© 1999 WorldNetDaily.com
A couple of weeks ago there was a storm of controversy raised between TV talk host Rosie O'Donnell and her guest, Tom Selleck, who appeared on the former's show to plug a movie. But since Selleck had also recently completed the taping of some new National Rifle Association public service commercials, and since this was the waning period following the Littleton, Colo., school shootings, O'Donnell felt compelled to take Selleck to task on the air.

Seems as though Rosie -- though she films commercial spots for K-Mart, one of the country's leading firearms retailers -- was offended by Selleck's NRA affiliation and sought to admonish him for it in front of the studio audience. That kind of hypocrisy is typical of rabid, nonsensical liberals, and Rosie fits that category well.

On the other hand my editor, Joseph Farah, also took Mr. Selleck to task -- as he should have -- for the NRA spokesman's weak defense of his gun lobby affiliation. That's because my boss and I, as well as millions of you, are sick and tired of seeing pro-gun voices cower publicly before the galactically stupid over the issue of gun rights, which according to the Second Amendment shouldn't even be an "issue" in the first place.

In pondering my response to all of this, I received an email from an attorney and WorldNetDaily reader named Rick Vaughn who framed the debate much better than I could have done. I asked him for his permission to use his piece, and he granted it.

So, Ms. O'Donnell, using the words and thoughts of Mr. Vaughn, here is my take on your position of absurdity involving the gun debate:

"Dear Rosie:

"I respect your First Amendment rights, I really do. Lord knows I fought for them in law school, just as I would have fought for them when I served in the Marines.

"I respect your intense dislike for guns. That is your right -- to unilaterally disarm yourself and throw yourself upon the mercy of the government and any assailant who wants to take or do anything to you or your loved ones. Those too are your rights.

"Apparently you do not respect my rights to exercise the most fundamental of all human rights -- self-defense -- which in this day and age may only be practically effected with personal arms.

"I can live with that. Now here is my challenge to you. You give up all your guns. Every last one of them. The shotgun in the closet, the pistol in the nightstand. No guns in the House of Rosie.

"No cheating! No private security! Sorry, you have to live under the same conditions you would condemn others to.

"Take for instance, my hypothetical friend Vonda. She is a single mother of two and lives on the wrong side of the tracks. Break-ins are common. Police response is slow to non-existent. That .38 she could have had, which incidentally she is guaranteed under the Supreme Law of the Land, our Constitution, under your rules, Rosie's Diktat, she will no longer have.

"The next break-in Vonda suffers at 2:30 in the morning may leave her a statistic. Kind of like the lady who, in real life, lived two blocks from me. She suffered a break-in, but didn't have a gun to protect her and her kids. The bad boys tortured her with an electric iron so they could have money for their drug habit.

"Thanks, Rosie. Vonda's in-laws will thank you, because Vonda isn't with us today. Her body was found raped and beaten. She's a victim -- a statistic. She's also real. There are Vondas all across the United States, who live alone and, because of laws like those you love, are defenseless.

"This is nothing new, the evil have always preyed upon the weak and defenseless. But if Vonda had had her own gun, she could simply have shown it to her attacker, and like the 2.5 million Americans who defend themselves against murder, rape, robbery and violent assault each year, she could have sent the bad boys running with no shots fired.

"Now I said no cheating. This is putting your money where your mouth is: You move into Vonda's old first-floor apartment. She couldn't afford bars on the windows or an alarm system, and in the name of fairness, neither should you spend your millions on either. You get the same police protection Vonda got -- essentially a chalk mark around her body and some gory pictures to show to a jury.

"That's it Rosie. All I ask is that you put your money where your mouth is, and live under the same conditions of primal fear you would condemn Vonda and her sisters to."

Thanks, Rick. Millions of us who are seeing our gun rights frittered away by the eternally cowardly and shamefully political couldn't have said it better ourselves. And, considering that Ms. O'Donnell is refusing her invitation to the Tony Awards because she was scared off by a kidnapping threat last week, your words ought to be particularly sobering to scores of liberal Americans and, alas, Ms. O'Donnell herself.

Sadly, however, I predict neither she nor other rabid anti-gunners will ever get the point you're trying to make until they've been killed by some armed predator.