FROM THE EDITOR

	All right class, settle down.  Take our a piece of paper, a 
ruler and a pen or pencil.

	Draw a rectangle with the long sides 4" and the short sides 2" 
long.  Label one long side "A," the opposite long side "B," one short 
side, "C" and the final short side, "D."  At the midway point on "A," 
make a mark and label it "X."  Where lines "B" and "D" meet in the 
corner, label the intersection "Y."  And finally, at the midpoint of line 
"D," mark a point and label it "Z."

	Welcome to Urban Realities 101. 

	Sunday, as I flipped through the front section of the paper, my 
eye was caught by the second lead story on the front page, "Teens held in 
abduction, rape."  (The front page of the Sunday paper, at least in my 
neck of the woods, is usually made up of a large color picture, 
preferably of kids or animals, a soft national story--policy analysis as 
opposed to news--and two or three local interest pieces.  The front page 
of the Sunday paper is usually pretty benign, because there's not much 
happening in the world on Saturdays and the softer focus leads you into 
the pages of department store ads better).

	Anyway, two teenage boys abducted a 30-year-old woman at point Y 
on the map you just made.  Holding her at gunpoint, they drove in her car 
through parts of the city and then to a suburban town.  During the hour 
she was held, the woman was raped.  She escaped in a field, and a short 
time later, city police spotter her car, gave chase and captured its five 
occupants when it crashed into a utility pole.

	Three girls, ages 13, 13, and 17 were riding in the car, but were 
not charged.

	A 16-year-old boy was charged with rape, sexual abuse, first 
degree robbery, kidnapping and menacing.  His 15-year-old companion was 
held at juvenile detention, accused of similar charges.  In addition to 
the car, police said the two boys also took te woman's jewelry and "a 
couple of dollars."

	It's new Wednesday, and, although I've been more diligent than 
usual, I haven't seen anything else about this crime in the paper, or on 
television.

	Some of my interest is abstract--I would like to know how the 
woman escaped, for example.  Most of my concern is personal--I live at 
point X and work at point Z--Point Y is a familiar corner that I pass on 
foot or in the car a couple of times a day.  Everyday.

	Admittedly, I'm not usually there at ten at night, when the crime 
occurred, but it's close enough to make me uncomfortable.  It didn't 
occur to me until the next day that the only possible location for this 
incident to have happened was in or near a fast food restaurant.  (The 
other corners contain two drug stores which would have been closed and the 
subway station which would have closed at the hour as well.)  There's no 
residential parking at the four corners, it's an intersection of 
commercial streets.  If you extend the side marked "D" (away from the "A-B"
corner, about an inch and marked it "Q," it would indicate the location of 
a policy station, which would have been open at 10pm.

	A few days before this incident, I was talking to a 
researcher/interviewer for LADIES HOME JOURNAL.  She asked several 
questions about women gunowners generally, and then focused in on one 
topic: Does the ownership of guns by women reflect their negative view of 
the world they live in?  Well, it certainly reflects their thoughts and 
concerns, and it represents their response to the threat continuum, a 
concept I had explained to her earlier in our conversation.

	But, she persisted, aren't women gunowners paranoid?

	I was tempted to reply that even paranoids have enemies, as we 
used to say in the sixties, but I didn't.  Instead, I launched into what 
I hope was a cogent case that those who see danger around them and take 
precautions are not paranoids, in fact they are just the opposite.

	And then cam Keziah Pitman's letter chiding me for misuse of the 
word "paranoid" in my April column.  In the column Keziah referred to, I 
was using the word in a political context, and I stand by that usage.  
Fan though I am of the spectator sport of politics (and these guys never 
go on strike), I remain convinced that gunowners have no "home team" 
here, although we do have a broad spectrum of all-stars at the local, 
state and federal level.  Unfortunately, they are seldom all playing on 
the same team.  My assertion that "eternal paranoia was the price of 
liberty," (which I appropriated from writer Len Deighton) was meant to 
convey the notion that, when it comes to the politics of guns eternal 
vigilance isn't enough.

	But back to the LADIES HOME JOURNAL'S questioner--are we as 
gunowning women somehow more paranoid (or some other less medical term) 
than our unarmed sisters?

	Where does precaution end and paranoia begin?  Suppose, for 
example, you were watching television and an ad came on for cellular 
phones.  The ad features a woman driving and she is musing on what could 
happen--the car might break down, the kids might be looking for her, 
etc.--but because she has the cell phone, she is spared inconvenience and 
danger.

	Okay, I'll buy the premise that a portable phone could come in 
mighty handy in any number of scenarios, including being locked out of 
your friend's car in the bookstore parking lot.

	But would it protect from imminent and immediate danger?  

	I offer to the contrary the report of a trial in Rochester, NY, 
abut 90 miles east of Buffalo.

	It is a murder trial.  The murder of a young college student who 
was carjacked, raped and murdered.

	In evidence is the 911 call she made from her car phone as the 
crime began and for it's duration.  It includes her begging for help and 
sounds of her mortal struggle with at least two captors.

	The tape, according to a published report, also included one voice 
saying to another, "Why don't you just do her," followed by a gunshot.

	Does it make me a paranoid to say to myself, "Well, a car phone 
is probably a good idea, but it isn't going to save my life."
	
	Should I express that sentiment, after reciting the story of the 
college student, to the reporter?

	Or will she just think, "That's such an unlikely example, she 
must be paranoid?"

	If every time you go out of the house you are convinced you are in 
mortal danger, unless you're living in Beruit, you probably have a touch 
of the paranoid about you.  (I know, Keziah, I probably shouldn't be 
tossing medical terms about so loosely.)

	But if you look both ways before crossing, even on a one-way 
residential street, I'd submit you were just well trained by your mother.

	If your view of your threat continuum is that there are 
instances in which your life, or the lives of loved ones could be in 
danger, and you choose to carry a firearm as part of your rehearsed 
response to that threat, I don't think you're paranoid.

	If you miss the Sunday paper and didn't read about an abduction 
that happened within blocks of your own home and office, then your 
vigilance may suffer, but no harm may be done, because the chances of a 
repeat in a pretty nice neighborhood is unlikely.

	If you returned your just purchased cellular phone because you 
read the story of the Rochester woman and figured, "What good would it do, 
really," you've made a mistake as well.

	But, if after having read these stories, and maybe thrown in the 
fright that Julie Gottlieb suffered and details in Our Back Page and you 
still don't think "it could happen to you," then you might want to seek 
employment as a stand-in for you local zoo's ostrich when he goes on 
vacation.

	As little faith as I have in politicians, who seem to me to 
deserve our vigilance and our paranoia, and as much despair and 
escalating violence creates in me, I still have faith in those who 
recognize the difference between caution and paranoia, preparedness and 
foolish heedlessness.

	The decision to prepare, and even gird for danger and disaster 
does not suggest to me a capitulation to either, nor an unreasonableness 
about their possibility.


Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor