By Peggy Tartaro,
Executive Editor

It is not often that I use the word "cheerful" back here, or indeed anywhere in the publication. But I was reminded of it, and the title of a book which has nothing to do with guns-Cheerfulness Breaks In by Angela Thirkell-as I finally wrapped up this issue on a finally Spring day.

Cheerfulness could describe my relief at getting another issue finished. It could begin to describe my joy at getting to spend some time in the garden after five long months, even if it was just to begin the job of tidying things up. Cheerful am I when I see the first bees, wobbling their way from one battered, but blooming, crocus to the next. (I'm just "happy" to see robins-by my calculations Spring arrives with the bees.)

But there was also the cheering (in both senses of the word) feeling to be had from interviewing Olympic hopeful Corey Cogdell. I caught her packing for a trip to China for a pre-Olympic event there, the US Team's first and only look at the shooting venues in Beijing before the Summer Games in August.

She seemed-as well she might-cheerful about going, about her successes (even by her own reckoning, four years early) and the opportunity to represent her country with a group of unsung athletes she's proud, and a little awed, to call friend.

And, by gum, if there wasn't also some honest-to-goodness cheerful gun news as well.

In the midst of the longest , most tedious race to the White House ever-and I say that as someone who usually actually enjoys the protracted process by which we choose a president, about which, there is frankly, nothing very cheery for gunowners-came the oral arguments in the long-awaited DC v. Heller case before the Supreme Court.

Even the general media, 24/7 television news included, couldn't quite ignore the Heller case.

And, even they, couldn't quite hrumph their way around the fairly evident conclusion that Heller will provide some measure of long-overdue victory for gunowners. Whether that victory is for the District of Columbia's beleaguered residents who have been without the most useful means to protect themselves for over 30 years, or a wider victory for gunowners (as some seasoned Court watchers feel is possible) will have to wait until June when the Justices rendered their decision or decisions.

On March 18, Second Amendment Sisters National Spokeswoman and W&G columnist Genie Jennings emailed me her column for this issue and told me she was in Washington. I asked her to send me any pictures she might have of the goings on outside the Supreme Court and mentioned that I saw her quoted in an Associated Press (AP) story.

She came through with the photos (on Page 6 of this issue) and, well, cheerfully, replied that she'd "never been AP'd before."

But back to the Presidential campaign, which begins, even for the cheerful, to take on aspects of a forced march. I must say there is something a bit entertaining about watching two completely anti-gun candidates mumble their way through Pennsylvania and other late primary states asserting their reverence for the Second Amendment even as their records and printed words say otherwise.

I look forward to the sight of the junior senator from my home state of NY, misspeaking when she's, well, tired, and conflating her own experiences with that of, say, Abigail Adams, and discussing how she made her own bullets by the fire with her young sons as she awaited the return of her husband from war and affairs (of state).

Or perhaps the junior senator from Illinois will wax eloquent on the audacity of those average citizens who understand the need to protect themselves, their families and even their fellow citizens. One could hope.

Not that things look that cheerful on the other side of the aisle, as the senior senator from Arizona has never been altogether friendly to gunowners. He has aligned himself with those who see a "loophole" in legally selling property between citizens and he has sought, whether by design or omission, to silence the voices of his fellow citizens on a host of topics, including gun rights.

My friend Jeff Knox has, rather cheerfully, told supporters of his and his family's Hard Corps, that perhaps this is the year for gunowners to sit out the presidential race.

Jeff doesn't think we should sit out all politics, and believes that grassroots gunowners can make a difference in countless federal, state and local races by bringing their passion to those contests where a long-term positive outcome is possible.

Something, say I-cheerfully-to think about.

Peggy Tartaro

Photo © Copyright 1998 Nancy Floyd, used with permission.