FROM THE EDITOR

	July is traditionally a month of celebration.  There's the sense 
of accomplishment the summer season brings.  Maybe there's sweet corn or 
perfect tomatoes from your own yard, or a local market's that's a 
beautiful drive away this time of year.  Maybe it's the one time the 
family gets away to the lake side, the ocean shore, the mountains; 
everyone together with an ease that's almost impossible the rest of the 
year.  Maybe you are (or know someone who is) lucky enough to have a 
summer birthday that requires hauling out the ice cream maker.  Even if 
you're stuck at work, in the city, you can fling open the windows and let 
the summer in, sit idly at a sidewalk cafe and swill iced cappucino while 
discussing murder mysteries.  You can cool off at a mindless (with 
air-conditioning and canola oil popped-corn) action movie and hoot at the 
technical gaffes.   Haul out a blanket and watch Shakespeare performed 
outdoors in never-quite-convincing-modern-dress.  You can step up to the 
shotgun line a lot longer before the lights come on.

	And, as Americans, we have the added bonus of a whole day devoted 
to celebrating the fact that we are Americans, all the while remembering 
what it took for others to achieve America.  We have a lot of fireworks 
here, many of them arching over the river that separates Buffalo from Ft. 
Erie, Ontario, in Canada, in the shadow of the Peace Bridge that my 
grandfather helped build.  It helps if it's a beautiful summer night, but 
it doesn't have to be; I remember happily  sitting in my brother's 
suburban garage while it poured and thundered, waving sparklers one year.

	There's enough fife and drum music around so that you almost 
can't help but remember (or at least evoke) the first July 4th.  You can 
hear the echo of John Adams' words to his wife, Abigail, that the holiday 
should be celebrated "by succeeding generations as the great anniversary 
festival...it ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, 
games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations form one end of 
this continent to the other."

	That's what I thought about when I sat down to write this column, 
early for a change.  Figuring  it's a summer issue, not much happening, 
maybe get into a little more comic relief on my shotgunning efforts.

	But while I'll still be celebrating the Fourth, it's hard to be 
so lighthearted.  Oklahoma City changed things.  We're seeing instead of 
a celebratory mood and its attendant joyousness, fear and anger and 
lashing out.

	American gunowners may be receiving the unjust brunt of this 
ugliness now, but the ramifications should be terrifying to all.

	Nothing excuses the acts of madmen.  Nothing even explains those 
actions.  For every crazy person whose actions are "explained" by their 
choice of lifestyle or reading material or dress or their associations, 
there are thousands of people with the same tastes who don't murder and 
terrorize.  Maybe someday there will be a way to test for that sort of 
insanity, but for now, sifting through the rubble of someone's mad mind 
is no science.  It doesn't prevent, it doesn't bring back the dead.

	In the heat of anger, in the glare of camera lights, in the 
despair of loss, it seems reasonable to demand answers, even if we don't 
know the questions.  But to require others to give up hard-won freedoms, 
freedoms no one else in the world but Americans have, as penance for 
madmen's sins, is abominable.

	I am not speaking only of the freedom to own firearms, although 
that ultimate insurance policy is unique in all the world, and seems most 
threatened, despite the fact that fertilizer and fuel oil appear to be 
the agents of the blast.

	In the aftermath of Oklahoma City, the politicians called for 
tightening up, for restrictions, for expanded police powers.  The pundits 
in their Sunday television pulpits called for even more.  And in this 
feverish climate, people who should know better, people who do know 
better, nod in agreement.

	Wiretaps, warrantless searches and seizures, government 
infiltration of groups on the basis of their philosophies not actions, 
access to credit card, phone, hotel records, banning or limiting access 
to objects from books to guns to rental vans--the litany of "preventive 
measures" with no history of prevention, goes on and on.

	Because we can't understand the actions that led the Oklahoma 
City it is tempting to view these "solutions" as fireworks--bursts of 
illuminations in a deadened sky, rather than something more deadly, 
indiscriminately fired.

	As human beings, we have the right to deplore.  As Americans, we 
have the right to speak.  This isn't a time for gunowners to remain 
silent.  In the weeks after the bombing, I found myself plowing old 
ground with old friends, many of whom are not gunowners, but are 
generally patient with my views.  Knowing I'm a gunowner and yet someone 
they've spent time with, who's not too frightening, made it easier.  And 
some of the proposals being bruited about raises concerns fro everyone, 
whether they ever want to own a gun or not.  Talking to a CNN business 
reporter one day, we discussed the firearms industry.  Civilized 
discourse, nothing I hadn't said a hundred times, although I knew the 
reason for a reporter's renewed interest in the subject: it fit the 
sidebar mentality; "let's keep talking about guns."  The next day he 
called back with a few more questions.  This time they were loaded:  How 
did people like me in the legitimate side of the business feel about those 
in the "illegitimate" firearms business.  Gunrunners?  Or just someone 
who legally made a product that wasn't being deemed "legitimate" today?  
What about all the machineguns you can buy on the street, he asked.  I've 
been in this business 16 years this month, and I still don't know where 
this "street" is--or why you would need or want a machinegun to stick up a 
7-11.  I could feel myself becoming hostile as I explained laws governing 
machineguns, laws that go back 60 years and have yet to produce a felony 
prosecution because of a lawfully owned Class III firearm.  He also asked 
about the "machinegun magazines" and "survival magazines."  I said I 
thought the First Amendment covered them, didn't he think so?  I probably 
should have calmed down, and let it go, but it was one of those "straw 
that broke the camel's back" moments.  If the piece ever aired, I didn't 
see it, so I don't know if righteous indignation helped or not.

	"These are the times that try men's souls.  The summer soldier 
and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of 
his country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of 
man and woman.  Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have 
this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious 
the triumph.  What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly; 'tis 
dearness only that gives everything its value.  Heaven knows how to put a 
proper price on its goods; and it would be strange indeed, if so 
celestial an article as Freedom should not be highly rate."  That's 
Thomas Paine, eloquently telling us to stand up and be counted.  Tom Paine 
didn't mince words, and suffered the immediate consequences.  But it is 
his words we remember and even celebrate this month, not those who 
ignored his call, or his message.


Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor