I've got a gun, don't come any farther," shouted Toluca, Dl., homeowner Brad Burns. But the warnings went unheeded and Burns fired, killing the intruder who was later identified as Douglas Sullivan. The incident began that night at 2 a.m., when Sullivan began shouting and swearing outside the home loudly enough to wake the neighbors. Sullivan then used a playground slide to smash a window and enter the house. Burns sent his wife and child into a closet while he retrieved his gun. He tried to scare off the intruder, but to no avail. Marshall County State Attorney Paul Bauer declared the shooting justifiable, saying, "There is no doubt in my mind that they were in fear of their lives." (Journal-Star, Toluca, IL, 10/27/04)

Jewelry store owner Larry Dickerson was working in his Raleigh, N.C., store when he noticed that the three men who had come inside were acting suspiciously. Dickerson was making sure that his gun was handy when he noticed one man had taken a gun out of his pocket. "When he wheeled around, I hit the floor. He fired three shots at me," said Dickerson. A retired police officer, Dickerson, who never fired a shot in more than 20 years of duty, returned fire. No one was injured in the exchange. The three men then fled the store and have not been apprehended. "You have to have a gun," Dickerson said. "If I didn't have it, I'd be dead." (News-Observer, Raleigh, NC, 10/20/04)

Nevada resident Dan Simmons was awakened early one morning by his houseguest who warned him that someone was trying to break into the house. The police were called, but no one was found. Shortly after the police left, a man approached the front door telling Simmons to come outside; he instead retrieved his gun. A moment later the glass in his front door shattered and the intruder made his way inside. Simmons fired, hitting the intruder, who in turn fled. Simmons said he believed the man may have at one time worked construction at his home. "I don't feel safe. I am taking precautions," Simmons later said of the incident, adding, "I advise everyone else in town to do the same." (Pahrump Valley Times, Pahrump Valley, NV, 10/20/04)

Eighty-year-old Lonnie Morgan was just trying to be of help when he showed a stranger to his garage to get a tool to fix his broken-down car. When they got to the garage, the intruder hit Morgan over the head with a barbell, knocking him unconscious. When Morgan regained consciousness, he returned to the house only to find the intruder attacking his wife with a lamp. Morgan offered to get money for the man, but instead retrieved his gun and shot the intruder once. Police charged the intruder with aggravated assault and battery. The Morgans were both listed in fair condition at a local hospital. (Savannah Morning News, Savannah, GA, 10/30/04)

A Kingman, Ariz., man ended up in critical condition after a night of drunken and disorderly behavior. The night began when the man urinated in his neighbor's back yard and refused to leave. The neighbor called the police not long after the man's wife called them to report him for unruly and loud behavior. The third call to police came from another neighbor who said a man was trying to break down her door. He eventually forced his way into the house and, despite repeated warnings from the homeowners, refused to leave. The homeowner then shot the intruder once in the stomach. He was charged with felony first-degree criminal trespassing. (Kingman Daily Miner, Kingman, AZ, 11/07/04)

In the dark of the night, an Eliot, Maine, homeowner was awakened to the sounds of pounding and screaming at his front door. David Oeser went to the entrance to find a 6-ft., 2-in., 330-lb. man breaking down his door. Oeser then fled to his bedroom but was followed by the intruder, who continued to scream incoherently. Oeser grabbed his gun and yelled several times, "Stop or I will shoot," but the man kept coming. Oeser fired, hitting him once. The man was apprehended at the scene. Police later revealed that less than 24 hours earlier, the intruder had been arrested and given a psychiatric exam after an unprovoked attack on a man in a local restaurant. (Central Maine News, Eliot, ME, 11/05/04)

A man came looking for some easy money from what he thought was an easy target, but left empty handed. The clerk at the convenience store in Colbert Heights, Ala., recounts that he arrived for work at 5:20 a.m. and noticed someone in a car outside. Shortly thereafter, the man in the car entered the store and got a drink from the cooler. When he approached the counter, he produced a large knife and demanded all the money in the cash register. The clerk, in return, produced his gun and asked, "Do you want this or the money?" The robber fled the store, but was later apprehended and charged with first-degree robbery. (Times Daily, Florence, AL, 11/04/04)

What started off as "zero tolerance" corporate firings of a handful of employees and contract workers, who kept firearms in locked automobiles on a company parking lot in rural Oklahoma, has escalated into a larger battle that may well threaten the very concepts of personal self-defense and the exercise of Right-To-Carry in that state.

The issue surfaced October 1,2002, when officials of the Weyerhaeuser paper mill in small-town Valiant, Okla., conducted what they claimed was a drug search of employee vehicles on a company parking lot. The search was reportedly precipitated by a drug overdose at the plant. The local sheriff's department was called in to assist. Drug-sniffing dogs turned up no drugs, but did locate firearms concealed in locked vehicles-firearms legally stored under Oklahoma law. The owners or drivers of those vehicles were summoned to the lot, forced to agree to searches under threat of losing their jobs; then were summarily fired anyway for possessing guns in private vehicles on company property.

The mill is located in the deeply wooded country of southern Oklahoma where gun ownership is a way of life. By the way, the search took place at the beginning of deer season.

For years, the company's policy allowed individuals parking in its lots to keep firearms in vehicles as long as they were out of sight and the vehicles securely locked. But according to court documents, all that changed with adoption of a union contract reversing the policy. Attorneys say the details of the union agreement were not published until after the October 2002 firings, and that non-union employees and contractors were unaware of any rule change. Furthermore, the parking lot in question is open to the general public, which uses it for access to nearby commercial and sporting facilities.

The basic injustice of the terminations was perhaps best expressed as part of a front-page story in the Wall Street Journal, which made all this a national controversy overnight.

Among the personal stories the Journal cited was this: "Jimmy 'Red' Wyatt, a 45- year-old father of five who worked his way up from the factory floor to supervisor in his 22 years at the mill, says he often carried his rifle to scare off coyotes threatening the cattle he raises in his spare time. A shotgun also found was left over from bird hunting with his sons the day before."

The newspaper quoted plant manager Randy Nebel, saying "that firing Mr. Wyatt, a model worker, was difficult. But after clearing the parking lot of guns, 'I believe the plant is safer,' he said."

Trampling the civil rights of a model citizen does not equal safety. Why should a "model worker" lose his career as the price for exercising a constitutional right, innocently and lawfully keeping firearms in his locked vehicle?

The fired employees are fighting in court-to get their jobs back-assisted by funding from the NRA Civil Rights Defense Fund.

This would have been just a case of law-abiding citizens falling victim to unreasonable "zero tolerance," but for the near-unanimous action of the Oklahoma legislature, which reacted to widespread public outrage over the injustice of the firings.

Led by McCurtain County Democrat Rep. Jerry Ellis-himself a former Weyerhaeuser employee-the state legislature passed remedial legislation unanimously in the House. The Senate version passed by a 92-4 margin under the leadership of State Sen. Frank Shurden, who in 1995 authored the Oklahoma Right-To-Carry statute.

Sen. Shurden recently told the online edition of the Ardmorite, "A lot of these businesses have late-night shifts, and these employees are subject to being violated by any type of predator that may be armed." They should be able to defend themselves from violent criminals.

The legislation was simply worded and direct: "No person, property owner, tenant, employer or business entity shall be permitted to establish any policy or rule that has the effect of prohibiting any person, except a convicted felon, from transporting and storing firearms in a locked vehicle on any property set aside for any vehicle."

The law went beyond the question of employers and employees and extended the concept to all law- abiding individuals.

From the get-go, this was a "gun control" issue and this straightforward law-slated to take effect November 1, 2004-should have been the end of it.

But that was before several huge corporations, led by Whirlpool, Williams Co. and ConocoPhillips, filed suit in federal court asking that the law be struck down. Remarkably, Weyerhaeuser was not a party to this action. And Whirlpool, perhaps because it has a direct consumer base, withdrew. A federal judge temporarily stopped the implementation of the gun-rights law, pending action by state courts, in what could become an extremely complex web of litigation-which could well cripple armed self-defense by peaceable residents of Oklahoma.

It pits corporate policy against the constitutional rights of the little guy, the individual citizen, with NRA foursquare on the side of individual rights.