Employees at Texas Components were stunned when the daughter of an employee entered the business armed with archery tackle and a realistic-looking toy gun. Police say the crazed woman drew her bow and fired an arrow into an employee's chest, then pointed the fake pistol at others. Fearful for their lives, two employees, both of whom had concealed-carry licenses, drew pistols and shot the woman several times. She fled to an office and police were called. When the woman pointed an arrow at a responding officer, he shot her once more. The suspect and injured worker were both listed in stable condition at the hospital. (The Houston Chronicle, Houston, TX, 01/20/09)

Police say two suspected burglars have already been dealt a great deal of punishment. First, a homeowner caught the suspects rifling through his garage. "I asked him what the hell he was doing and he said, 'Cleaning the garage;" the homeowner recalls. The homeowner ran inside to get a gun, and the suspects fled. Police caught one of the men hiding under a nearby vehicle. His accomplice was arrested after he brazenly broke into a second home. In that incident, the homeowner shot the suspect with a shotgun and held him for police. (The Oklahoman, Oklahoma City, OK, 12/20/08)

Ninety-year-old Berlie Mae Johnson was watching the evening news with her husband when two men burst through the back door. "Be quiet. Don't say a word. Don't move!" demanded one of the intruders as he put a gun to her head. "It's terrible. You expect at any moment ... "she said, her voice cracking. "My nerves are shot. He'd probably have killed me. But her husband, Charles, age 91, came to the rescue. He grabbed his .38-caliber revolver from under a sofa cushion. One of the intruders fled immediately. "He saw the gun and, boy, he was gone, Mr. Johnson recalls. The other intruder was still threatening his wife, but a single shot from Johnson's revolver sent him running. Johnson said he has a message for others: "Be prepared. Keep your doors locked. And be alert. His wife added, "And have a gun ready. (Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL, 12/25/08)

Thee owner of Midwest Grillz and Jewelry, Andre McKesson, let two men into his store while a third man waited outside. The men expressed interest in purchasing a decorative mouthpiece known as a grill, but an argument ensued. The man outside recalls hearing, "Why you playing games with us, man? Where's our teeth? Can you give a refund? Then give me my teeth!" Police say one of the men pulled a gun and fired two shots into the wall where McKesson had been standing. McKesson grabbed a semiautomatic rifle from behind the counter and killed both assailants. (Omaha World Herald, Omaha, NE, 01/17/09)

While fetching wood from her garage one evening, a 70-year-old woman heard what sounded like people fighting. "I looked over into the road to see what was going on, and about that time a guy comes running around the house, she explained. The woman ran inside, got her gun and dialed 9-1-1. The man circled the house, pounding on all the windows. He broke through the living room window and knocked over the television. The woman can be heard on the 9-1-1 tape yelling at the man, "You stay right where you're at!" Police say she aimed her gun at the intruder and told him, "If you come any closer, you're going to be dead. She then ordered him to the floor and he obeyed, collapsing into a fetal position. He remained that way until police arrested him. (South Bend Tribune, South Bend, IN, 01/06/09)

A frequent customer at a convenience store noticed a man looking around the store as if casing it. Suspicious, he decided to go to his vehicle and call for help. "As soon as I touched my cell phone, I heard [the store clerk] screaming, 'Help, help, help!" the customer explained. The 5-foot-4 man grabbed his Smith & Wesson AO-caliber pistol from the vehicle and bravely ran back inside the store. Surveillance video shows the suspect hitting the female clerk with a beer bottle and wrestling her to the ground. The customer fired two shots, killing the suspect. Police found a knife and a wad of cash on the attacker. (Orlando Sentinel, Orlando, FL, 01/08/09)

D.C. Outrage Equals Brady Norm

Every gun owner, every veteran, anyone in the military-no, every honest citizen of this nation should be outraged by what happened in the District of Columbia to U.S. Marine Cpl. Melroy H. Cort, a decorated, severely wounded Iraq war veteran.

While on his way to check in as a patient at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center for treatment and rehabilitation, Cpl. Cort-who lost his legs as a result of wounds inflicted by a roadside bomb in Ramadi, Iraq-became a victim of the District of Columbia gun ban law and of inquisitory federal prosecutors.

Cpl. Cort, a Wright State University graduate who enlisted in the Marines in 2004 and served three combat tours in Iraq, expected that he and his wife would be away from their Columbus, Ohio, home for a long stay at Walter Reed. An Ohio Right-to-Carry permit holder, Cpl. Cort had sought the advice of his commanding officer concerning his carry pistol and was told to present it to the armory at the medical center where it would be secured when he checked in.

A flat tire in the District of Columbia on May 8, 2006, changed everything.

When he and his wife, Samantha, pulled into a service station to have the tire repaired, Cpl. Cort transferred his pistol from the glove compartment to his jacket pocket for safekeeping. Someone saw the firearm and called police. When they arrived, officers handcuffed the young Marine in his wheelchair and hauled him off for a night in jail. He was charged with carrying a pistol without a license, a felony punishable by five years in prison; possession of an unregistered firearm and possession of ammunition both misdemeanor counts.

Cpl. Cort was assigned a public defender who advised him to plead guilty, but he elected to fight. Had he followed the advice of his court-appointed lawyer, Cpl. Melroy Cort would not only have lost his gun rights for life, he would have lost all of his medical and veteran's benefits. And he may well have been dishonorably discharged from the Marines. The stakes were huge.

After juries twice deadlocked, on January 13 of this year-with Cort acting in his own defense-a jury acquitted him of the D.C. gun ban violations but found him guilty of the ammunition misdemeanor. He plans to appeal. His story is resonating across the Internet, on gun rights, veterans' and military websites. The growing anger at the heartless pursuit of this American hero by federal prosecutors is virtually unanimous.

Mr. Cort's nightmare happened in a jurisdiction with runaway violent crime, where armed self-defense of one's home was a crime; a jurisdiction that the Supreme Court ruled denied the individual Right to Keep and Bear Arms.

But such a nightmare is the sweet dream of the likes of the Brady Campaign, which is pressing for a long list of new vindictive restrictions against gun owners. Among their demands is something the Brady Campaign and the media call closing the "private sales loophole," which would expand the National Instant Check System to cover every now-lawful firearm transfer between law-abiding individuals. Combined with the Brady demand for keeping database records on those transactions, it is national gun-owner registration.

But it is more onerous than that alone. All private transactions between law-abiding citizens could become criminal acts. Selling or trading guns between family and friends without obtaining government permission would be a federal felony.

Just as it happened to Cpl. Cort, you can bet the farm that the gun ban crowd would demand wholesale arrest and prosecution for you and me, something they virtually never do for violent criminals. And you can bet prosecutors like Cpl. Cort's would eagerly comply.

But federal officials steadfastly refuse to enforce laws against violent criminals whose possession or attempted acquisition of any firearm is a criminal act. Under federal law, there is no act committed by real criminals with guns that is not already a crime. If these officials enforced the laws against bad guys, demands for new gun controls would be dead on arrival.

The Brady Campaign, in its zeal to criminalize unrestricted private sales, has actually described the contemptible failure of federal authorities to prosecute violent felons and fugitives who violate federal law. Try this from a Brady "private sales loophole" propaganda piece: "A felony conviction indicates that someone has been found guilty of a very seri- ous crime, like murder or assault with a deadly weapon. Remarkably, felony convictions account for over half of the total number of blocked attempts to purchase firearms by high-risk people, or an estimated 842,000 blocked gun purchase applications submitted by convicted felons. That works out to be, on average, 169 thwarted attempts to purchase a gun by a felon every day."

Here is an even more twisted take, this time on "fugitives from justice:"

"Brady background checks blocked attempted purchases by fugitives from justice 68,000 times from 1994 to 2007, an average of 14 fugitives turned away every day."

Fugitives turned away? Felons blocked? This is catch and release.

If you don't contact your Congressman and Senators today and the Brady Campaign gets what it wants on private sales and the rest of its gun ban agenda, believe this: for gun owners there will be no catch and release, there will be no prosecutorial discretion. We will all live the nightmare of Cpl. Melroy Cort.