FW: A heroine, and how criminal safezones would have led to more deaths
Date: Dec 13, 2007 1:22 PM
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A heroine, and how criminal safezones would have led to more deaths

In some states, private citizen and concealed carry permit holder Jeanne Assam wouldn’t be allowed to carry a handgun in church.

That means Assam, who volunteered to do security in the church she attends in Colorado Springs, would not have been allowed to carry a concealed handgun on Sunday when a crazed shooter, fresh from killing young missionaries in Arvada, entered Assam’s church and continued his killing spree.

States which ban self defense in churches have created a zone that is safe for criminals, and unsafe for law-abiding citizens.

And had Assam not been carrying, the crazed shooter in New Life Church may have carried out an even larger scale massacre. “She’s the hero,” New Life Senior Pastor Brady Boyd said. “She saved 100?s of lives yesterday.”

But there are those who don’t want you to be able to save your church members, your college roommate, the family eating a meal next to you at the local grill. Instead, they want you to rely solely on law enforcement officers, who somehow are supposed to be everywhere at all times.

And those same people, when elected to office, will propose a number of areas as off-limits for firearms, as if the murderers cared about their ludicrous criminal safezones.

Thankfully, in Colorado, those who proposed (and those who idly accepted) broad criminal safezones in the decade leading up to the 2003 Concealed Carry Law in Colorado were largely defeated. And the tragic situation in Colorado Springs proved that these criminal safezone would have led to more deaths.

As the only lobbyist who served the pro-gun community through a decade-long battle (the first ccw bills were offered in 1994) for concealed carry, I was routinely shocked at the concessions the “pro-gun” side made to this concept of criminal safezones. In fact, at a key moment in the debate of 1999 (when, prior to Columbine, everyone expected a bill to pass), the NRA attempted to sneak a University, Public Sporting Event, and Church criminal safezone into the bill. RMGO exposed, and defeated, that underhanded attempt to disarm citizens in key areas, which was offered in the name of short-term political expediency. I’ve never regretted taking that hard stance, even when no one else ostensibly on our side would.

The concept is simple: if you believe law-abiding citizens should be allowed the means to defend themselves, there should be no place off limits. Self defense is a God-given, and constitutionally recognized, right. And the modern day tool of self defense is a concealed handgun.

In my church, there are a number of men who carry firearms. On the rare occasion I am asked why I carry there, I simply smile and say “We don’t want a fire in our church, but we have fire extinguishers. In either case — with an extinguisher or a firearm — I want the tool to be helpful in an emergency.”

Many politicians, eager to dismiss the usefulness of privately owned and carried firearms, are the same people who will attempt to label Jeanne Asssam as “law enforcement.” And while she did work for a police department in Minneapolis a number of years ago, she was just a private citizen on Sunday, in church, worshiping her God, and carrying a handgun.

Jeanne Assam now enters a list of American heroes my kids will learn about when addressing the hard lessons of liberty.

Dudley Brown
Executive Director

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National Association for Gun Rights

P.O. Box 7002

Fredericksburg, VA 22404

The Second Amendment IS Homeland Security !