Next President & Supreme Court: lessons learned in
`Hanoi Hilton'
by James H. Warner

I know that there are many gunowners who do not want to vote for Sen.
John McCain for president. Most of you have had many policy differences
with him over the years. I myself have disagreed with him on a number
of issues. Nevertheless, I am telling you, as a fellow gunowner, that you
must vote for McCain. If he is not elected president our gun rights will
be in greater danger than ever before.

Let me explain
I know the importance of judges who can read the Constitution and
under*stand it to mean exactly what it says. I am an attorney, retired
from the legal office of the National Rifle Association. While I was
at the NRA our office had several occasions to participate in legal actions
defending your rights. Although I am otherwise retired, I recently
wrote one of the briefs (a written legal argu*ment) submitted to
the US Supreme Court in the recent case challenging two restrictive
gun laws in the District of Columbia. Our side argued that these laws
violated the individual right to keep and bear arms which is protected
by the Second Amendment. We suc*ceeded.
This was the first time
in the history of our country that the Supreme Court has recognized
that the Second Amendment protects an individual right.

You may think that the battle is over. You would be wrong.

Our gun rights are in greater danger today than ever before. Let me explain.
The decision in the Supreme Court was 5-4. That is a razor thin margin.
One of the justices who voted against us was Justice John Paul Stevens.
He is 88 years old. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who also voted agains
t us, is 75 years old and is believed to be in poor health. If two justices
leave the Court the next president of the United States would appoint
their successors. If Barack Obama is elected, and these two justices
leave the Court, he could appoint nominees like Charles Schumer and
Dianne Feinstein to the bench. If that were to happen, nothing would
have changed and our margin would remain a razor thin one vote margin.

However, if they were to be replaced with justices who take our view
of the law, our majority would then be 7-2, a much safer margin.
But what if three justices, or even four, were to leave the Court?
Justice Anthony Kennedy, who voted with us, is 72, as is
Justice Antonin Scalia, who was also in our corner. What if they left the
Court and President Obama replaced them with Hillary Clinton and
Richard Durbin? The anti-gun crowd would have a 6-3 majority.
Where would our gun rights be then? For that matter, where would our guns be?

If there should be a Democratic president and a Democratic Congress,
you can be sure that there would be a flood of new gun laws.

You can be sure that many of the guns that are currently in your gun locker
would be made illegal.

I know that there are others who don't trust McCain. I have a different perspective.

He has been my friend for 37 years. I didn't meet him at a Washington fundraiser, or a lobbyist's cocktail party.
I met him when 36 of us were taken from Hoa Lo prison (the infamous "Hanoi Hilton") and put in cramped 61/2 by 3-foot cells in a place we were told was a "punishment camp." I would trust his integrity if my life depended on it.

I say this because I saw how he performed when we were forced to trust in the integrity of our comrades. I have seen, with my own eyes, that John McCain's word can be trusted. He has said that if elected he would appoint judges whose view of the law is similar to that of Justice Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts. I believe him and I urge you to trust him also.
Regardless of any other differences you may have with McCain, you must help elect him so we can keep our guns. I was disarmed once (when I was cap*tured) and it did not work out so well. I don't want that to happen to you.

James H. Warner is an attorney who is retired from the legal
office of the NRA. He served as a domestic policy advisor
to President Ronald Reagan from 1985 until 1989. He was a
Marine officer in Vietnam and was held as a POW in
North Vietnam for years.
The New GUN WEEK, September 15, 2008