By DAVE HAMRICK
Editor-at-large

Calls for U.S. Justice Department maven Janet Reno's resignation are once again resonating in the halls of Congress.

I'm not so sure I agree with them... this time.

Reno should have been forced to resign when she refused to appoint a prosecutor to investigate the president's illegal campaign contributions from China and subsequent gift of U.S. military secrets to the Chinese government, and then obstructed Congress in its efforts to investigate the matter.

And she should be forced to resign if it's found that she intentionally covered up the fact that incendiary devices were used in the military style attack on the Waco, Tex. compound of religious extremist/gun whacko David Koresh in 1993.

But at this point there's no evidence that she knew about the pyrotechnic tear gas cannisters that were fired at the compound. And one must assume that she means it when she promises to find out why it took the FBI six years to own up to using the devices.

And maybe the FBI is telling the truth when it says the cannisters didn't cause the fire that killed 80 people, including 25 children. Maybe the officers on the scene had no intention of setting the compound on fire, and the Branch Davidian leader himself or some crazed follower set the fire to make the FBI and the Bureau of Tobacco and Firearms look bad.

I'm hoping everyone comes out looking squeaky clean on this.

But that whole Waco madness still makes me squirm just a little uncomfortably.

It's not often you see hardware like military tanks used against American civilians, even civilians armed to the teeth as the Davidians were.

True, Koresh and his followers were fanatics who killed some of the agents who came to take their guns away. True, there was at least some evidence that the children in the compound might have been abused.

They're safe now in their graves.

When you consider that the Davidians were completely surrounded and there was no danger of their escaping, and that there were children inside, the response seems heavy-handed.

If that's all it was — a series of poor decisions by commanders in the field — then we're talking about a tragedy.

But power still corrupts, and we still have to keep an eye on our government. Most of the people we give guns and badges to and ask them to defend us from criminals are heroes. But a few will always give into the temptation to treat those guns and badges as a license to become thugs, protected from the consequences of their brutality by the badges they wear.

It happens, and if we go to sleep, it could become commonplace. That's why the founding fathers saw fit to guarantee in the Constitution that every individual has a right to bear arms.

Let's hope this new round of investigation into the Waco incident is thorough and intense.

We need to know what the people with the firepower are doing... all the time.

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