A long-running feud between two Nevada families came to a head when a participant in the feud entered a bar and grill and began shooting into a crowd of 300 patrons. Police say the gunman killed two brothers and wounded two other people. When he stopped to reload, a patron with a concealed carry permit saw a chance to intervene. The patron drew his pistol and fired, killing the gunman and preventing further bloodshed. (Reno Gazette-Journal, Reno, NV, OS/26/08)

When the burglar alarm woke Jon Sokol's wife, she figured her husband had yet again tripped it while fetching the newspaper. But Sokol was sleeping at her side. "I think there's somebody in the house," Sokol remembers his wife whispering. Despite his reluctance to believe his house had been invaded, Sokol walked to the stairs to investigate. Then he saw someone move. Quickly he went for his gun. "As I stepped around the corner, he hit me ... right between the eyes. And I fired the gun. Down on the ground he went, and I insisted, in a not very nice way, that he not move. I held him at gunpoint until the police arrived." Police say the intruder, who was armed with a knife, has a lengthy criminal record. (Star Tribune, Minneapolis, MN, 05/02/08)

According to White County, Tenn., Sheriff Oddie Shoupe, a man was leaving a home he'd just burglarized when he encountered the homeowner, Keith Gurtley, on the front porch. The sheriff explained, "This burglar coming out of the house asked Mr. Gurtley, 'Can I help you?' and Mr. Gurtley said, 'Yes, you're in my house, bud.” That's when the intruder reached for the stolen pistol in his waistband. "Don't do it," Gurtley said, drawing his 9mm. When the suspect failed to comply, Gurtley, who holds a concealed-carry permit, shot and killed him. "I'm afraid that if Mr. Gurtley had not been armed, he would be the one dead," the sheriff said, adding he's seen an increase in residents with carry permits. "They're tired of having to be afraid of all the criminals out there." (Herald-Citizen, Cookeville, TN, 05/16/08)

Eugene Johnson was away when burglars first struck his home, trashing it and stealing money. But he was home less than two weeks later, when his wife heard someone kick in the back door. Johnson, who spent nearly three years in a North Korean P.O.W. camp, quickly got his pistol and intervened. The burglar said, "Don't move, I have a gun," Johnson recalls. "I said, 'Buddy, I've got a gun, too, and it's [aimed] right on you. Things got quiet then." Police say the suspect had fled. "The home owner acted appropriately," said District Attorney David Freed." Criminals who break into occupied homes assume the risk of being shot by the home owners." (The Patriot News, Harrisburg, PA, 05/31/08)

Jim Hale was chatting with his friend, Tammy Arnold, in a park when he noticed some men eyeing Arnold's motorcycle. Hale greeted the men, then, unbeknownst even to Arnold, opened his vehicle and holstered his handgun just in case. The hunch was well founded. Police say one of the men ran out of a nearby wooded area, stabbed Hale in the upper back and tried to throw Arnold off the motorcycle. Hale's adrenaline pumped so hard he didn't realize he'd been stabbed. He struggled with the larger assailant, then pulled his handgun as they wrestled on the ground. "Within just a matter of seconds, truly, I had him on the ground with a gun to his throat and just held him until police arrived," said Hale. (The Dahlonega Nugget, Dahlonega, GA, OS/21/08)~

An Individual Right Affirmed

"We start therefore with a strong presumption that the Second Amendment right is exercised individually and belongs to all Americans." -U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, June 26, 2008.

For all of us, as members of the National Rifle Association and for millions of other Americans, that pronouncement by the U.S. Supreme Court is perhaps the most important we will ever read or hear. It is a vindication of what we and a majority of Americans have always known.

The media would have gun owners believe that with this landmark decision, the fight is over. The truth is, it is just beginning. This is the opening salvo in a step-by-step process of bringing relief to people all over this country who have been deprived of access to Second Amendment freedom.

NRA is filing lawsuits in places like Chicago and its suburbs, and in San Francisco, where gun-ban statutes still block the doorway to freedom.

With this monumental decision, we will also be fighting to restore rights through the legislative process, in Congress and in state legislatures to bring statutes into line with this critical doctrine of Constitutional law. The Second Amendment must never be walled off by the elite so that only the rich and famous or politically connected can access this freedom, while average citizens are told, "You're flat out of luck."

In reading this landmark decision striking down the District of Columbia's three-decades old gun-ban, it has come to me time and again that this victory for freedom is not just about the culmination of decades of deep legal and historical scholarship or about the brilliant legal work of many individuals ... it's also about raw electoral politics.

This Supreme Court victory is about you, your families and friends-your votes-especially in the last two presidential elections.

And this remarkable decision is about President George W. Bush keeping his faith with us that he would appoint justices-like Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito-who interpret our Constitutional rights as they were intended by our founding fathers.

Justice Scalia's 64-page Second Amendment opinion was remarkably clear and answered key, fundamental questions.

Joined in the 5-4 majority by Chief Justice Roberts and Justices Alito, Clarence Thomas and Anthony Kennedy, the court concluded: " ... we hold that the District's ban on handgun possession in the home violates the Second Amendment, as does its prohibition against rendering any lawful firearm in the home operable for the purpose of immediate self-defense."

On the utility of handguns, he wrote, " ... the American people have considered the handgun to be the quintessential self-defense weapon ... and a complete prohibition of their use is invalid ..."

On future Second Amendment cases, Scalia was unequivocal, " ... whatever else it leaves to future evaluation, it surely elevates above all other interests the right of law-abiding, responsible citizens to use arms in defense of hearth and home."

That bedrock belief was ridiculed by Justice John Paul Stevens as an "overwrought and novel description of the Second Amendment."

Stevens, in his dissent, said the right was solely "to maintain a well-regulated militia." And he said the framers of the Constitution "never evidenced the slightest interest in limiting any legislature's authority to regulate private civilian uses of firearms [as with D.Cs ban]. Specifically, there is no indication that the Framers of the Amendment intended to enshrine the common-law right of self-defense in the Constitution."

Stevens was joined in dissent by Justices David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer.

For the majority, Scalia fired back, " ... it is not the role of this Court to pronounce the Second Amendment extinct."

But consider this. Except for one vote, that is exactly what a Stevens majority would have done.

But for one vote, total bans on firearm ownership would have gotten the imprimatur of the high court, and such laws would have metastasized through the efforts of New York billionaire Mayor Mike Bloomberg's cabal of big city mayors and his fellow globalist billionaire, George Soros.

And that brings me back to electoral politics. This November, with the sure bet that there will be two, perhaps three vacancies on the u.s. Supreme Court in the near future, we face a clear choice.

If Barack Obama takes the White House, he will nominate enemies of the Second Amendment. That is a sure thing.

John McCain-on the other hand sees Justices Scalia, Alito, Roberts and Thomas as models for the kind of jurists he would appoint.

No matter what other issues might intervene, there is nothing more important than maintaining or increasing the pro-Second Amendment majority on the high court this November. The court's decision was a great moment in American history, but it shows how fragile freedom is and how vigilant we must always be, each and every day, to protect it.