Gun Lust

About the Book

Flag waving, gun loving, bible thumping...They’re the basic ingredients for a uniquely American recipe.  Season liberally, a term held in disdain, with hate and serve on a friendly, right wing media.  What you’ve got is Gun Lust.

Actor and gun enthusiast, Winston Lawton, recently elected president of the National Weapons Federation, is ecstatic because the Republicans, with NWF money and muscle, have taken control of Congress, buoying the Federation’s plans of arming every person in the country, young and old.  The crown jewel in their plan is a piece of legislation called the Citizen Self-Defense and Crime Control Bill, that essentially would legalize vigilantism, allowing citizens to gun down, with impunity, anyone they deem suspicious in some way or another.

Christian televangelist Jim Pennington, a staunch allie who rails against gun control on his television program, beamed throughout the country on his satellite television network, announces , while his guests Winston Lawton and Senate Majority leader Val Hall, look on, that God has told him that gun control is immoral and that if he prays, a savior will present himself.  That’s when Hall announces the plan to introduce the crime control bill, which thrills Pennington and his audience.

At the same time, Michael Klyter, leader of an obscure militia group called the Citizen Guard, happens to be home with a cold and watching what had just transpired makes him feel worse.  That’s because a few weeks earlier, he had been to Washington calling on right -wing politicians to promote his book, American: Love It Or Lose It.  Amongst those he paid a visit to was Val Hall.  He believed he should have been on Pennington’s program, too.  So did his wife, who after getting mad at him for not effectively promoting the book, offers to be his agent, which he agrees to and shortly thereafter, she pulls off a coup, getting him booked on the nationally heard radio talk show of R. Roger Purdy.  On the show, he’d be sharing the bill with Wanda Pushova, Director of Legislative Affairs for the National Weapons Federation.

Klyter’s appearance is a big success and he also forges a friendship with Pushova, which proves to be valuable, as it leads to a meeting with Winston Lawton and an offer of employment with the NWF.

But all is not well in the land of guns because of the strident militancy of People Against Handguns and their leader, Rita Powley.  After her husband was killed in a street crime, Powley made it her single minded mission to banish guns from the landscape of America and to that end, she and PAH members nationwide, have engaged in a campaign against the NWF, using any tactic or method to strike a blow against their enemy.  When the crime control bill is unveiled, Rita and her staff begin brainstorming to come up with a way to counter the NWF, the Republicans and their massive public relations campaign.  They do so by surreptitiously inserting a broadside into Sunday newspapers throughout the country, creating a great uproar.

Jim Pennington has also created a commotion for himself by sharing with his audience that while he was working on his guns, God called his name and then told him that he should  “Go forth for guns and God,” which leads him to stage a massive rally in Washington on Easter weekend called the “God and Guns Rally.”

The PAH decides, upon hearing this, to conduct a counter demonstration.  And while both sides make their plans, members of the Citizen Guard, flush with money that had been raised through a sham foundation Michael Klyter had started, are preparing to come to Washington at the same time to launch a war of liberation.

And on top of everything is the President, trying to convince one lone Congressman not to overide his veto of the crime control bill, doing battle with the NWF and Jim Pennington and trying to insure that Washington doesn’t go up in flames.

About the Author

Mark Pilnick is the quinessential late bloomer. He graduated college at twenty-nine, began writing at thirty-four and got married at forty-five. Now, as he starts his fiftieth year, he can add published writer to his resume, with his novel, Gun Lust. He and his wife, Susan, reside in Silver Spring, Maryland with their six cats.