At her first press conference Jeanne Assam described what happened after Matthew Murray entered the New Life Church in Colorado Springs last Sunday, started shooting and refused her order to drop his weapon:

"I saw him coming through the doors" and took cover, Assam said. "I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down."

"G-d was with me," Assam said. "I didn't think for a minute to run away."

Assam said she believes G-d gave her the strength to confront Murray, keeping her calm and focused even though he appeared to be twice her size and was more heavily armed. [Note: Assam, a police officer in downtown Minneapolis during the 1990s is described by another pastor as 110 pounds “dripping wet.”] ...

"It seemed like it was me, the gunman and God," she said.

Before Assam stopped Murray in his tracks, he killed Stephanie and Rachael Works, 18 and 16, and wounded their father, David Works, 51; he is in fair condition at a local hospital recovering from gunshot wounds in his groin area and abdomen.

Grudgingly noting that Assam’s actions “probably” saved lives, The Washington Post notes that the incident “certainly opened the eyes of an American public that had no idea that some churches are protected by congregants discreetly packing heat” [emphasis, The Stiletto’s]:

Why are there security guards at a church?" said Gary Schneeberger, repeating a question that has been asked in recent days. Schneeberger is vice president for media relations at Focus on the Family, whose Colorado Springs lobby includes a plaque framing a bullet hole left in a wall by a man who held four people hostage in 1996.

"The reality of the situation is - it's a sad reality, but it's a reality - there are no sanctuaries anymore. We've seen this happen in schools, in malls, playgrounds, parks, churches. No place is safe anymore."

Assam was one of several members of the New Life congregation wearing a pistol under her church clothes and a radio earpiece under her hair. A former police officer in Minneapolis, she served as a security volunteer at the evangelical ministry. Its 10,000 members gather in a four-building complex that resembles a shopping mall and requires similar attention to crowd control and disaster planning.

"We have 40-plus security staff members over four properties: warehouse, church, elementary school, prison outreach facilities," said Sean Smith, who oversees security at the Potter's House, a 30,000-member church in Dallas. More than 400 staffers from larger congregations attended a conference on church security that Potter's House organized this year, more than double the turnout in 2005.

Unlike the WaPo, New Life's Senior Pastor Brady Boyd is no Doubting Thomas: He credits Assam - who is licensed to carry a gun and volunteers as a guard for the church - with saving the lives of 50 to 100 people, because Murray "had enough ammunition on him to cause a lot of damage" (Murray was carrying two handguns, an assault rifle and over 1,000 rounds of ammunition). Boyd adds that Assam had urged the church to strengthen its security after the church shooting in nearby Arvada – which was also Murray’s handiwork.

When you compare the carnage at Luby’s and Virginia Tech with the limited loss of life at the New Life Church because an armed citizen took action, one has to wonder how the WaPo and other elite media that have an entrenched anti-Second Amendment bias can continue to justify “gun-free zones.”     

The Other Shoe Drops: Updates To Previous Posts

† It’s A Topsy-Turvy Campaign: Want more proof? The New Hampshire chapter of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union, has endorsed Mike Huckabee (AR) for Republican presidential nomination – the first time the 16,000-member union (only about a 25% of whom are Republican) has endorsed a Republican candidate, reports The Associated Press. The endorsement is remarkable for another reason: Huckabee, a former Baptist minister, favors including intelligent design in school curricula. But wait – it gets weirder: Minuteman Civil Defense League founder Jim Gilchrist has also endorsed Huckabee. When he was governor of AR, Huckabee supported awarding merit-based state-funded college scholarships to forged documented aliens who graduated from a state high school. Huckabee says that Gilchrist has blessed his "humane and compassionate" plan to curb illegal immigration, saying he could have easily written the plan himself.

† Craig, Constituents Clash: Bipartisan lobbying firm Federal Strategy Group sent out a holiday greeting that “was quickly downloaded into a PDF format and is now going "viral" on the email circuit,” reports The Washington Post’s Mary Ann Akers (AKA “The Sleuth”). The card depicts “two men in Washington power suits passing a giant candy cane under a men's bathroom stall, undoubtedly the international symbol for ‘Ho Ho Ho.’" Here is a photo of the greeting, in case you’d like to pass it on.

† Prince Charles Is Carbon Neutral. Now We Are (ROTFL) Amused. (third item): In its report on the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali, The Nation finally wakes up to the fact that carbon trading – essentially, buying the “right” to keep your carbon footprint as big as you please – is a scam. Outfits that trade or sell carbon credits or offsets are akin to those that sell naming rights to the stars in the heavens, or those that create coats of arms for families whose forebears were too humble to own a coat, much less arms.

† Mitt Romney Leaves Voters Cold (third item): The New York Times once observed that Mitt Romney comes off as aloof, and that voters have trouble connecting to him on a human level. Watching the CPAC speeches back in March, The Stiletto noted that Romney’s smug demeanor and a smirk set her teeth on edge. When you combine “aloof” and “smug” together you get “arrogant” – and Proverbs 16:18 instructs that "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." The Boston Globe reports that Romney got his comeuppance in this exchange with Tom Tancredo during that Des Moines Register debate the other day that hardly anyone watched:

When Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado looked down the lineup of fellow Republican presidential candidates and said he had a question for the governor "because you're leading the pack now," former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney straightened up as if readying himself for a punch.

But Tancredo interjected, "no, no no," and pointed instead at former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, as Romney receded with a locked-jaw smile.

The latest Newsweek poll has Huckabee leading Romney by 22 points in IA (39 percent vs. 17 percent); the Mason-Dixon poll has Huckabee up by 12 points (32 percent vs. 20 percent).