A nurse was home with her sick children when a man knocked on the door. She'd never seen him before, so she quieted the children and didn't answer. Undeterred, the man circled the house and tried to kick in the kitchen door, prompting the nurse to hide her children in a bedroom closet and tell the oldest to dial 9-1-1. The terrified child placed the call, saying, "We are going to die today. But police say the nurse wasn't going to allow that to happen. She retrieved a .38-caliber revolver, peered down the hallway and saw the burglar standing in the living room. "I came at him and started firing, she recalls. The burglar fled the scene. Speaking to a reporter, the nurse urged other women to consider gun ownership and to take firearm-training classes. (The News Courier, Athens, AL, 11/20/08)

Police say a would-be burglar is probably feeling pretty inept at his illicit trade. First, he was caught entering a bathroom window by the home's 70-year-old female occupant, so he fled the scene. Minutes later he attempted to burglarize a second home, this time entering the home of Richard and Phyllis Osborne. Mrs. Osborne heard a ruckus, but a quick investigation showed nothing amiss - that is, not until Mr. Osborne noticed the bedspread was out of place. A closer look revealed the suspect's knuckles poking out from beneath the bedspread. Mr. Osborne aimed his shotgun at the suspect, ordered him to come out and held him for police. "I wasn't scared, I was mad. Mr. Osborne said. "I was mad because he scared my wife. (Gaston Gazette, Gastonia, NC, 11/24/08)

Gabriel Guzman was awakened by the incessant ringing of his doorbell. Worried about the bell ringer's intentions, he peered out the window and saw an unknown man walking in his backyard. As a precaution, Guzman armed himself with a gun before investigating. "I opened up the door and yelled at him and 1 just told him to get away. Guzman explained. Instead, police say, the suspect pointed a gun at Guzman." ... I thought he was going to shoot me-so I shot him. Guzman said. Police arrested the wounded suspect, who they believe committed two other burglaries in the neighborhood before trying his luck at the Guzman home. (KCBD-TV, Lubbock, TX, 11/24/08)

Being burglarized four times was too much for 69-year-old Air Force veteran John Lewis. He decided he'd had enough. "I mean I'm not going to sit here and let somebody rob me over and over again. he said. So when he heard an unexplainable sound one evening, Lewis quickly retrieved his .357-caliber pistol. "[The alleged burglar] made more noise than anybody I've ever dreamed of trying to break into a house. he remembers. When Lewis approached the door, he found a man holding a flashlight and a pickax. "What's there to think about?" he asks rhetorically. "I mean he was going to hurt me or I was going to hurt him. Lewis chose the latter, shooting his assailant. According to police, the suspect, who has a lengthy criminal record, limped away and was arrested nearby. (WTVF-TV, Nashville, TN, 11/24/08)

A career criminal's night of mayhem was foiled by an armed citizen, according to police. The suspect had already burglarized one home that evening before moving on to a second residence. There, he went inside and confronted the homeowner, who fired two rounds from his handgun at the intruder. The uninjured suspect was apparently so frightened that he stole a truck in order to flee the scene more quickly. The suspect, however, committed a comedy of errors, one of which was most glaring-he left behind his personal vehicle! "Which was good for us. joked Sgt. Kirk Cooper of the Vt. State Police. "That was a good c1ue.The suspect was arrested the next day sitting outside his mother-in-law's apartment. (WCAX-TV, Burlington, VT, 11/25/08)

When a 37-year-old man started to unload items from his car, two men approached and jabbed what he believed to be a gun into his side. Fearing he was about to be shot, the man, who is reportedly an open-carry advocate, drew his 9 m~ handgun and fired a round. He was unsure if he hit either of his assailants, but he heard a loud moaning sound as they fled. Police arrested one of the suspects when he sought medical aid for a gunshot wound. (News Journal, Wilmington, DE, 11/26/08)

Ever Vigilant

Remember all those phony election stories floated by the media that the gun control issue was irrelevant, that anti-gun rights politicians had seen the light, that gun owners had nothing to worry about? We said they were lies and distortions. Now the Brady Campaign and the big media are proving we were right all along.

With Barack Obama as president and sufficient numbers of new members of Congress clinging to his coattails with significant Congressional majorities, the Brady Campaign and its enablers in the mainstream media are spinning stories that the 2008 election was really about enacting "common sense" gun control laws.

They are now saying that the election was a plebiscite on a draconian new ban on semi-autos that makes all now-legal private sales between law-abiding Americans a criminal act, absent federal government approval under a system in which records of sales would be permanent.

The New York Times gleefully put it this way in an editorial headlined, "The Gun Lobby's Loss."

"The gun lobby has long intimidated politicians with its war chest and its trumpeted ability to deliver single-issue voters, especially in tight races. After this year's election, those politicians should be far less afraid and far more willing to vote for sensible gun-control laws ... To pass those laws as president, Mr. Obama will need strong Congressional support."

Then there was this headline at www.alternet.org proclaiming: "Untold Story of Election 2008: The Death of the NRA." The article claimed that "The sweeping victory for gun control has been one of the most underreported stories of the election ...

" ... the NRA is right to be worried. Not only do Obama and Biden have strong gun control records, the incoming attorney general is a one-man gun control lobby unto himself. As deputy attorney general in the Clinton administration, Eric Holder advocated federal licensing requirements for handguns, a three-day waiting period on some gun sales and rationing handgun sales to no more than one per month. More recently, he signed an amicus brief in support of the District of Columbia's handgun ban when it came before the Supreme Court'

The writer-after ugly invective about people who own guns-concludes, "As the new gun laws go into effect, the group [NRA] can be expected to increase the pitch of its warnings about impending fascism and the dark shadow of the United Nations."

That insight about the United Nations (U.N.) is prescient with Hillary Clinton as secretary of state and with Obama decreeing that his U.N. representative would be elevated to a cabinet-level post.

To prove his point about "the dark shadow of the U.N.," the Alternet writer might have quoted Obama's criticism of U.S. sovereignty from his book, The Audacity of Hope:

"When the world's sole superpower willingly restrains its power and abides by internationally agreed-upon standards of conduct, it sends a message that these rules are worth following."

Those words are sufficient to instill fear in Americans who believe in the supremacy of our constitution.

The writer concludes that NRA is dead and that when we speak, "The question is whether anybody will be listening."

When you've been on the frontlines of the never-ending battle to safeguard the Second Amendment as long as I have, you almost have to laugh at the return of the big lie about the "weakness" of NRA. It has been played over and over in the past, with disastrous effects for the people who believed it and acted on it.

In the early 1990s, when President Bill Clinton forced his majorities in the House and Senate to enact what they were calling an "assault weapons" ban, that single act cost him his control of Congress in the 1994 off-year elections.

Clinton credited the NRA with making the key difference in the elections. He told then-CBS anchor Dan Rather, "They probably had more to do than anyone else in the fact we didn't win the House this time." And he added, '... I don't think there's any doubt that ... the NRA had a decisive influence."

But what really flipped the control of the U.S. House of Representatives was Bill Clinton's gun ban and the arrogance of legislators who voted for it, despite overwhelming opposition from gun owners. The political lesson of 1994 will be repeated in 2010 if Congress toes the line of the Brady Campaign or the New York Times.

The message politicians should now understand is that the NRA is very much alive and well, and we will fight any gun control on the national and international stage.

To amplify that message, nothing is more important than for you to help increase the membership of NRA and rally fellow gun owners to join with us today so we can prevail in the trying months ahead.