U.S. District Court Judge Douglas P.

After spending much of the last two years in political hot water over gun-toting rangers, sheds with no building permits and the stewardship of a beloved general store, the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) now finds itself in a state of inner turmoil, its members at odds with each other.

The dispute over the right of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to arm its rangers with handguns and establish its own police force is now being hashed out in the offices of the state attorney general in Boston, where state officials are acting as facilitators.

The Aquinnah building inspector filed a lawsuit this week against the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) to test the question of whether the tribe must follow local zoning rules.

"A genuine controversy exists on this issue requiring judicial guidance," wrote Aquinnah town counsel Ronald H. Rappaport in the complaint.

In the view of Aquinnah police chief Doug Fortes, the turning point came in the fall of 1999, when rangers from the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) came back from a trip to the Oneida Indian Nation in upstate New York, packing a half dozen Glock nine-millimeter semi-automatic pistols.