Allen for Virginia

Back in the 18th century, Virginia helped win America`s Second Amendment when it demanded a written Bill of Rights be incorporated into our Constitution.

But now Virginia could lose one of the Second Amendment`s most reliable and effective advocates in the U.S. Senate if John Kerry, Charles Schumer and other anti-gun politicians have their way.

That`s why your vote in Virginia this November, in the race between U.S. Sen. George Allen and challenger James Webb, is so vitally important.

Because, while Sen. George Allen has a long, documented record of fighting and winning on behalf of honest guns owners` rights, his challenger, James Webb, has no such record.

No matter what Webb promises or proposes as a candidate, he can never match the array of pro-gun achievements won by Allen over the past 14 years.

"Virginia gun owners who care about their freedoms couldn`t ask for a more committed, effective and proven pro-gun leader than U.S. Sen. George Allen," said NRA-ILA Executive Director Chris W. Cox.

NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre agreed. "For well over a decade, first as Virginia`s governor and now as a U.S. senator, George Allen has pressed for, and signed into law, some of the most important pro-freedom reforms our cause has to its credit," he said.

That`s no overstatement.

As governor from 1994 to 1998, George Allen was in some ways a revolutionary.

In 1994, he restored to law-abiding citizens the right to carry a firearm for protection through "shall-issue" reform. Following in the footsteps of Florida, Virginia under Allen restored a fundamental right of peaceful, honest citizens--and as a result all Virginians ended up safer, whether or not they chose to carry a firearm.

In the decade between 1995--when Allen`s law took effect--and 2005, the murder rate in the Old Dominion fell by an astonishing
40 percent.

That was enough to make other states perk up and take notice.

Indeed, the successful, lifesaving examples set by Florida and Virginia helped spark a Right-to-Carry revolution that has swept through nearly every state in our nation.

As governor, Allen was revolutionary in other ways as well.

He signed a "truth in sentencing" law to abolish parole in Virginia, force violent felons to serve far more than just a small fraction of their sentences and rebuild faith in a system that had made "criminal justice" a joke.

As Allen pointed out in 2001, these reforms helped reduce the overall violent crime rate in Virginia by 21 percent. Violent crime was falling nationwide at the time, but not nearly that fast.

For the past six years, George Allen has stood up for your Second Amendment rights as a member of the U.S. Senate.

As an example, Senator Allen is a co-sponsor of s. 1082, a bill to put an end to the Washington, d.c., gun ban that leaves its residents defenseless against violent criminals.

What`s more, Allen co-sponsored Senate legislation to allow airline pilots to arm themselves in the cockpit, protecting passengers like you from terrorist mass murderers.

More recently, in May, Allen introduced s. 3275, a national Right-to-Carry reciprocity bill.

Assuring that such a law would not institute any form of federal license or permit, the senator explained that it "would simply require states to recognize each other`s concealed-carry permits and licenses, just as they recognize drivers` licenses."

"This is common sense legislation," Allen said. "It recognizes that Congress has affirmed an individual`s right to carry firearms for `protective purposes`."

And, he might have added, it could help save lives all across the United States.

As an advocate of smaller government, lower taxes, stricter adherence to the rule of law and no compromise when it comes to Americans` individual freedoms, Allen is ideally suited to represent the values and virtues of Virginia`s constitutional framers.

"Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, has long been my philosophical hero, along with Ronald Reagan, who inspired me to get into organized politics," Allen has said.

"As a student of history at `Mr. Jefferson`s University,` the University of Virginia, I studied Thomas Jefferson`s writings," Allen continued, "which shaped my vision for the responsible and limited role of government."

George Allen`s challenger in the U.S. Senate race, James Webb, can claim no such proud political pedigree.

As for the Second Amendment Right to Keep and Bear Arms, Webb can claim whatever he wants, because his record is non-existent.

But look where Webb seems to draw his support.

According to The Washington Post, in the Democrat primary election, Webb won two-thirds of the vote in the northern Virginia liberal enclaves of suburban Washington, D.C.

Indeed, what`s disturbing to gun-owning Virginia voters is that Webb is backed by some of the most extreme anti-gun members of the national Democratic Party, who clearly consider his election to the Senate a high priority.

After Webb won the primary election, anti-gun extremist U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who chairs the Democrat Senatorial Campaign Committee, threw himself at every television camera in sight, praising Webb and gushing that here was someone who could defeat pro-gun leader George Allen.

Nine incumbent Democrat U.S. senators, including Schumer and John Kerry, came out to endorse Webb. John Kerry even appeared at Webb`s primary victory party.

"For nearly a decade and a half, George Allen has had an unblemished `a` rating from the NRA Political Victory Fund," LaPierre said. "And for a decade and a half, George Allen has stood for conservative values and virtues--from individual freedom and personal responsibility, to limited government and constitutional guarantees--that Virginians are rightly proud to hold dear as their own.

"No matter how much money the national Democratic Party machine spends on his campaign, James Webb can`t claim any of those things," LaPierre said.

This November, it is critical that all freedom-loving Virginians vote to re-elect Sen. George Allen.