debate because big media always shut-out or twist our point of view—and big corporate broadcast media are specifically exempt from this law, being given super-sized First Amendment rights while we've been gagged. Always remember Charlton Heston standing up to the Clinton White House/big media spin machine and exposing their lies about NRA and gun ownership. We used issue ads to counter then-President Bill Clinton's outrageous attacks on NRA—attacks that big media conglomerates amplified, while ridiculing or simply ignoring NRA's point of view. Bill Clinton had the entire propaganda apparatus of the government at his disposal, and he had big media as his free megaphone. We used the power of individual citizens combined with your willingness to donate funds to exercise the right to disseminate the truth and force fairness back into the equation. The truth was heard by America, but only because together we exercised our First Amendment rights. If McCain-Feingold's ban on issue advocacy broadcasts is not stopped, such ads paid for by NRA would be silenced, and our voice would be reduced to a whisper in the wind. The First Amendment is not a right limited for a privileged few, for politicians and big media. It is the voice of the people, the man on the street. It is my voice, your voice. And it is made more powerful only by our right to associate and pool our power as individual citizens. Without NRA buying air time to counter the bias of the media, those airwaves will be the sole property of huge corporate for-profit monopolies with mouthpieces such as Dan Rather, Tom Brokaw and Peter Jennings. It will mean that the free air time always given to the lies of Handgun Control (Brady Campaign) or the Violence Policy Center will go unanswered. The principle that government can regulate or ban or criminalize speech designed to influence Americans on issues of public importance is what is at stake here. Whether it is for 30 days or 60 days or year-round, the provisions of McCain-Feingold violate our rights and trample our liberty. And that gets us back to the guiding principle that belongs to all Americans, the reason we're taking our fight to the Supreme Court: "Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of speech." |
Congress shall make no law abridging ... the freedom
of speech." Those simple, direct words of the First Amendment
to the U.S. Constitution form the basis of NRA's challenge to a law
that criminalizes speech under the guise of so-called campaign finance
reform.
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We fight for freedom, and we fight for independence, just as our founding fathers did in 1776. Our cause today is no less noble. And our enemies in the gun-ban movement are no less devious or dishonest. They distrust and despise our freedom. Their policies don't just endanger our freedom—they also threaten our independence as a people. Think about it. In terms of money, safety and liberty, the Rosie O'Donnells and Michael Moores and Hillary Clintons and Charlie Schumers of this world want you to give up your freedom, surrender your independence and hand over much of your hard-earned wages on the promise that government or society will "take care" of you. They say you shouldn't be allowed to have a gun to protect yourself. They say you can depend on the police to protect you. As a 30-year law enforcement officer and former assistant police chief, I know that just isn't true. One look at England proves it. Britons have been disarmed. British police are being outgunned. Criminal violence is out of control. And honest citizens are being jailed for defending themselves in their homes. How's that for "freedom?" How's that for "independence?" Isn't it exactly the kind of government knows-best tyranny that our founding fathers threw off when they declared independence? Our opponents say that elections are too important for groups of like-minded Americans—such as the NRA—to pool their money and fund communications to engage in political debate. They say politics is too important for anyone except politicians and the media to participate. That's how we get travesties like the so-called "campaign finance reform" law that was passed last year. But here's a law of nature you can bank on: Americans won't be shut out of the political process. We fought for that freedom two centuries ago. Generations of Americans have given their lives for that liberty since then. If Americans didn't have the right and the resolve to speak out against overreaching politicians, we never would have rebelled against King George in 1776. And whether we have to go to the Supreme Court, the election polls, or to protests in the street, the American people will not be silenced. Not now. Not ever. The most dangerous people in the world are free people who hate freedom—not just our anti-gun opponents, but all their freedom-hating allies and elites. The media elites. The Hollywood elites. The animal-rights elites. The political elites. The academic elites. The trial attorney elites. The health-care elites. They all want us to sacrifice our freedom and independence on the false promise that they'll protect us. But that's a fraud. Even if they could deliver on all the promises they make, you can bet your shirt they wouldn't. Because the fact is, they only oppose freedom for everyone except themselves. Michael Moore and Dianne Feinstein can have their guns—but don't you dare try to own one or buy one. John McCain, Russ Feingold and their media lap-dogs can participate in the electoral process—but don't you dare try to raise your voice. Congress can ignore the laws it passes—but don't you dare forget to cross a "T" on your tax return. The animal-rights wackos can bomb laboratories in the name of "liberating" lab rats, but don't you dare go fishing or hunting. In the spirit of American independence, I say it's time to expose these self-righteous elitists for the hypocrites they are. If they think free and open political debate is dangerous, let them shut their own mouths. If they think taxes should be raised again and again and again, let them start with their own. If they think, as Michael Moore apparently does, that American society is sick and that the Right to Keep and Bear Arms is dangerous, let them move somewhere "safer." Maybe they would prefer Cuba, where they could whine and wring their hands behind the bars of a political prison—or England, where their beloved "gun control" is putting innocent people in the grave. At the NRA, we'll continue fighting for the principles on which America was built, the principles that make America great: The right to liberty, property and security. The right to speak out and to dissent. And the one freedom that protects every freedom we enjoy as Americans—the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms. |
As we celebrate America's Independence Day
this year, and as Iraqis celebrate the first freedom they've
experienced in generations, I believe it's a good time to think
about why we fight and what we fight for.