By many indications, the gun-control cause would seem dead in America. Democrats, traditional champions of the cause, have been shrinking from the issue for fear that an anti-gun image would do them more harm than good at the polls. The gun lobby, whose membership and bank account grow bigger by the day, has successfully muscled through state legislatures laws that make it easier for people to buy and carry weapons. And the National Rifle Association certainly has a friend in U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft, who recently reversed the Department of Justice's long-standing position on the Second Amendment and now argues that American citizens have a constitutional right to own guns.