Bob Novak, the celebrated co-host of CNN’s evening “Crossfire”program who celebrates his birthday this month, is the designated recipient of the CCRKBA Gun Rights Defender of the Month Award for February.

In nominating Novak for the award, John Michael Snyder, CCRKBA Public Affairs Director, noted that the natioally-syndicated columnist “never hesitates to stick up for the individual Second Amendment civil rights of law-abiding American firearm owners when the gun control issue comes to the fore in public discussion or debate.

“Whether it’s in his columns or on the ‘Crossfire’ program or on the ‘Capital Gang,’ a CNN weekly telecast, Bob always can be counted onto pulverize in the most articulate and devastating manner the arguments for more and more restrictive gun control advanced by the statist nerds he confronts.

“Over the years, I’ve run into Bob a number of times in Washington, and have found him to be a most gracious and engaging conversationalist, despite what his critics, who call him the ‘Prince of Darkness,’ say about him.

“Robert David Sanders Novak, a stalwart defender of the right to keep and bear arms, an accomplished journalist and a gentleman of sterling character, is most worthy of this award.”

Bob is the author of a number of books. In his latest, “Completing the Revolution, A Vision for Victory in 2000,” he takes leaders of the Republican Party to task for not having the courage to stickup for the principles of the party, including the right to keep and bear arms. He writes that Republicans, if they are to maintain their majority congressional status, have got to stick up for our gun rights, regardless of what the majority of advocacy journalists say and write.

In a chapter on “The Courage to Be Republicans,” Novak recalls the vacillation of the Republican congressional leadership last year when confronted wit media and Democrat demands for gun control after the Columbine shootings.

He writes that political courage require a “willingness to charge full speed into the teeth of conventional wisdom an political correctness. But it is also something quite different. Such courage is no an isolated act or one that necessarily means the end of a political career. It does mean the determination to stand by what the Republican party has come to mean no matter if it collides with the caution and stop signals flashed by polls and focus groups.

He states that “for Republicans approaching the millennial election, there are underlying principles that they should be proud to champion,” including “individual freedom, the courage to return governmental emphasis to the freedom of the individual … to own guns.”