Like most Americans, I was saddened and stunned by the recent murder of Wichita, Kansas, abortion doctor Edward Tiller. I feel for family and friends that live in my hometown who not only mourn the killing of a fellow Wichitan but who must, once again, endure the scrutiny of the national media. Like me, they probably long for the time when the city's coverage nationally was limited to the Weather Channel--Wichita set a record with the 18th consecutive day above 100 degrees. Remember these tips to keep cool in hot weather. (Quick cut to kids in swimsuits playing in a sprinkler, a business man drinking from a water fountain, an oscillating fan.)

I was born in Wichita, Kansas, and spent half of my life there, graduating from Wichita State University in the early 1990s. I was in Wichita during the summer of 1991 when Randall Terry and Operation Rescue, the anti-abortion organization, descended on the city like a gang of scolding schoolmarms.

I remember being happily trapped in an air-conditioned car because outside it was equator weather--what we called a typical summer day in Wichita. My brother, his friend, Pepper, and I were stuck in traffic due to the many protesters on Kellogg, the busiest east/west street in Wichita.

I saw a red-faced girl no more than seven. She struggled against the Wichita wind--the Book of Lists ranked the city as one of the top ten windiest in America--to hold a sign she probably couldn't read. I didn't want her to understand it. When her shift was over I hoped her mom walked her to a local pool, a dripping ice cream cone in each hand.

My brother was impatient behind the wheel. Pepper rolled down a window and the humid heat invaded and negated the air conditioning. Sections of our shirts were becoming slightly damp before the song on the radio ended.

Pepper, a can't-miss-Mass Catholic, yelled to no one in particular, Go home! Protest on a side street!

Operation Rescue's goal backfired--with us, anyway. We resented out-of-towners creating daily traffic jams for six straight weeks; holding signs that showed supposedly aborted fetuses, mangled and bloody, that any Wichita kid could see riding a bike or sitting in a car; manufacturing negative nationwide publicity for the good city we called home; and forcing our tolerant, professional policemen and women to log more than $1 million in overtime paid for by Wichita taxpayers.

During that summer, Phil Donahue did a show from Wichita and praised the police department’s “restraint” despite making 2,500+ arrests and enduring countless taunts.

When Operation Rescue finally left Wichita, I was relieved the siege was over. I was naive. I didn't realize it was just another event in the intertwined history of the city, the anti-abortion movement, and the doctor.

Dr. Tiller’s clinic was bombed. He was shot in both arms. Immediately after being shot, he got in his car and chased the woman who was later convicted of shooting him. Wearing bandages on both arms, he was at work the next day. Protesters frequently picketed not only his clinic but also his church, his home, and his clinic workers' homes as well.

Have you ever been driving and nearly had an accident? It's natural to feel shaken for several minutes reflecting on how close you came to serious injury or death and having a new, if brief, appreciation for life. I wonder if Dr. Tiller and his family had moments when they felt like that every day.

Ironically, if anyone could appreciate his dogged determination, his stubbornness, it’s the very people who have stalked, shot and killed Dr. Tiller. Perseverance is an equal opportunity trait--it can be used for good or evil.

The anti-abortion organizations, including Operation Rescue that is now headquartered in Wichita, must've taken public relations classes since 1991. They delivered a huge card to the Wichita clinic Dr. Tiller owned and operated and said they only wanted to "change his heart", not kill him. From various relationship experiences, we all know the surest way to change someone's heart is to hound him endlessly and never give him a moment's peace.

But as my grandma said, "book-learnin' only gets you so far". Somehow, the anti-abortion movement thought it necessary to prove their continued commitment to their followers. This is odd, as being steadfastly loyal and unwavering is a bedrock of their supporters.

They made public plans to protest the clinic again, as they have done every day it was open, the moment it re-opened. The family of Dr. Tiller decided to close the clinic (a hub topic by itself) which made the protesting a moot point.

But what if the clinic had re-opened and the protests immediately continued? Dr. Tiller's murder was a public relations disaster for the anti-abortion movement. Americans could think of them as zealots who don't mind breaking any law made by God or man to do what they think is right. The current head of Operation Rescue seemed to understand this, as he said Dr. Tiller's alleged killer did "great harm" to the anti-abortion movement.

They missed a rare opportunity. They could've held a news conference to announce that they wouldn't protest the re-opening of the clinic, if it did ever re-open. In fact, they would refrain from protesting for one week out of respect for the murdered man. Nothing had changed--they could've shown they still opposed abortion while simultaneously drawing a distinction between them and the "fanatics" which, they could've made clear, are not part of the movement. They could've shown they had empathy, even with someone they called the enemy while he lived.

Dr. Tiller revealed a few years ago that he helped some women place their babies with families as adoptions. These women didn't have abortions and didn't or couldn't keep their babies.

Operation Rescue could've given $10,000 in Dr. Tiller's name to any legitimate adoption agency. They could've said that despite their many disagreements, Dr. Tiller's murder had caused them to set aside anger and plant seeds in the common ground. They could've focused on increasing adoptions and reducing the number of abortions as common goals for both them and Planned Parenthood. They could've opened a dialogue.

It would've forced the media to stop talking about a doctor shot dead in church. When those are the facts, you have to do more then send a card to shift the focus. That brief opportunity is gone now.

I live in Kansas. The pro-life movement is huge here and it's not going away. But make no mistake, it took a sucker punch with Dr. Tiller's murder. With the clinic now closed, even the pro-lifers seem at a loss for what to do next. How do you prepare for life without the enemy when he was the main focus of each day? Right now, they are like a hurt fighter, bent over, gasping for air. Will they shake it off before the high-profile trial?

The pro-lifers are, and should be, desperate to prove that they aren't like the alleged killer, that they are thoughtful, caring people who only disagreed with the deceased doctor. Already, circumstantial evidence has linked the alleged killer to Operation Rescue. While it's possible that this isn't true, the reality is that this has been reported. Operation Rescue is now faced with trying to parse facts about what kind of contact was made, how often it happened, etc. I wish them luck trying to make these subtle distinctions in 15 second sound bites on any TV news show. Right or wrong, the reality is that many Americans have already made up their minds.

In this war, there is some hope for a cease fire. As TIME magazine has reported, a few communities with citizens on both sides of the issue have shown progress in simply sitting down and talking to each other. Despite growing evidence to the contrary, perhaps tolerance isn’t dead yet.

Before any meaningful conversation occurs, the violence and rhetoric must stop. It’s difficult to be comfortable over small talk and tea when there’s a bull’s eye on your back, when the person sitting across from you truly believes you are sanctioning evil. I’m certain the other side must be uneasy with the prospect of dining with the devil.

To focus only on abortion when discussing this murder is to ignore the thrashing, trumpeting elephant in the room. Dr. Tiller was shot and killed with a handgun. Easy access to handguns is the issue our nation continually fails to address, despite increasing numbers of people killed by them. When we train the limelight on abortion at the expense of gun control, we risk filling cemeteries with more Americans.

I cannot address all of the issues here, but some will claim that any gun control law will affect the hunting industry, a huge revenue source for many states like Kansas. Cow chips. Any hunter knows you don’t shoot quail with a Saturday Night Special.

In a possible reaction to this killing, some churches may use dwindling funds to acquire security guards and metal detectors. To ensure sanctuary security, will we require grandma to empty her huge, heavy purse? Must armed guards protect parishioners from armed thugs?

A grandfather was gunned down while performing ushering duties at his house of worship. This happened in a city that's smack in the middle of America. Apparently, there are no safe havens anymore, not even when you attend church in my hometown.