To my former and current military family & friends:

I just wanted to thank each one of you for having the patriotism, guts and perseverance that it takes to protect America- especially in these troubled times. God bless each and every one of you. I wanted each of you to know that you have the love, respect, admiration and full support of folks who still believe in America- and understand something that was best worded by Zell Miller, not long ago:

“It is the soldier, not the reporter, who has given us the freedom of the press. It is the soldier, not the poet, who has given us freedom of speech. It is the soldier, not the agitator, who has given us the freedom to protest. It is the soldier who salutes the flag, serves beneath the flag, whose coffin is draped by the flag, who gives that protester the freedom to abuse and burn that flag."

God bless the Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines of the United States Military. For those still overseas-May you each come home safe, and SOON!

Pass it on.

Steve Sargent

The 2006 Election

There may be a tinfoil lining (at least) for gun owners, behind these overcast skies.

The Republicans, if they wish to regain power, will take a hard look at why they got their arsies kicked. Some of it simply wasn't within their collective control. The entire GOP didn't 'make 'Tom Delay get himself arrested for conspiracy and money laundering. They didn't 'make' Mark Foley, a 'get-tough advocate for anti-child predator laws', exchange sexually explicit notes with a teenage boy- resulting in his resignation from Congress in disgrace.

There were individual choices by prominent members of the party which, in my opinion, made it easy for folks to vote against the party as a whole. The steady stream of bad news friom Iraq, and the President's own reluctance to take immigration seriously, were icing on the cake. Add to this the fact that many Republicans had become so moderate as to be indistinguishable from their adversaries, and a major loss for the GOP was inevitable.

The question was not "if"- but only "when?" That question was answered yesterday.

IF the Democrats have been paying attention, they will rush to the "Harry Truman" side of the ship. They will abandon some of the freak/fringe lunacy that made them distateful to regular folks-once the backbone of their support base-for so long. With a little luck, 'gun control' will be be among the first smelly cargo that gets tossed overboard. Even their darling Bill Klinton acknowledged that it was a key factor in their mass eviction notice from office, in 1994.

Hopefully, both sides will learn from this. Hopefully.

Until then, gun owners had better exist in 'political condition orange.' I think that whenever new gun control legislation is introduced, the sponsors (regardless of party affiliation) NEED to get letters from gun owners telling them that they have been idenified as a threat to the Second Amendment- and asking them if they are old enough to remember the 1994 election.

This is no time to quit the fight.