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PISTOL-PACKIN’ POP GUNS DOWN LIBERAL MYTH
By ROD DREHER

[Gun-toting father Ernest Regent, 69, reaps the gratitude of his son,
Robert, 19, after gunning down a vicious dog that was attacking the
young man in Middle Village, Queens.]
- Brigitte Stelzer

July 26, 2001 — THREE cheers for Ernie
Regent, who has provided the city with the best civilian use of a
handgun to serve the public good since Bernie Goetz served notice on
those subway thugs.

Those who think private citizens should never be armed should think
about where young

Robert Regent would be today if his dad hadn’t had a gun and known how
to use it.

Ernie would have been attending his boy’s hospital bedside now – or on
the phone with the funeral home.

“Too often we hear about the bad cases, where firearms are used by
criminals to do bad things, and too rarely about cases like this, where
a gun was used by a dad to save his son’s life,” says Kelly Whitley, a
National Rifle Association spokeswoman.

Hear, hear. Luckily for the elder Regent, an NRA member himself, the gun
was licensed.
Otherwise, he would have been arrested and made a pariah by city
liberals.

Ask Goetz about that.

Texas legislator Suzanna Hupp knows, tragically, how much good a gun can
do in the hands of a law-abiding citizen. Ten years ago, she was having
lunch with her mother and father in Luby’s cafeteria in Killeen, Texas.

Suddenly, a gun-toting maniac burst in and started firing at customers.
Because of Texas law at the time, Hupp – like three other Luby’s patrons
that day – had to leave her gun in her car.

Her mother and father were shot dead, along with 20 others. She is
convinced many of the victims would be alive today if she had had her
gun with her.

Ernie is no pistol-packing braggart. He is a sober citizen who believes
everyone who wants to own a gun should first be given a background
check, and mandatory firearms training.

Regent has encouraged all his adult children to learn how to use
firearms and get licensed. You never know when your skill and your
weapon will be called on to save a life.

“It had to be done,” Regent said of the pit-bull shooting. “And I would
have done it for anybody else.”

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