STANDING GUARD  | NOV 2004  | ARCHIVES

   
    John Kerry, John Edwards, and their Clinton henchmen like Paul Begala and James Carville, along with Americans for Gun Safety and the Brady Campaign, are all committed to an election strategy that banks on gun owners believing the big lie: A Kerry Presidency is no threat to our Second Amendment rights. Nothing could be further from the truth.
    As NRA members—as free Americans—our most basic rights and liberties are in jeopardy if John Kerry ascends to the U.S. Presidency and if the hard-left, gun-ban crowd takes control of the U.S. Senate.
    For any of our friends who might have been fooled by the phony photo-op images of John Kerry clumsily handling various shotguns (including a Remington 11-87 that his own anti-gun legislation would have banned), we must remind them what is really at stake in this election on November 2.
    Try this, for starters. It is a certainty that in the near future, the nine Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court will sit in judgment of the right to keep and bear arms. Whether the highest court in the land affirms the Second Amendment as an individual right, or whether a majority of the court will snuff out the light of our unique American freedom, will depend solely upon decisions made by the next President.
    And it is certain that within the next four years there will be multiple vacancies on the high court and whoever makes the nominations will set the agenda, dictating the exercise of our civil rights for a whole generation and beyond.
    President George W. Bush, in his principled nominations to the lower courts, has already proven his metal by consistently tapping highly qualified candidates who support individual liberty, apply the clear meaning of the Constitution, and do not make law from the bench. I speak of nominees like former Alabama Attorney General William Pryor, whose appointment was filibustered by Senate Democrats led by Minority Leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota. Harshly criticized for his staunch support for Second Amendment freedom, General Pryor’s unfair, rude and unprecedented partisan treatment by the Senate Democrats was typical of the scorched-earth tactics used to kill key Presidential judicial appointments this past year alone.
    I have no doubt that when the inevitable Supreme Court vacancies occur, President Bush will nominate individuals who fully support the Constitution—including the Second Amendment. In sharp contrast, imagine a Kerry U.S. Supreme Court. Would Hillary Clinton give up the ultimate political gamble—a future run for the Presidency—for a lifetime appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court? In a heartbeat. Just as Chuck Schumer or Teddy Kennedy would covet a seat on the court for life.
    Whether involving big names from the gun ban who’s-who or nominees pushed by the American Bar Ass’n or by John Edward’s benefactors, the Ass’n of Trial Lawyers of America (ATLA), you can bet on an anti-gun-rights litmus test for any judicial nominee in a Kerry Administration.
Where control of the U.S. Supreme Court is the ultimate objective of gun-ban ideologues, the makeup of the lower courts is equally at stake. But the face of the judiciary is just one part of the stark contrast between George W. Bush and John Kerry over the future of the Second Amendment.
    Among the first all-out attacks against the new Bush Administration was the media-fed scorn heaped upon the President for selecting pro-gun-rights Missouri Senator John Ashcroft as his U.S. Attorney General. It was hyper-amplified when Atty. Gen. Ashcroft wrote that he believed the Second Amendment was an individual right—reversing the aggressive Clinton-Gore doctrine that no such right existed.
    Furthermore, where the repressive Justice Department under Janet Reno pursued anti-gun-rights legislation and lawsuits against the firearm industry, the Bush Administration’s Justice Department has rightly targeted armed criminals and terrorists, not peaceable firearm owners.
    If there is a Kerry-Edwards Administration in our future, the full weight of the federal government will be used to trash our right to keep and bear arms. It would enact new gun bans modeled after John Kerry’s S.1431, which would give Federal bureaucrats power to ban all semi-auto shotguns ever procured by the U.S. military or Federal police agencies. Let me tell you unequivocally: That covers all semi-auto shotguns you and I and our friends own today.
    If Kerry wins, count on the rebirth of the diabolical relationship between the Brady Campaign, the Violence Policy Center and his administration. That alliance spells endless harassment of gun owners and endless phony excuses to ban our guns. Your choice and your vote could not be more important.
    Each of us must be registered and we must vote for President George W. Bush and for a Second Amendment-safe U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. Above all, we must reach our non-NRA friends and associates with the truth about John Kerry’s gun-ban record.
    Share this election issue of your magazine with your friends. Copy the articles. Give them to as many gun owners and hunters as you can. You and I and every one of the nation’s firearms owners must make a difference by stopping the Kerry-Edwards machine cold on election day, November 2. Preserving America’s freedom depends on you—make your vote count!