While taking groceries to her car, a man approached an 82-year-old woman and said something horrible to her: "This is your day. You are too old to be alive anyway." According to police, he then grabbed the woman's cane and beat her. Despite the savage assault, the elderly woman managed to reach into her purse, draw her gun and fire a shot. The man fled and, upon hearing the shot, store employees quickly came to the woman's aid. The self-proclaimed "stubborn, old broad" is badly bruised but will fully recover. "If I go naturally or to a sickness or something, fine." she said. "I'm ready to go, but I'm not ready to let some idiot like that take me out." (KVOA-TV, Tucson, AZ, 03/15/10)

Daniel Kaplan was parked in front of his business when two men sprinted toward his vehicle. One of them reached inside, punched Kaplan three times in the face and stuck a gun to Kaplan's head. Then Kaplan's instincts kicked in. Police say he grabbed the suspect's gun with his left hand and kicked open the car door into his assailant. Kaplan then reached under the seat and grabbed his AS-cal. Glock pistol. "I got five shots off as quickly as I could," he recalls. "I was fighting for my life." At least one of the suspects was shot. Both fled the scene and are being sought by police. "I'm happy to be here," said a relieved Kaplan. (Columbus Ledger Enquirer, Columbus, GA, 03/04/10)

A crazed knife-wielding man attempted to stab people at random in a convenience store parking lot. Police said he'd already chased a delivery driver and others when he ran down a car leaving the lot. He lunged at the car's driver with the knife, wounding him. That's when the driver, whose two young stepdaughters were in the vehicle, produced a handgun and fired about six shots, killing the attacker. The driver will recover from his injuries. "You've got to protect yourself," said witness Byron Cook. "He had his two kids in the car and they were terrified." (WREG-TV, Memphis, TN, 03/05/10)

Maureen Cassidy awoke to a loud noise and got up to investigate. To her horror, a man with a knife had forced his way into her home. She hurried back to the bedroom and woke her husband, who got his Smith & Wesson 9 mm handgun. The husband stood in the doorway and yelled to the intruder that he had a gun. Inexplicably undeterred, the intruder advanced toward the husband, who fired a shot. The wounded intruder fled the home. Police found him hiding in the bushes next door. A second person was also arrested in connection with the invasion. (The Palm Beach Post, West Palm Beach, FL, 03/13/10)

Police said that early one morning an armed suspect burst into a home office in an area described by one resident as "a quiet neighborhood." Hearing the burglar, the resident quickly armed himself with a firearm. When the burglar approached, the resident feared for his life and shot the suspect, killing him. "I'm not for someone being shot," said Nora Dietz, a concerned neighbor, "but you have to protect yourself." (The Baltimore Sun, Baltimore, MD, 03/29/10)

Raymond Michel and his wife, Dawn, returned home with their grandson when the 9-year-old noticed a suspicious light in a downstairs bedroom. Dawn investigated and found a few items in disarray. Then she found a garbage bag outside with money and jewelry in it, and a window screen was damaged. She ran to tell her husband that someone had been or still was-in the house. Michel got his handgun and walked upstairs. Items were strewn about the floor and a bathroom door was shut that the Michels always keep open. Michel kicked the door open and it struck the intruder. The suspect began to aim a rifle at the homeowner, who quickly fired his handgun, shattering the door and narrowly missing the intruder. The suspect laid on the ground as everyone waited for police. (The Bakersfield Californian, Bakersfield, CA, 03/04/10)

A man wasn't home when an alarm indicated a possible break-in. He quickly called his neighbor, Gaylon Crawford, and asked him to check on the house. The neighbor noticed a door was forced open and the lights were on. Once inside he found two men wearing dark clothing. Police said the men claimed they were retrieving their tools, but Crawford didn't buy it. He drew his handgun and told the men to put their hands up and wait for police. Instead, one of the men charged Crawford, who shot him. The suspects fled. The wounded man was arrested when he sought treatment for a gunshot wound at the hospital. His accomplice is still at large. (White Mountain Independent, Show Low, AZ, 03/09/10)

Land Of The Free, Or land Of The Few?

At the center of the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on whether to strike down Chicago's decades old handgun ban-expected this month-is a clash of wills between two very different men. At stake is the long-neglected recognition of the Right to Keep and Bear Arms for all peaceable Americans in every corner of the nation.

On the side of extremism is Chicago Mayor Richard J. Daley, perhaps the nation's most powerful and ruthless big city political boss who basks in the safety of around-the-clock police security details armed with handguns, yet ridicules and despises the very notion of individual firearm ownership. Mayor Daley grew up in a world of political power and privilege as the heir to his father's mayoral throne.

On the side of freedom is an extraordinary elderly citizen, 76-year-old Otis McDonald, a multiple crime victim living for 40 years in a Chicago neighborhood he has seen descend into lawlessness, a neighborhood now ruled by thugs. Under Daley's draconian gun ban, McDonald is denied the right to keep a handgun in his home for self-protection.

The son of sharecroppers in Louisiana, a hunter as a kid, McDonald traveled to Chicago in the early 1950s with $18-his mother's cookie jar savings. He has lived the American dream. McDonald is a man of deep principles who served his country in the U.S. Army and who worked to become head of his local union. He broke the color barrier to become a maintenance engineer at the University of Chicago. After seeking out Illinois gun rights activists, he agreed to become lead plaintiff in the legal action expected to end Chicago's 28-year-old criminalization of handgun ownership, and extend the Second Amendment to cover all state and local government.

To describe McDonald, two words come to mind: dignity and courage.

To understand the personal nature of this historic challenge, juxtapose the public comments of these two men. Their words and thoughts define the very nature of gun control.

On the day following the March 2, 2010, oral arguments in McDonald v. City of Chicago, Mayor Daley once again defined what is really meant by terms like "reasonable gun control" or common sense gun laws." In an irrational diatribe against the court and against firearm ownership, Boss Daley described his city's gun control end game: "But when it comes to us in the city, [it's] reasonable-we think the seizure of guns and the destruction of guns is important for safety ... this is dealing with common sense gun laws."

This is the same Mayor Daley who explained away the Fort Hood murders of innocent U.S. soldiers-young men and women-by a lone self-admitted radical Islamic warrior with a simple statement: "America loves guns."

This is the same Mayor Daley who at a Los Angeles anti-Second Amendment rally shrieked: "No guns in the hands of the people of America!"

This is the same political boss who in pressing for microstamping legislation this year growled, "It is about time America wakes up ... outlaw guns in America."

Juxtapose all of this with comments by McDonald.

In interviews, he is calm, soft-spoken and rational. He ably reflects the views of all ordinary good citizens deprived of liberty in Boss Daley's Chicago, or anywhere in our great nation. Remarkably, when he speaks to the media, he is treated with respect.

In a Fox News interview on March 2, 2010, McDonald asked/Pass more laws? No. The community's got to have protection. And the community needs protection through this means that I am after here now." The reporter interrupted, "Being able to arm themselves?"

"Right. Being able to arm themselves.

Give them [criminals] something to think about when they want to come into a person's house and take what they got, and then kill them. And the question becomes, 'Why don't you sell the house and move out?' I could do that. Yes. But the problem here would stay. There's a few good people around here and they would still be subjected to what we all [will] be subjected to now."

A profile in the Chicago Sun-Times on March 2, 2010, described McDonald's challenge to the mayor: "McDonald said it's impossible for Mayor Daley or any other politician backing the gun ban to know what it's like to live unarmed on a block where bad guys are packing guns and willing to shoot."

"I wish I could get Mayor Daley to feel what I feel and see what I see," McDonald said. "Maybe he could come here and spend the night, especially during the summer, and listen to what I listen to out my window. If he could, and he was open to that, he would see what's really going on in his city ... and maybe he would understand where I'm coming from."

That would never happen-not without the Mayor's large contingent of police escorts all armed with handguns. Not without additional police cordoning off McDonald's neighborhood. Not without police helicopters providing additional security for his Excellency, the mayor.

And that is what this is about, the rights of ordinary Americans under the Second Amendment, versus the privileges of raw, political power. Whether it is before the courts, or in legislative bodies, the NRA will always fight for the rights and liberty of "We the People." You can count on it.