Guest Blog on the Second Amendment by Robert Jursik

Karen Testerman was a guest this past Saturday at the Tri-Rivers Friends of the NRA dinner in Franklin, which affords us an excellent opportunity to reflect a bit on the US Constitution's 2nd Amendment and her uncompromising support of it.

In New Hampshire, the politician who would publicly disdain the 2nd Amendment is rare to the point of non-existent. The campaign websites for three of New Hampshire's arguably most liberal candidates - Paul Hodes, Carol Shea-Porter and Anne McLane Kuster - are utterly silent on it. Perhaps wisely so, as the orthodox liberal opinion of gun rights is almost universally negative. Conservative candidates such as Karen happily proclaim their defense of gun rights from the rooftops, and are rewarded with significant voter acceptance. It is a perennial conservative issue.

The reason for this is that the 2nd Amendment has greater sophistication than words on a page. The philosophical foundations of it constitute the essence of American liberty, the very soul of the ardent Constitutionalist. The leftist's skepticism of individual liberty is revealed in the sorry catalog of his policies, one government-run purgatory after another: health care, housing, energy, education. It is no different with the self-defense of Americans. To limit or even remove the ability of the citizen to arm and defend himself creates a corresponding dependence on the state to defend you, in the form of law enforcement. Although conservatives are second to no one in respect for our police, we insist on the right to determine for ourselves the circumstances of our defense: its timing, its degree, its target, its duration. No one - least of all the orthodox leftist - can appreciate those circumstances better or more quickly than we can.

If these facts seem obvious to us, they would have certainly been obvious to the Framers as well. Why then include the obvious in the Constitution? In the Bill of Rights? Second only to freedom of speech and religion? It is because the Framers understood that the necessity for bearing arms referred to more than just confronting a mugger on a sidewalk. At the time of the Ratification, the first police force in world history would have still been decades away - and on the other side of the Atlantic. Defending against local crimes would not have been nearly as important to them as defending against the abuses of an overreaching government, something with which they would have been painfully familiar. Keeping and bearing arms of at least comparable power to those employed by the state would be the citizen's last, surest stronghold against tyranny. Such an interpretation of the 2nd Amendment would be in perfect harmony with the letter and spirit of the entire Constitution, the most government-limiting document ever devised.

No one should be surprised that conservatives - with their fondness for rule of law, stability and tradition - embrace the amendment as written and in its larger meaning. The question, rather, is why the left does not. This is, after all, the same crowd which finds constitutional justification for abortion hidden deep in the misty "emanations" and "penumbras" of the Constitutional jungle. Yet they are woefully blind to the high-visibility, reflective surface of the 2nd Amendment billboard standing directly in front of them. There is no escaping the conclusion - they don't see it because they don't want to.

Service Above Self

A Great Lady Passes

Pamela Murphy, widow of WWII hero and actor, Audie Murphy, died peacefully at her home on April 8, 2010. She was the widow of the most decorated WWII hero and actor, Audie Murphy, and established her own distinctive 35 year career working as a patient liaison at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration hospital, treatingevery veteran who visited the facility as if they were a VIP.

Any soldier or Marine who came into the hospital got the same special treatment from her. She would walk the hallways with her clipboard in hand making sure her boys got to see the specialist they needed.

If they didn't, watch out. Her boys weren't Medal of Honor recipients or movie stars like Audie, but that didn't matter to Pam. They had served their country. That was good enough for her.  She never called a veteran by his first name. It was always "Mister." Respect came with the job.

"Nobody could cut through VA red tape faster than Mrs. Murphy," said veteran Stephen Sherman, speaking for thousands of veterans she befriended over the years. "Many times I watched her march a veteran who had been waiting more than an hour right into the doctor's office.  She was even reprimanded a few times, but it didn't matter to Mrs. Murphy. "Only her boys mattered. She was our angel." 

 Audie Murphy died broke in a plane crash in 1971, squandering millions of dollars on gambling, bad investments, and yes, other women.  "Even with the adultery and desertion at the end, he always remained my hero," Pam told me.  

She went from a comfortable ranch-style home in Van Nuys where she raised two sons to a small apartment - taking a clerk's job at the nearby VA to support herself and start paying off her faded movie star husband's debts.  At first, no one knew who she was. Soon, though, word spread throughthe VA that the nice woman with the clipboard was Audie Murphy's widow. It was like saying General Patton had just walked in the front door. Men with tears in their eyes walked up to her and gave her a hug.

"Thank you," they said, over and over.

The first couple of years, I think the hugs were more for Audie's memory as a war hero. The last 30 years, they were for Pam. 

 One year I asked her to be the focus of a Veteran's Day column for all the work she had done. Pam just shook her head no.

"Honor them, not me," she said, pointing to a group of veterans down the hallway. "They're the ones who deserve it."

The vets disagreed. Mrs. Murphy deserved the accolades, they said.  Incredibly, in 2002, Pam's job was going to be eliminated in budget cuts. She was considered "excess staff."  "I don't think helping cut down on veterans' complaints and showing them the respect they deserve, should be considered excess staff," she told me.  Neither did the veterans. They went ballistic, holding a rally for her outside the VA gates.  Pretty soon, word came down from the top of the VA. Pam Murphy was no longer considered "excess staff." 

 She remained working full time at the VA until 2007 when she was 87.  

"The last time she was here was a couple of years ago for the conference we had for homeless veterans," said Becky James, coordinator of the VA's Veterans History Project.   Pam wanted to see if there was anything she could do to help some more of her boys.  Pam Murphy was 90 when she died last week. What a lady.

 Dennis McCarthy, Los Angeles Times on April 15, 2010 

Strong Family Support Needed

More than forty years ago I watched my husband go off to the Vietnam war.  He spent two of the next four years flying combat missions over Viet Nam.  During that I and our two sons waited anxiously for the letters and infrequent calls, but most importantly we waited for his safe return.  During this time, we and the other military families kept the home fires burning.  We supported each other. We didn’t expect much from the rear echelon staff at the base.  What we did though was work very hard to keep our families together because we knew it was this stability that gave our husbands strength to continue.  In fact, of over 30 B-52 aircrews deployed from our base and in the four year period I do not remember one divorce.  Was this just a fluke?  I don’t think so.  I believe it was because we knew we were responsible for our own decisions and actions.  We knew it was about commitment.  We did this in the face of protestors at the gate and across the nation.  We did this in the face of losses as some of the husbands went down over North Vietnam. We did it because we knew in our hearts that an intact and supportive family was critically necessary.  The same is true today.

Fast forward to almost 30 years later and our two sons were flying combat missions over Kosovo.  There were still SAMs to dodge, but times had changed.  There were no protestors at the gate and our military was being honored and respected.  The internet was alive and well and almost daily contact with home was possible.  What did not changed was the need for strong families. What also did not change: our daughters-in-law and other spouses kept the home fires burning.  These families supported each other, and later, as the wars in the Gulf ensued, they did the same as their husbands and wives went back to war.  They did it because an intact and supportive family is as critically necessary today as much as it was then. 

But what has changed is the uncertainty of divorce.  Commitment to our oath of marriage changed.

But the foundations of our society did not change.  We still need strong stable families.

I am not saying that better pay and care of our troops is not necessary.  I am not saying that we don’t need to honor our troops.  I am not saying that caring for our veterans is not necessary.  What I am saying is that what makes our nation secure are the dedicated troops backed by strong, intact families.  And it is not just the families of our troops that are critical.  It is every family in this country.  

The single most important factor that defines the success of our country is an intact family.  This is true no matter what you use to measure it.  To paraphrase an old adage, intact families are by any measure, healthier, wealthier, and wiser.