When a young man showed up at Breaux's Jewelers in New Orleans dressed as an old lady—complete with a walker, purse, gray wig and tan dress—the ruse was good enough to get him buzzed inside. But store owner Mike Breaux quickly saw through the disguise and drew his handgun just as police say the suspect started to pull a handgun out of his purse and leap over the counter. Breaux fired, striking and incapacitating the would-be robber. From outside, a second suspect fired several shots through the glass front door as Breaux and one of his employees, who had picked up the first suspect's gun, returned fire. Breaux was grazed by a bullet before the wounded man fled with yet another accomplice. The second suspect turned up at a hospital later with gunshot wounds to his neck, back and arm. The first suspect was taken from the store by ambulance. Both men were listed in critical condition. (The Times-Picayune, New Orleans, LA, 07/20/05)
Gayle Martin was sound asleep when the doorbell rang at 5 a.m., but he didn't open the door because he didn't recognize either of the two men standing on his porch. He continued watching the men through his front window as they went around his house and began battering his back door. Within moments, the two thugs came crashing through the door into the kitchen and living room area. That's when Martin drew his .357 Mag. and fired three shots, causing the men to run away. "They were in the house," Martin said. "They had just broken in. I didn't let them get any farther." Authorities found the home invaders nearby, both suffering from gunshot wounds. Grant County Sheriff Randy Middleton called Martin lucky to be alive, adding, "He's a good shot," (Cincinnati Enquirer, Cincinnati, OH, 07/10/05)
The two masked men who bunt into a North Fort Myers, Fla., pharmacy demanding drugs didn't notice the pharmacy technician, who was a concealed-weapons permit holder, crouched in the back.When one robber leapt onto the countertop and waved a pistol at the clerk, the technician took action, opening fire with a .45-cal. pistol and hitting the armed man in the stomach. Both suspects fled the scene. Police believed the wounded man was a career criminal with 14 felony convictions since 1990 who was released from prison in January. "I knew for sure this guy was going to kill me," the technician said. "I was so afraid. I knew if I died, [the clerk] was going to die." (The News-Press, Fort Myers, EL, 06/07/05)
Christine Peacock was pulling through a fast-food drive-through when a man ordered her to stop and hand over her belongings. Because she was in her boyfriend's car, the normally unarmed Peacock had a gun handy. When she drew it, the mere sight of the firearm caused the would-be robber to flee the scene. It was a scary incident that completely changed Peacock's opinion of concealed carry. "I didn't believe that everybody should carry a gun at all times; I thought it was too overprotective," she said. "[Now] I plan on enrolling in a concealed weapons permit class, and purchasing my own gun [to have] with me at all times." (Florida Today, Melbourne, FL, 06/19/05)
If it weren't for a Vienna, Ill., woman's quick thinking, she and her husband might both be dead. At approximately 11:30 p.m., Albert Rolens heard his dogs barking and went to investigate, finding a partially opened sliding door. When he reached to close it, a man wearing a stocking cap, gloves and a large coat thrust a rifle through the open door and forced his way inside. The intruder instructed Rolens to wake his wife and unplug the telephones. The couple told the intruder to leave, but he refused to go without their grand- daughter, his former girlfriend. After several tense minutes, Mrs. Rolens convinced the intruder to let her husband go to the bathroom to take some medication. Once there, Albert entered an attached bedroom and retrieved his .45-cal. revolver, which he pointed at the man, again telling him to leave.When Mrs. Rolens grabbed a cell phone and ran to call 9-1-1, the intruder darted after her. Fearing for his wife's safety, Albert shot the gunman once in the head, killing him. (The Vienna Times, Vienna, IL, 06/09/05)
Just one day after a Dallas, Texas, woman sought a protective order against her ex-boyfriend, he confronted her outside her home, blocking her way. Upon noticing the disturbance, a neighbor came to her aid and helped her get inside as the ex-boyfriend left. Once in her home, she closed the door and the neighbor left, but the ex-boyfriend returned. When he bashed down her door, the frightened woman drew her firearm, shooting and killing him. "She was trying to protect herself," said Dallas police Sgt. Gil Cerda. (The Dallas Morning News, Dallas, TX, 07/02/05) |
Nominated to the U.N. post at the beginning of the year, Bolton faced certain filibuster led by the likes of U.S. Senators Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Given the ugly and protracted nature of their opposition, President Bush wisely used his constitutional power to make the recess appointment to elevate Bolton to the top U.N, post. As a diplomat, Bolton has been a consistent critic of United Nations corruption, waste and ineptitude—words that aptly describe the watch of the current U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. Annan—with personal ties to Saddam Hussein's massive oil-for-food scam—greeted Bolton on his first day as U.S. representative with a stunningly graceless lecture about Bolton's need to get along with all U.N. representatives—including those from rogue states like Cuba, North Korea and Iran. But much of the Senate opposition to Bolton's U.N. ambassadorship stems from his intractable stand in defending America's sovereignty and our individual right to keep and bear arms in the opening days of the Bush Administration. Nobody described that seminal performance better than a sneering NewYork Times July 11,2001, commentary: "The Bush administration might as well have sent Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association, to deliver its opening address to a United Nations conference on small arms earlier this week. In a shameless subordination of diplomacy to domestic political pandering, John R. Bolton, the undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, told the gathering that Washington would not support an agreement to curb the international flow of illicit small arms if it infringed on the right of Americans to bear arms." Bolton's appearance before the U.N. Conference to draft a global "treaty on small arms" was remarkable for the simple clarity of his words and for the effect it had on the proceedings: "The United States will not join consensus on a final document that contains measures contrary to our constitutional right to keep and bear arms." His words left the gun-ban delegates stunned. But the power behind the words derailed the efforts to create a binding world gun-ban treaty. Since then, the global gun- ban crowd has been gathering multi-millions of dollars from countries, from foundations and from the likes of globalist billionaire George Soros. And they have added additional countries to their U.N. vote column. They have sworn that their efforts won't be derailed again, and are working toward a binding International Arms Trade Treaty by 2006. During the recent Biennial Meeting of States in New York—in which I participated among only a handful of opponents to this scheme—the world gun-ban crowd has made it clear that their major target is private ownership of firearms. A manifesto distributed by the International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) simply titled "Ownership," spells out "minimal" goals for U.N. control and destruction of privately owned guns—yours and mine. It includes the following steps:
Remember, IANSA is headed by Rebecca Peters, who claims among her accomplishments the confiscatory ban in Australia that robbed licensed firearms owners of their 550,000 registered semi-auto rifles and shotguns and all slide-action rifles in private hands. During our debate at Kings College London, Peters lectured that under her world view, hunters in America would only be allowed to use single-shot rifles, and to recreational and competitive shooters she said, "Take up another sport." Ambassador Bolton's work is cut out for him. For us the task is daunting, and the fight is enormous. The world gun- ban crowd is deadly serious. As NRA members, this is our fight. And it is a do-or-die battle for freedom. |
President George W. Bush—in appointing John R. Bolton as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations—once again has proved that he has more than earned the faith placed in his leadership by the nation's gun owners. With a very real U.N. threat to our national sovereignty—especially when it comes to relentless and massive efforts to place America's Second Amendment freedom under the heel of a global firearm prohibition—the recess appointment of Mr. Bolton was critical.
President George W. Bush continues to show America that he is a man of his word by his nominations of men and women to serve on our nation's highest courts who faithfully uphold the Constitution of the United States. The President had promised the American people, both when he was elected in 2000 and then re-elected in 2004, that his judicial nominees would base their decisions on the Constitution and laws as they are written. President Bush said his nominees would interpret the law, not make it from the bench. Let's briefly examine how he has done. On Jan. 7, 2003, President Bush used a recess appointment to place Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr., on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Almost a decade earlier, Judge Pickering, as a district court judge, had ruled parts of the Brady Act to be unconstitutional. Three years later, the U.S. Supreme Court agreed. You are probably familiar with the name William H. Pryor, Jr., whom President Bush appointed to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Bill Pryor graduated magna cum laude from The Tulane School of Law, where he served as editor in chief of the law review. As Alabama's attorney general, his tireless efforts to defend the Right to Keep and Bear Arms were recognized when NRA-ILA named him the 2001 winner of its highest honor—the Harlon B. Carter Legislative Achievement Award. We also know the American success story that is Judge Janice Rogers Brown, who recently joined the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Born into rural poverty as a sharecropper's daughter, Janice Rogers Brown in 1996 donned the robes of a California Supreme Court justice. While sitting on the state's high court, she wrote: "The founding generation certainly viewed bearing arms as an individual right based upon both English common law and natural law, a right logically linked to the natural right of self-defense." This brings us to Judge John G. Roberts, Jr., President Bush's first nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court. John Roberts is a man of impeccable credentials. He graduated at the top of his class at Harvard Law School. He clerked for Chief Justice William Rehnquist on the Supreme Court, and served in the Reagan Justice Department and Reagan White House. In 2003, he became a judge on our nation's second-highest court, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals. Roberts has never ruled on a case involving the Second Amendment. However, he has shown that he knows the duty of a judge is to interpret the law, not create it from the bench. In the past, he has held himself to the standard that a judge should not strike down a law just because he doesn't like it. Judge Roberts has made several comments indicating that he believes the Constitution should be read as it was written, and not according to the whims of modern opinion. This seems to indicate that he would not consult "the weight of international opinion" or "evolving standards of decency" in interpreting our Constitution, in contrast to several recent Supreme Court rulings. Of course, it's not possible to know with certainty how a person might rule when elevated to the Supreme Court. Most judicial nominees these days are extremely cautious in their public statements and responses to questions from the U.S. Senate. That's why it's so important to have people who are seemingly well-grounded and loyal to the Constitution, so they can resist the urge to use their power to make policy and invent new rights. The NRA exists to defend not just the Second Amendment, but the entire Constitution—including the Bill of Rights that the Second Amendment protects. We therefore want justices who will be committed defenders of our Constitution and of all of the rights guaranteed to us by the Framers. To President Bush, I say: Mr. President, thank you for keeping faith with the American people by nominating such outstanding le- gal minds to serve in the federal judiciary. To Judge Roberts, I say: Your Honor, congratulations on your nomination. The members of the National Rifle Association, as well as all Americans, are looking to you with high hopes that you will faithfully and literally interpret the Constitution and Bill of Rights, including the Second Amendment. |