Because in fighting a right in the court of public opinion, they have to cheat. They take insensitively quick, vulgarly widespread media advantage of everything that promotes their message. If we want to promote ours anywhere near enough to keep our rights, so must we.

The authors of the story which follows characterize a prime gun-grabber, Simon Chapman, an associate professor of public health in Sydney, Australia, and an avowed gun-control advocate, as having a gruesome recipe for advancing the cause of firearm prohibition: "His intentions were revealed in a recent statement: 'Gun control advocates should seek to contact survivors of shootings and relatives and friends of those who died.'"

Those of us who don't want to be victims should do that, too. Can't you imagine the heart-wrenching "If only she'd had a gun" clips and bites we would get? Called in to the local news tip hotline, I think, they'd raise the local media's consciousness enough to raise the national's. Maybe even tweak a few of their fame/glory/airtime-obsessed little hearts.

Whatever your thoughts on such tactics or on gun-control, it's important to notice the pattern revealed. Propaganda precedes paranoia among the weak-minded, and public law follows far too quickly. Until we can slow the pace of legislature back to its originally intended speed, only preparation and matching return fire can counter either weapon. Our public is being told that guns are bad and responsible for these rare disasters, which the media snaps up and savors endlessly; "the public" in turn is demanding immediate action, and is getting it, if only from the President's pen. We must make government accountable, but we must also bring forward the truth -- spotlight the many who use guns un-criminally, defensively and protectively. We must tell their story if it is to be heard over the roar of the media crowd, especially when so many "victims" are being paid to tell their sob stories, Jerry Springer style, to support the administration's lust for a legacy -- just one more lust clinton won't bother to control.

Angie