Chris Cope said it was "like something in a serial killer movie,” at a Memphis, Tenn., shopping center where he manages a financial services office. According to police, a store employee began stabbing co-workers after a work dispute. The attacker had already stabbed eight people and was chasing a ninth when Cope ran to his truck to retrieve his 9 mm pistol. "[The suspect] just kept saying, 'I'm insane. I wish I was never born; and all that stuff,” Cope said. But apparently the crazed man valued his life more than he let on. "When he turned around and saw my pistol, he threw the knife away, put his hands up and got on the ground,” Cope said. "He saw my gun and that was pretty much it:' (Associated Press, 07/21/06)
Police say a man may have broken into a residence in conjunction with a plan to rob a local bank. When the homeowner confronted the suspect he was ordered to wake his wife and get the keys to the bank where she is employed. The homeowner went to the bedroom, leading the intruder to believe he was waking his wife. But instead he told his wife to call 9-1-1 and grabbed a handgun from the nightstand. He told the burglar to raise his hands and drop any weapons he had. Reportedly, he dropped a 12-inch butcher knife to the floor before sheriff's deputies arrived on the scene. (Independence Daily Reporter, Independence, KS, 07/12/06)
"I ain't playing," said an armed intruder, who also used an expletive as he barged inside George Dickert's South Carolina home. According to police reports, the intruder pointed a gun at Dickert, who reached for his own gun. A fistfight ensued. "[My wife and I] do what we have to do to make a living and some idiot decided he wanted what I had,” Dickert said. Hearing the struggle, two more men rushed into the house and began beating on Dickert. But Dickert's son also heard the 'commotion and, after seeing his father struggling with the men, retrieved a .38-caliber pistol from a bedroom, pointed it at his father's assailants and told them he would shoot. The thugs ran from the home without further incident. Police apprehended four men near Dickert's home in connection with the crime and were seeking a fifth. Dickert says he taught his son firearm safety at a young age. (Fox27.com, 07/20/06)
According to police, a 54-yearold burglar with a violent and lengthy criminal record dating back to 1969 decided to strike again. The man-whose rap sheet includes aggravated assault with a knife, aggravated robbery, felony menacing and drug charges-entered the home of a local schoolteacher by removing an air conditioning unit from a window. The homeowner shot the intruder in the chest with a 12-gauge shotgun, killing him. (Denver Post, Denver, CO, 07/20/06)
Morris Brown had just dropped off a friend at an apartment when two men stopped him and asked for drugs, said police. When Brown replied that he had no drugs, the men announced they were robbing him. A third man approached from behind and grabbed Brown while the other two started beating him. The men stole Brown's keys, cell phone and wallet and started to walk away. Brown probably would have let them have his property in exchange for his life, but then the man who had approached Brown from behind pointed a handgun at him. Brown, who has a concealed-carry permit, drew his pistol and shot two of his assailants. One man died at the hospital. The man who pointed a gun at Brown fled the scene when the shooting started. It was unclear if he was injured. (Daily Press, Newport News, VA, 07/15/06)
According to police, a 61-year-old man arrived home to find a masked gunman waiting in his garage and a violent struggle ensued. After attempting to wrest the firearm from the intruder, the homeowner drew his own handgun and shot him. A second suspect ran to the aid of the wounded gunman and the criminal duo fled. The victim was treated and released for chest pains and a cut hand, but was otherwise uninjured. (The Detroit News, Detroit, MI, 07/05/06) |
That's New York U. S. Sen. Chuck Schumer's description of you and me and our precious Right to Keep and Bear Arms. This critical election season, he's the power broker New York Magazine toasted as, "The man orchestrating the Senate takeover.” But we know Chuck Schumer as the gun-ban ringmaster-always ready to attack everything we stand for. For millions of Americans who breathe the air of Second Amendment Freedom that we've fought so hard to secure, Schumer's Senate takeover would spell disaster. Schumer brags about authoring all the anti-gun legislation signed into law by Bill Clinton. You remember his boast "We're going to hammer guns on the anvil of a relentless legislative strategy. We're going to beat guns into submission. ”Thanks to your support and hard work, for the past six years we've hammered on Schumer and his anti-gun pals in Congress. But all we've been able to accomplish-from rolling back the Clinton legacy to erecting a firewall to protect our rights from the U.N. gun haters-is at risk if Schumer gets his way in the November elections. Schumer, along with his gun ban axis-the likes of Hillary Clinton, Ted Kennedy, Dianne Feinstein and Frank Lautenberg-forever defined their ultimate threat to the nation's gun owners by voting against NRA-backed legislation to prohibit disarming of ordinary Americans during times of emergency. Think about what the Senate gun-ban crowd's vote really meant. They squarely supported the house-to-house searches of neighborhoods and the firearm confiscations that left the good people of New Orleans defenseless against free-ranging criminal predators. When I announced our intention to seek sweeping protections for innocent law-abiding Americans, Schumer told ABC News: 'This shows the NRA at its worst, at its most extreme.” Now, pulling all of the political and funding strings as head of his party's Senatorial Campaign Committee, we have the man who labels our beliefs as "extreme.” In that job, Schumer personally controls the campaign staff of individual candidates. If these candidates are successful, they will be beholden to one man, one power. Chuck Schumer. Unlike the Moveon.org extremists and the Michael Moore left wing of his party, Schumer is a political pragmatist. To win the election this November, he is willing to play the chameleon and change his color to take control of the U.S. Senate. To that end, New York Magazine details the lengths to which Schumer-the ultimate enemy of the Second Amendment-stretched to handpick candidates. Schumer may have angered some gun-ban advocates by selecting pro-gun candidates, but as the magazine concluded, " ... that was exactly the point. By p ... ing off the party's most loyal supporters, Schumer sent a message that he was serious about winning ... .” It quoted Schumer saying, "Hey, we have to win! If we had 58 seats, maybe you wouldn't do this, but our back is against the wall." Among Schumer's strategic goals in controlling the Senate is an iron grip over the federal judiciary. He is the prime opponent of President Bush's federal court nominees, saying that Ted Kennedy" has basically said to me, 'You take the lead.” Schumer has redefined criteria to include "ideology" as the prime qualification of lifetime federal judicial nominees. Clearly, if he succeeds in getting his dream Senate, Schumer will control the legislative agenda. Schumer's efforts are equally matched by his House campaign committee counterpart and gun ban ally, Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel, who served as Bill Clinton's White House gun control czar. With California's Nancy Pelosi as Speaker, and Michigan's John Conyers as head of the all-powerful Judiciary Committee, the gun banners would hold all the power. NRA members are the key to stopping Schumer's dream Senate and Emanuel's House takeovers from becoming reality. But to do so, we must alert our fellow gun owners to the danger we face this November 7. We must get our friends and neighbors to the polls. Next month, NRA-ILA will publish the NRA Political Victory Fund political preference charts. Study them, and above all, vote. Only we can stop the Schumer-Emanuel gun-ban machine from taking power and destroying the Second Amendment we've fought so long and so hard to protect. |
"Like flat-earth fanatics, Second Amendment Fanatics just don't get it ... The NRA's Second Amendment is an empty cereal box in the market place of ideas."
Not long ago, we got a stunning reminder that controversial issues often turn on the narrowest of margins. You'll remember that on Dec. 10, 2003, the Supreme Court declared-by one vote-that the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Ad (BCRA) passed constitutional muster even though that law makes pre-election broadcasts of issue advertising by NRA a crime if those ads refer in any way to a politician running for federal office. NRA, of course, filed a lawsuit in federal court the minute the court opened its door after the bill was signed into law. As we rightfully stated, BCRA "eviscerates the core protections of the First Amendment by prohibiting, on pain of criminal punishment, political speech.” In the end, only four Supreme Court justices agreed with us. A majority of the Court, consisting of the liberal justices plus one moderate, reached this decision. The judicial conservatives on the Court disagreed. In a blistering dissent, Associate Justice Antonin Scalia wrote: "This is a sad day for freedom of speech. Who could have imagined that the same Court which, within the past four years, has sternly disapproved restrictions upon such inconsequential forms of expression as virtual child pornography ... and sexually explicit cable programming '" would smile with favor upon a law that cuts to the heart of what the First Amendment is meant to protect: the right to criticize the government.” What if this had been a ruling on the Second Amendment? What if the Court had been considering whether the Second Amendment protects an individual right of American citizens to keep and bear their private arms? What if a majority consisting of activist justices joined by one moderate made that decision? Are you confident that the majority would decide correctly? One thing is for certain, whatever that ruling, it would become the law of the land. As gun owners dedicated to protecting our Right to Keep and Bear Arms, we have an obligation to make sure that justices appointed to the Supreme Court are men and women who understand and support our constitutional freedoms. And that means making sure that judges appointed to the lower federal courts, which are the "farm teams" for the Supreme Court, are likewise faithful to the text of the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Who sits on a lower federal court can matter very much to you and me-in fact, it can be a matter of life and death. You remember following Hurricane Katrina when the authorities in New Orleans went door-to-door forcibly confiscating firearms from law-abiding people who only wanted to defend themselves. NRA filed suit to stop the unlawful gun confiscations. It was a federal district judge appointed by President George W. Bush and confirmed by the Senate-Judge Jay Zainey-who ordered the authorities to stop the gun confiscations and return the firearms. Over the past several years, the obstruction of good judicial nominees by anti-gun Senators Schumer, Kennedy and Feinstein has been a hot issue for our friends in the Bush administration and Congress. We've won Senate seats on this issue and it was a major reason that President Bush won re-election. And the nation and gun owners have benefited as a result. We now have what appear to be two strict constructionists on the Supreme Court in Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Sam Alito, and a number of promising new federal appeals judges such as Janice Rogers Brown, Priscilla Owen and Bill Pryor. America is stronger and our gun rights more secure having such well-qualified, well-grounded jurists on the bench. It doesn't mean that you or I will always agree with them on every issue. Justices Scalia and Thomas don't always agree and there are plenty of issues on which brilliant jurists can come to different conclusions. The test is whether they reach those conclusions by looking at the plain words of the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and federal statutes. In order to make sure that pro-freedom jurists are appointed and confirmed, we must keep control of the Senate and especially the Senate Judiciary Committee, which reviews nominees to the federal bench. Since federal judges serve for life, few actions that the Senate takes are as important. As the character Pike said in Sam Peckinpah's famous western film, The Wild Bunch, "We've got to start thinking beyond our guns.” To make sure we elect a pro-gun Senate and, of course, a pro-gun House, we must start thinking "beyond our guns,” and get active in this election. If we don't, and if we lose control of the Senate, then we lose control of the judicial nomination process and the Second Amendment is at the mercy of those who think it is a relic of history. |
As we approach midterm elections, I'm amazed that one of the most important issues facing us is not more prominent in the public debate. That is the issue of the federal judiciary, and particularly the United States Supreme Court.