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sir?”
    “I speak as a private citizen,” said Wally, sidestepping the question.
    “Do you own an assault weapon?” she persisted.
    “If I did, and if this bill were passed, I would obey the law,” said Wally. avoiding that one. too.
    “Your testimony comes as a surprise, Mr. Kinnick.” she said. “Are there many gun owners who feel the way you do?”
    “I have no idea, Senator,” said Wally.
    She smiled, then shrugged. “No more questions,” she said to the chairman.
    “Anybody else?” he said.
    When none of the other senators ventured a question, the chairman said, “Mr. Kinnick, we thank you for your testimony. You’re excused. Please leave a written copy of your statement with me for the record.”

5
    I STOOD UP, INTENDING to follow Wally out of the hearing room. But a crowd blocked my way as many members of the audience rose from their seats and headed toward the door. Anger and confusion registered on their faces and in their voices, and they humped and pushed against each other, jamming the narrow aisle. So I settled back into my seat to wait for them to pass.
    Above the angry undercurrent came the amplified voice of the chairman calling the next witness. I didn’t catch his name or see where he came from, but a moment later a small, bespectacled man in a brown suit took the seat where a few minutes earlier Wally Kinnick had been sitting.
    The man chose to wait for the noise in the room to subside before he began speaking. It took several minutes, because the people in the audience weren’t paying any attention to him. He sat there patiently, waiting them out, while the committee chairman banged his gavel.
    Finally the witness cleared his throat and said, “My name is Wilson Bailey and I live in Harlow, which is a small town west of Worcester that you may not have heard of. I teach chemistry in the regional high school there. I’m no expert on guns or law enforcement or anything, so I want to thank the chairman for the opportunity to tell you my story here today. I hope it will help you decide to vote in favor of this bill.”
    As he spoke, I leaned forward to see Wilson Bailey more clearly. He had no written statement or notes in front of him. He gazed from one committee member to the other as he talked. His voice was soft and confident. If he had memorized his speech, he had done it well. He made it appear that he was speaking directly from his heart.
    “Two years ago last April,” Bailey continued, “my wife and daughter were checking out books at the Harlow Public Library. It was a Wednesday, a rainy spring afternoon just after school had let out for the day. My wife was thirty-four years old. We had learned only a week earlier that she was pregnant with our second child. Her name was Loretta, and we had been married for nine years. She taught Sunday school. Elaine, my little girl, was seven. A first-grader. She loved to read and draw pictures of rainbows and trees that looked like lollipops and people with big smiles on their faces. She was planning to try out for Little League when she was old enough. She had a pet hamster named Bobo. She was afraid of frogs. We were planning to go to Disney World in June, right after school got out. We already had our airplane tickets.”
    Bailey paused and cleared his throat into the microphone. The sound of it echoed in the room. Many of the SAFE members from the audience had left after Wally’s testimony. Those who remained were silent, listening.
    “I learned afterward that the librarian who was at the desk that day had, a week earlier, gone to court for a restraining order on her husband. He beat her and she was afraid of him. Just at the time when my little Elaine was checking out her books at the desk, the librarian’s husband appeared. He was, apparently, very drunk and very angry. He had in his hand an Avtomat Kalashnikov semiautomatic rifle. An AK-47. He held it at his hip and began shooting, I don’t know what the magazine of an AK-47