Reader's Digest 2006 Hero of The Year

From Neal Boortz. Yes, I am sure it'll inflame the weenies but if you want to take shots at it, try to do so factually and not with some bedwetters quasi-baseless opinions.

THE 2006 HERO OF THE YEAR

Jeff May is an Ojibwe Indian from Minnesota. Readers Digest named him the 2006 Hero of the Year. I had never heard of Jeff May until I opened a letter from a listener yesterday. My guess is that you have never heard of him either.

Here's the story.

About two years ago a young male wearing a black trench coat walked into the Red Lake Senior High School in northern Minnesota. He was carrying not one, not two, but three guns. He started shooting and killed eight people, injuring seven more .... then Jeff May took action. A teacher? No ... Jeff May was a sophomore at Red Lack. Sixteen years old, perhaps 15. (Can't nail down his exact age). Jeff was doing algebra problems with a pencil when the shooter entered his classroom. After May saw what was happening he rushed the gunman ... armed only with the pencil. He stabbed the shooter in the side with the pencil and the two started struggling. Jeff May was shot in the face. By this time the police showed up, and the shooter killed himself. Jeff May's teacher, Missy Dodds, says he saved many of his classmates lives, and hers. Other news reports put the number of lives that Jeff May saved at a dozen. After the incident he spent a lengthy time in physical, occupational and speech therapy for his injuries.

Was Jeff May a hot-shot student athlete at Red Lake? Not known. His pictures show him to be a slightly pudgy teenager. What you can't see in those pictures is a heart the size of a basketball.

Can you folks imagine this? Nothing like this could ever happen, right? Someone walks into a classroom blazing away with multiple guns, and a student -- a 16-year-old -- rushes him with a pencil? No .. this just has to be a work of Hollywood fiction. No teenager could possibly ever show such bravery.

But it's not, and he did.

What happened here? Hard to say. Maybe Jeff May was raised in a culture where self-defense was praised rather than condemned. Maybe he was raised in a home with a strong father.

Maybe his Ojimwe culture celebrates individualism.

Another question: Why haven't I heard of Jeff May before yesterday? We certainly get all of the gory details from every school shooting, and this Red Lake shooting in 2005 had been the worst since Columbine. Why wasn't Jeff May celebrated across this country? is it possible because his actions are politically incorrect in our current culture of government dependency?

And why is the idea of self-defense so unpopular with the left? Why, when someone acts to save their own life and the lives of others, do we invariably get some public official or politician warning us about the dangers of "taking the law into our own hands?"

Remember, please, the leftist war against individualism. Self-defense is a uniquely individualist pursuit. There you are, an individual person, using deadly force to protect ... yourself! Don't you know that in this age of big-government that this is a job for the police!

About 20 legislators in South Carolina have now introduced legislation that would allow anyone in South Carolina with a concealed weapons permit to carry that weapon on a government school or college campus. The only other state in the union with such a law is Utah. Get this passed in South Carolina and you will make South Carolina school grounds among the safest in the nation. Liberals, however, are going to scream bloody murder. They will fight tooth and nail to defeat this measure .. and my guess is that they'll probably succeed.

Why is it that liberals hate the idea of an armed citizen so much? They can read the statistics just like we can. If they care to research the matter, they will learn that people with concealed carry permits simply do not commit gun crimes! So, the liberal opposition to citizens carrying guns simply cannot be excused over fears for general public safety. The facts simply don't bear those fears out. There has to be something else at work here, and there is. Liberals don't like armed individuals because they are .... individuals. Carrying a gun for self-defense is, as I said, a uniquely individual pursuit. It's a loud statement by an individual citizen saying "I own my life, and I have the right to take deadly action to defend it." The liberal believes that your life belongs to government, and that it is the government's job to protect it.

Thank God Jeff May didn't buy it.