It sucks that you can't link to NY Times articles, because Maureen Dowd wrote an awesome column about the sniper. Here are a couple of quotes: 'Ari Fleischer leaped from abstruse to absurd, explaining why the president opposes an urgently needed proposal for a computerized system of tracing bullets to gun owners: "Certainly, in the case of the sniper, the real issue is values." Certainly, in the case of the president, the real issue is N.R.A. cash for the G.O.P...Usually, fear in this affluent grid of shopping malls and subdivisions focuses on whether the zoning regulations are strict enough and whether property taxes have been kept in check. One of the biggest fears here, pre-sniper, was getting caught in the terrible traffic jams. It is surreal that the sniper is the only one who's figured out how to navigate them.' The column is called "Black Heart, White Van," and ran in the NY Times on October 16, 2002.