Up in Arms

A train massacre intensifies the demand for gun control -- and for guns

When the shooting began, Esther Confino says, "I got down as low as I could and covered my head with my handbag and just prayed." Perhaps a prayer can stop a Black Talon. But a pocketbook probably will not. The bullet is designed to unsheathe its claws once inside the victim's body and tear it to pieces. That's what Colin Ferguson was firing, to the right, then the left, as he walked backward through the third car of the 5:33 train to Hicksville, New York, last Tuesday night. And the passengers who crushed toward the exits or dove under their seats...

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