In the Rockets’ Red Glare, a Giant Firing Range : The Fourth: This holiday, born in war, gives the gun lobby ammunition; but look who claims the right to bear arms.

At 4:30 a.m., last Fourth of July, on my way to Santa Monica’s fireworks display, I walked into the middle of a gang shooting. It happened right in front of me, though in the surreal atmosphere of the pre-dawn carnival, I half-doubted what I saw. What I saw was a young gang member point a small handgun into the crowd on the pier, shoot once, turn and run.

The pop of the gun blended with the crackle of small fireworks. Hundreds of people were near, but only a handful realized what had happened. Like me, they threw themselves to the pier’s deck, anticipating that fire might be returned. The rest strolled on, oblivious.

I looked up as a young man walked past me, smirking, as if to say, “You fool, it’s only a firecracker.” His silent ridicule, the absence of an answering shot, the unreality of the moment made me doubt my interpretation. Maybe it was a cap gun, I thought. But then I saw the shooter’s victim being helped to the ground, where he sat pierced and bleeding. Police officers pushed through the crowd, following the vague directions of stunned bystanders who pointed toward the rear of the Victorian building that houses the carousel. Two officers, their weapons slung over dark blue shorts, moved quickly among witnesses, scribbling notes and watching for danger like nervous birds.

I descended to the beach, found a space amid the crowd and waited for the sanctioned pyrotechnics. The crowd was mostly young and, despite the hour, boisterous. I started, repeatedly, as firecrackers detonated in large metal trash cans, warily eyed every male who came near, and wondered how many were armed.

Soon the show began, and I sat in fear, celebrating our freedom from tyranny.

As rockets burst, my mind replayed the tawdry scene on the pier, and it occurred to me that the Fourth of July is the high holy day of the American gun lobby. It commemorates our country’s first univocal call to arms--the day that Franklin, Jefferson, Adams and the rest pledged to one another their lives, fortunes and sacred honor to support America’s independence. Naturally, the day’s main ritual is to set off explosives. For 24 hours, the United States becomes one giant firing range.

Gun enthusiasts are fond of Independence Day. It is ammunition for the argument that the Constitution granted every citizen the right to own guns as protection against tyranny. The Revolutionary War, so their argument goes, was on the minds of the framers when they drafted the Second Amendment, and that’s why it grants “the people,” as contrasted with soldiers, the right to own and carry guns. (The amendment states: “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”)

After the fireworks finale, I walked north along the bike path in the dawn’s early light. Near one of the food concessions, police were arresting several youths who sat, handcuffed, on the cold concrete. Some wore matching windbreakers with an inscription on the back: “In loving memory of Trigger Lawrence.”

Santa Monica had one other gang shooting that morning. It occurred on Second Street, after the fireworks, in the middle of the departing crowd.

The Santa Monica police estimated that nearly half of the revelers at the pier last Independence Day were gang members. Most of them came to have a good time, noted one officer; the only trouble was when they ran into each other.

Our country turns 215 years old today. Less than ever before in our history need we fear despotic rule. What we should fear is tyranny of our own creation, tyranny abetted every day by the National Rifle Assn. fanatics. Guns, they say, make us free and secure. They are wrong.

In the United States, 9,000 murders are committed each year with handguns. Britain and Canada, where handguns are strictly regulated, average nine such murders. In the United States, anyone on the street might have a gun--any criminal, any nut, any 16-year-old gang member on dope. Our laws don’t come close to keeping guns out of the wrong hands. Until they do, none of us is safe.

Whose freedom are we celebrating today?