Balance of Power

    The abruptness of what happened was just so startling—three of the people I loved most were gone, and I hadn't said goodbye, or said the things one needs to say. And Marie . . . Briefly, Lara paused. I just want to hold Marie. And I can't.

    Only someone who knew her as well as he, Kerry reflected, would know how much this cost her. And he could do nothing.

* * *

    At six-eleven, Frank Fasano left the floor of the Senate and entered his office suite. Macdonald Gage was already there, watching Lara Kilcannon.

    "How's she doing?" Fasano asked.

    Gage's eyes did not move from the screen. "See for yourself."

    Were it in my power, Lara told Cathie Civitch,

no one else would ever have to feel as I do.

    "Here it comes," Gage said. "This is going to be her cause."

    But they do, Lara continued. On the day my family died, eighty-seven more Americans died from gunshot wounds. We don't know their names; we don't see their families on television . . . Abruptly, Lara seemed almost to snap, anger and emotion overtaking her. Since then, how many families have lost a child, a father, a husband, or a wife? And how few of the survivors can even find an outlet for their grief?

    They feel helpless. We can try to fix the schools, but we can't educate children they've already lost. Every day we lose ten more. And that is not acceptable to me.

    In close-up, Lara's eyes were filled with passion. Softly, Fasano said, "This is trouble, Mac. Life in the Senate will be that much harder."

    Gage did not turn. "Has the SSA scheduled a meeting?"

    "The day after tomorrow," Fasano answered. "I'd like a day to reflect on what we're seeing."

When Charles Dane glanced at his watch, it was nine twenty-seven.

    "She's still got another half hour," he murmured to Bill Campton, "to finish poisoning the collective American mind. Imagine what

we could do with Barbara Walters and four or five women who'd protected themselves with handguns."

    In profile, Campton's smile was wan. "Dream on, Charles."

    What, Cathie Civitch was asking, do you think the answers are?

    I'll leave the specifics to the President, Lara said, and to Congress. But the fundamental question is, How do we prevent these kinds of tragedies?

    Why do we have airport security, Cathie? To prevent armed terrorists from crashing a plane into a building. Because you can't punish a hijacker who's already dead, or save his victims once the plane blows up.

Lara leaned forward, her voice forceful now. We have to use our common sense. Do we just keep arming Americans with yet more handguns to protect themselves from other Americans with guns? And how do you know to shoot someone who's carrying a concealed weapon?

    Pausing, Lara spoke with remembered sadness. I was a war correspondent, in Kosovo. In a war zone, you somehow manage to accept the murder of the innocent. But America shouldn't become a war zone. The way to protect ourselves in a civil society is to disarm the criminals, not arm ourselves. And if we buy guns out of fear, not choice, how many more accidents or teen suicides will we have, how many more domestic shootings where a gun turns a moment of anger or despair into an irreversible tragedy . . .

    "It's the same old line," Dane said. "Guns are the problem, so let's take them all away."