(continued)
Kinder
Gentler
Republicans like Bush who
took up the compromise
banner of "enforcing existing
laws" have painted
themselves into a rhetorical
corner. Most of those laws
are ineffective in the fight
against crime. Instead, they
are bureaucratic obstacles
that make it unreasonably - if
not unconstitutionally -- difficult for law-abiding citizens to purchase,
store, and modify guns for protection. Those laws need to be repealed,
not enforced.
Bush this week cited well-worn anti-gun statistics and condemned the
"unacceptable" number of fatal shooting deaths in the U.S. But like the
liberal anti-gun lobby, the GOP president was silent about the untold
number of gun shootings committed every year in self-defense. Just two
weeks ago, a 12-year-old girl in Clarksdale, Miss., saved her mother's
life when she shot and killed an abusive ex-boyfriend who had forced his
way into the apartment and started choking her mom. Detective Danny
Hill of the Clarksdale Police Department said the brave girl had "heard
the commotion and she knew from past experience what was going on."
So did a Tacoma, Wa., woman who saved her own life in late April after
shooting a former boyfriend who invaded her home in violation of two
restraining orders. According to police reports, the man had two
convictions for domestic violence against the woman over the past year.
When he threatened to kill her after breaking into her home, she ran to
her bedroom -- where she kept a handgun -- and fired one fatal shot at
him.
And in Colorado this week, a trial date was finally set for a serial rapist
whose terrorism against elderly women ended only after 72-year-old
Jean Zamarripa shot him after he broke into her home last fall. When she
heard a noise in the backyard, Zamarippa grabbed her loaded
.38-caliber revolver. She fired four times when the intruder rammed his
shoulder into her back door. "I'm just a little grandmother, and I mind my
own business," Zamarripa, a retired medical assistant, told the
Associated Press. "What would I have done if I hadn't had my gun? I
would have been just another statistic."
What will it take for Beltway Republicans to stop their Clintonesque
pandering to Hollywood soccer moms and start representing us
gun-owning mammas who don't have Secret Service protection and can't
afford to hire armed personal security guards? We refuse to be the
statistics you ignore.