=================================================

Original at:

http://www.abcnews.go.com/onair/WorldNewsTonight/wnt000505_21st_Hupp_feature.html

> Waging a Passionate Campaign
> for the Right to Bear Arms
>
> by Peter Jennings
>
> May 5 ? On October 16, 1991,
> Suzanna Hupp was having lunch with
> her parents at Luby restaurant in
> Killeen, Texas. A deranged man
> drove a truck through the front
> window, running over diners at their
> tables. He pulled out a gun and began
> shooting. Hupp?s father intervened.
> ?The guy had complete control of the
> situation,? remembers Hupp. ?He saw
> my dad coming toward him, then simply
> turned and shot him in the chest. My
> father went down.?
> Hupp did have a gun that day, but it
> wasn?t in her purse. In Texas, in 1991, a
> concealed weapon was against the law,
> so she had left it in her car only 100 feet
> away.
> ?I was mad as hell at my legislators,? says Hupp,
> ?because they had legislated me out of the right to protect
> myself and my family.?
> Suzanna Hupp?s mother was also killed, along with 22
> others, before the man killed himself.
> On that day in Killeen, Hupp decided that Texas? gun
> laws needed changing, and she would work to change
> them. In Texas, if you take a 15-hour course about the
> law and about conflict resolution, and if you have a permit,
> you can carry a concealed firearm. There are similar laws
> in 28 other states. Suzanna Hupp is a state legislator now.
> ?Over the years that I have told this story, people here
> are shocked that Texas had one of the most restrictive gun
> laws in the entire country. They always pictured us as you
> imagine: We are all gun totin? kind of people.?
>
> Advocating Self- Defense
> Next weekend when something called the Million Mom
> March for even tougher gun laws is on in Washington,
> Suzanna Hupp will be there to see that another point of
> view is represented: ?To let the world at large know that
> these, bless their hearts, well-intentioned, but misguided,
> women do not represent American women.?
> Today, Rep. Hupp carries a gun with her all the time.
> She and her husband, Greg, who?s a professor, teach
> their children that guns are for adults. They have a child
> safety lock on every one they own.
> ?I don?t have an affinity for guns,? says Hupp. ?To me,
> it?s an inanimate tool. It?s a tool that can be used to kill a
> family. It?s a tool that can be used to protect a family. But
> it is merely a tool.? And owning one, she says, is still her
> right.
> ?It?s a hunk of metal,? she says, ?and I?ll say again: It
> merely depends on who is behind it.?