New Book Now Available
From Luby’s to the Legislature
One Woman’s Fight Against Gun Control
By Suzanna Gratia Hupp
The mass shooting at Luby’s Cafeteria in Central Texas made
news around the world and turned an unknown chiropractor into a national
champion for the right of ordinary citizens to carry guns for self-defense.
Suzanna
Gratia, then 32, was having lunch with her parents at the restaurant
in Killeen that day in October 1991 when a man crashed his pickup
through a window and began shooting people. When the shooting stopped,
her mother and father were dead along with 22 other people, including
the shooter.
No one was
interviewed more about that shooting than Suzanna Gratia Hupp (her
married name). She became an icon for gun rights and the Second Amendment
because she was not afraid to be interviewed by the news media and
because she told them what they did not expect hear. She wasn’t
mad at the shooter – how can you be mad at a rabid dog? – and she did not blame guns. She blamed politicians
who had legislated away her right to carry a gun to protect herself and her
family.
No one has had more to do with passing the rash of state concealed-carry
laws that swept the country in the 1990s allowing ordinary law-abiding
citizens to carry handguns for self-defense. She has told her story
to the national media and has testified before Congress and numerous
state legislatures. She served for 10 years in the Texas Legislature.
Now she has put it all down in a memoir entitled From
Luby’s to the Legislature: One Woman’s Fight Against
Gun Control.
Hupp recounts
how guns have affected her life – from playing with cap guns with her
brother to filing bills in the Texas Legislature to allow students with concealed
carry licenses to pack guns on college campuses. The latter has become a hot
topic following the shootings at Virginia Tech.
She tells
what happened on October 16, 1991 at the Luby’s Cafeteria and how it
affected her and her family. She recalls making “the stupidest decision” of
her life when she decided several months before the shooting to stop carrying
a revolver in her purse in case she was caught and lost her chiropractor’s
license. That decision left her unarmed at the time she most needed her gun.
While
Hupp had much to do with the passage of concealed carry laws, her
attitude about them is ambivalent. She calls them “discriminatory
at best and racist at worst.” In most states the licenses are
expensive and far beyond the reach of many who most need a gun for
self-defense– a minority single
mother being stalked by a former husband or boyfriend. She also thinks
that ordinary citizens should not have to seek permission from government
to exercise a constitutional right.
Hupp lives
with her husband and two sons on a small ranch near Lampasas in Central
Texas where she raises Arabian horses.
Publishing Information
Title: From Luby’s to the Legislature
Subtitle: One Woman’s Fight Against Gun Control
Author: Suzanna Gratia Hupp
ISBN: 978-0-09656784-4-5
Publication Date: October 2009
Price: $22.95
No. of Pages: 188
No. of Photos: 24
Trim Size: 5½ x 8½
Binding: Cloth (hardcover)
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