The Trigger

  - Ralph Waldo Emerson

  From the first day it was filed, the National Association of Riflemen's lawsuit against the Trigger had received special handling.

  Judge Virginia Howarth of the D.C. District Court had needed barely two weeks of testimony and four days of deliberation to reach a ruling upholding the NAR's position: citizens had a right to guns, but no right to Triggers. Her blanket injunction forbade the use of any Federal funds to develop, manufacture, or deploy the Trigger. But she had infuriated John Trent by, in virtually the next breath, setting aside the injunction pending the appeal.

  'Why?' he had demanded of his lead lawyer, Philby Lancaster. 'She gives with the one hand and jerks it away with the other. Isn't she one of ours? Who else does she owe?'

  'She's only been sitting for three years,' Lancaster had answered. 'This is too big for her, and she's obviously passing the buck to the appellate courts. Don't worry about this. The weight of the decision leans toward us. And the real action starts now.'

  Within days, no fewer than nine petitions for a writ of certiorari were filed with the Supreme Court, including the expected one by Doran Douglas on behalf of the Justice Department. The Court responded by reaching down and claiming the case before the District of Columbia Court of Appeals had even scheduled motions.

  Once in the highest court's hands, NAR vs. US was pushed to the top of the calendar, leapfrogging more than two dozen other cases already on the docket. Oral arguments were heard barely ten weeks after the case was first filed. In a rare departure from form the Court had approved Rule 28 motions from both parties, and extended the time allotted from the usual half-hour per side to forty-five minutes.

  In an even stronger break with tradition, the Supreme Court had even allowed representatives of four of the record number of groups filing amicus curias briefs to also argue before the justices. Gun Owners of America and the Second Amendment Alliance had appeared in support of the NAR, while Mind Over Madness and HCI had stood up for the gun-grabbers. Trent had been pleased by the contrast that presented.

  'Judge them by the company they keep,' he had said when interviewed by the media on the eve of oral arguments. 'Patriots and lovers of the Constitution support our position. Socialist internationalists and statist propagandists support theirs. Disarming America has been on the far left's agenda for fifty years. I'm confident the Supreme Court will not join them in committing treason.'

  No case since Roe vs. Wade had attracted so much public interest. A public affairs foundation turned the transcripts of the pleadings into a three-hour docudrama literally overnight; when it was published, so many people tried to access it that the Oyez Project servers crumbled, and the producers had to resort to a sponsored broadcast at fixed times. Even so, it topped the ratings for the week.

  All the urgency fostered expectations for a swift ruling, but it did not come. Month after month slipped by, until Court watchers were united in the belief that the justices were badly divided, possibly hopelessly deadlocked.

  As the scheduled end of the Court's annual session neared, Lancaster relayed to Trent a rumor that the justices had not even decided who was to write the opinion - which, if true, raised the prospect that the Court might adjourn on June I without issuing a ruling, and take the case up again in the fall.

  'How can this be so hard for them?' he demanded of Lancaster. 'What possible issue could they be stuck on? The plain language of the Second Amendment gives them everything they need. The

  Founder's own words - George Washington, "Firearms stand next in importance to the Constitution itself." James Madison -'

  'Please, John - not the whole conservative book of quotes. I wrote the brief, after all.'

  'I know that,' Trent said with a sigh. 'But, god almighty, Philby, Judge Howarth got it right in a tenth of the time they've already had. - Except for the stay, of course.'

  For the first time, Lancaster was unable to exude confidence. 'The government's argument may be causing problems for the strict constructionists on the Court,' he said. 'We're in a realm the Founders never imagined. There's talk that the justices are divided not two ways, but three. Compromise comes hard to that body. We could end up with strange bedfellows and a tortured decision that pleases no one. I think we should be prepared.'

  'And in the meantime, the Feds are laughing up their sleeves - the factories humming and the trucks rolling and new Trigger installations going online every goddamned day,' Trent complained bitterly. 'Isn't there anything we can do to get the stay lifted? Isn't there any way to reach the Court? Should we be out there on the front steps every morning, six or ten or twenty thousand of us?'

  'Oh - certainly. And be sure to bring plenty of guns to wave, like they do at that stupid demonstration every year. Scaring the justices is always a good idea,' Lancaster said acerbically. 'John, we talked about this months ago - there's a fucking Trigger in the basement of the Supreme Court itself. If our people do anything that makes the justices feel like they need it there to protect them from the likes of us, it's over. Over.'

  'Maybe they should disqualify themselves from the case. Conflict of interest.' Trent's tone was sulky.

  'You'd better tell me you understand, John. One mistake, and we throw away the edge the eight years of fuss over NFRRA gives us. The justices aren't hermits. They know how passionate you folks are, and the Court has to be leery of kicking off another long-running controversy. You are reaching them by being patient, reasonable, and civil. Stick with it. And do everything you can to clamp down on the free spirits until we get the ruling.'

  'And what if the opinion goes against us?'

  Then we analyze the justices' thinking, and go at it again from another direction.'

  'So Plan B is more of the same.'

  Lancaster snorted. 'Burn me for heresy, John, but when you have good lawyers, you don't need guns.'

  June 1 came and went, and the Supreme Court neither issued an opinion in NAR vs. United States nor recessed for the summer. No announcement was made, no explanations offered, as for the first time in more than two decades, the Court extended its session. The phrase 'hung court' made its first appearance in a CNNLaw report, and soon was heard everywhere.

  John Trent weathered the crush of media attention in the weeks preceding and following June 1 with outward calm. Everyone wanted to know what he thought, and he was sternly prevented by Philby Lancaster from actually telling them.

  'This delay should alarm no one. It should tell us that the Court recognizes the very grave issues at the heart of our complaint, and is according it the seriousness it deserves,' Trent said, standing before a newly-dedicated monument to Revolutionary War Militiamen in Brandywine, Pennsylvania.

  I'm absolutely confident the Court will come to the right decision - right for the Constitution, right for the country, and right for our citizens, whose rights are paramount in a free and democratic nation,' he said a week later, standing beside a poster-sized facsimile of the Bill of Rights hanging in the lobby of NAR headquarters.

  'The way I see it, Jay, there can't be anyone in Washington more eager to wrap this up than the justices themselves - it's summer in Washington, and those robes have to be hot,' he said a week later in a VR appearance on Altered Egos. It was a good line, even if it was only a set-up, and the laughter was bolstered by the fact that the producers had given him the scantily clad Biblical David as his avatar on the virtual set.

  'Speaking of robes,' Jay cracked back, 'if there are any Monicas over there in the law clerk corps, please call, because we'd like to know if this really is a hung court -'

  Away from the cameras, Trent was increasingly restive. He complained bitterly to other NAR executives about the shortage of courage and conscience on the Supreme Court, and the lack of honor in the legal profession generally. He derided Philby Lancaster and the rest of the NAR legal team as professional leeches who would cheerfully lose a case to keep a hungry client's wallet open. He could scarcely bear to mention Mark Breland, Grover Wilman, or J
effrey Horton by name, but when he did, he liberally peppered his comments with angry words like 'traitors', 'lying bastards', 'murderers', and 'cowardly whores'.

  Ironically, Trent found himself spending much of his day listening to even more venomous rants and forcing himself to counsel moderation. By virtue of being first to the courtroom, the NAR had become the gravitational center of the fight against the Trigger. It seemed as though the top officers of every gun-rights organization with more than three members expected to have a chance to bend Trent's ear - whether to offer him unsolicited advice, praise and encourage him, commiserate with him, or bluntly excoriate him for timidity.

  He suppressed his growing doubts and told them all what Philby Lancaster had told him, that as long as the outcome hung in the balance, their interests were best served by what amounted to a ceasefire - no threats, no violence, nothing but polite demonstrations and gentle persuasion. He took some ridicule for that, but he steeled himself against the criticism and persisted.

  'We don't want those justices checking the news and coming away thinking that America needs the Trigger,' he told the commander of the West Montana Militia.

  'We don't want those justices thinking that the three-piece suits are fronting for a collection of thugs, mutts, hotheads, mean drunks, and bullies,' he told the president of .45 Caliber Freedom.

  'We want the Court to know that America is a civilized country filled with responsible gun owners. We want 'em to know that our firearms are saving lives and protecting our liberties and providing family recreation,' he told the chairman of the Arizona Committee of Correspondence.

  With patience and persistence and sometimes a pretense of brotherhood, Trent persuaded most to sign on to the 'civilized ceasefire' concept. He did it even though he knew that some of them nevertheless considered him weak, soft, timid. A willingness to kill for the cause was, in their eyes, the only real measure of manhood. And those who had lost all faith in what they believed were corrupt courts and sham trials made it clear that they were ready to resort to violence.

  Trent could identify with that frustration, but found it difficult to even talk about taking the next step. The toughest tests, though, were his meetings with the extremist militias. It was a small mercy that not many of them came calling. Some had established separatist communes and severed all contact with the rest of 'Amerika'. Many others viewed the NAR with the high contempt due all collaborators.

  But several times since.the case reached the high court, Trent had found himself sitting across a table from a man of morals so repellent and mindset so alien that it made him squirm to think of him as an ally. They brought him offers he did not want to hear: to assassinate the managers of Aron Goldstein's factories, to take the Chief Justice's six-year-old great-granddaughter hostage, to poison the White House water supply, to hijack an airliner and crash it into Trent's target of choice.

  He did not know if they had the wherewithal to deliver, or if it was just bluster, and he did not care to. The line Trent would not cross, the line his visitors helped define for him, was the line between acts of patriotism and acts of revolution. He would not condone destroying the nation to preserve it - that paradox, which Trent associated with the Inquisition, seemed to him a kind of madness.

  Ironically, it was out of these sessions that Trent emerged with his blackest moods, his most uncompromising fury toward Washington. 'You need to start treating craziness like a contact poison, John,' his senior administrative aide kidded him. 'Don't go in there without gloves and a mask.'

  'That's not it,' Trent said, unable to laugh about it. 'Do you know why I end up this way? Because I can't forgive the President for giving people like that fuel for their paranoia. Tyranny isn't the only threat to what I love. Anarchy is every bit as dangerous.'

  The voice came from behind him in the lobby - pleasant, assured, and unfamiliar.

  'I wonder if we might have a frank conversation together, John Trent.'

  Trent spun around to find a nattily-dressed older man standing one stride behind him. His glance went first to the usual places of concealment for a man wearing a well-tailored summer suit, then to assessing the man himself. Several centimeters shorter than Trent, the stranger had a full head of silver hair, a Princeton ring, and a slight paunch that the tailoring could not quite mask. Trent gauged his age to be sixty.

  I'm sorry, do I know you?'

  'Possibly,' the man said, edging closer. 'In any case, I have some information that will be of interest to you.'

  Trent frowned. Being recognized in public and approached was nothing new, especially lately, but he had run out of patience with it. 'Look, I'm here with friends, to hear the orchestra. If this is Association business, I'd appreciate it if you'd call the office tomorrow.'

  The stranger's response was to take Trent firmly by the elbow and turn him toward the corridor leading to the offices of the concert hall. 'Please,' he said, 'I'm afraid I can't sit through the Mahler. My tastes run to the Italian romantics -I came for the Rossini, and to see you.'

  'Might I have your name, then?' Trent asked, allowing himself to be led.

  'How rude of me,' the man said. 'I am Angelo DiBartolo. Come - in here.' DiBartolo had unlocked the office of the sales manager, and stepped aside to allow Trent to enter first. When Trent shied, looking back down the hall for Jerry, his driver and bodyguard, DiBartolo added quickly, 'No, no, we're friends, Mr Trent, please let go of your pulp-fiction prejudices. Your driver and my driver are having a cigarette outside, so we can have a little privacy.'

  'You're that Angelo DiBartolo,' Trent said. 'From Baltimore.'

  The other man shrugged resignedly. 'I have people who try to keep my face and name out of the news. Unfortunately, they aren't always successful. Come, please, and perhaps we can still get you back to your seat for the first movement.'

  Trent turned on the light as he entered, and DiBartolo turned it off again as he pulled the door shut and locked it again. There was enough light streaming in from a streetlamp to make the room a grey and white world.

  'You said you had information for me -'

  'Yes, you see, I've been taking a very personal interest in your lawsuit,' DiBartolo began.

  'Why? Speaking frankly.'

  DiBartolo smiled. 'You could say that applied violence is to my business what advertising is to General Motors. So any possible change in business conditions is of great interest to me. And in pursuing my curiosity, I've now heard something which I'm sure is of interest to you. The Supreme Court will hand down its opinion on Tuesday morning -'

  That was three days away. 'How can you know that?' Trent demanded.

  'I have a friend, someone who is extremely close to the Court.'

  'Look, how can I -'

  'Are you not interested in knowing the outcome?'

  With a sick feeling, Trent swallowed hard and fell silent.

  The Court will split five-four,' DiBartolo went on, 'to overturn Howarth and allow the use of the Trigger to continue. They will issue four opinions in all, including three from the majority. Liggett will write the principal opinion.'

  'You're telling me we've lost.'

  'Regretfully, yes. I hope that the advance notice will help you be properly prepared to respond.'

  There was no reason to believe DiBartolo, save perhaps one: Supreme Court Justice Joseph Anthony Perri, formerly of the District Court for the State of Maryland and the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, and currently the junior member of the October fraternity. 'This news is - reliable?'

  'Absolutely reliable,' DiBartolo assured him.

  Trent turned away and grabbed the back of a chair with a fierce grip that left his fingers bloodless. 'What's the price of this information, Mr DiBartolo? You offered it before I told you if it was of any value to me.'

  'Don't concern yourself with that, Mr Trent. There are no obligations attached. In fact, I want to ask if we can do anything more for you -'

  'More? What, a hit on the President?' Trent's tone was sarcastic
.

  'You misunderstand me, Mr Trent,' said DiBartolo, though there was no indignation in his tone. 'I would never sanction such a reckless act. There are rules. One doesn't take retribution on a man simply because he opposes you. There must be a sound business purpose, some clear profit to be gained. That, or it must be a matter of honor.'

  'What, then?' Trent demanded, spinning toward DiBartolo. 'What are you offering? You come here and tell me they beat us. What do you think you're going to be able to do for us now? I'm afraid I'm not very good at reading between the lines.'

  DiBartolo shrugged. 'An unarmed man on the road always knows that he's in danger. An armed man behind a castle wall isn't always so wary. In time, you see, all the castles fell - to artillery, to siege, to corruption and betrayal. There is a way, Mr Trent, and someone will find it.' He invoked the air with his right hand. 'But in the meantime, there are expenses. I would like to make a contribution toward them. This is something we can do -'

  The offer pricked Trent's ego, and the wound bled a sharp-tongued resistance. 'We can pay for our own lawyers. Or any other professional services we might require.'

  'As you wish.' DiBartolo raised his hands as though in surrender. 'But if you should need help securing other resources -someone who knows the secrets of artillery or the ways of siege engines, as it were -I hope you'll feel free to call on me. My people take some justifiable pride in their expertise in that area.'

  The glow of the corridor light through the pebbled glass of the office door dimmed momentarily, once, twice, three times. 'Ah, there's the call - you see, the intermission is just ending, you've missed nothing yet. By all means, please, rejoin your friends. I myself am eager to go home and see my family. Thank you for your courtesy, Mr Trent. I wish you well.'

  John Trent said nothing to anyone about that meeting for two days. By the time Mahler's 2nd Symphony was over, he had calmed himself enough to hold his tongue, and convinced himself that he would wait and see what Tuesday brought rather than go out on a limb on the basis of DiBartolo's word.