The rifle is aimed; the trigger is pulled.
The bullet cuts through the air
in excess of 3000 feet per second,
striking its target explosively
just below the left shoulder.
Muscle tissue is torn asunder;
blood vessels and arteries are sheared;
nerves are blown apart; blood flows copiously
and then …
… The soldier falls mortally wounded
with a look of surprise etched on his face.
At age twenty all his dreams will die.
His wife back home is pregnant; his son
will never know his father.
… Another mother lies dying on the ground,
thinking how much she loves her children.
This day in Texas the sniper kills fourteen victims,
wounds thirty-two more innocent by-passers.
… The enraged father shoots his wife and children
at point-blank range, killing his whole family.
He is distraught when the police arrest him.
He wishes his wife hadn’t provoked him into the act.
… Some say, “Guns don’t kill people,”
but people with them sure as Hell do.
So let’s make certain everyone you meet
across America is packing a gun.
What? Why?
Isn’t it time we as a nation had a RATIONAL,
LEVEL-HEADED discussion of this issue
of guns and public safety with civility by all?
All other industrialized nations managed to do so.
I just read an interview where the interviewee said that owning guns for many is a sexual obsession. It's like who's got the largest or the most. The average male gun owner has eight guns. Statistics show that a gun in the home for protection, whether locked away or not will: 1) be taken away from the homeowner by robbers 2) be taken in a burglary 3) accidentally shoot the gun owner or someone in the house 4) be found by children and accidentally shoot someone 5) be used in anger rather than self-defense.
I agree that people shoot people and not their guns. But we have to determine if a person merely has a gun for hunting or self-defense, or, if they have a gun obsession and/or some mental disorder that would eventually lead to misuse of guns. We register cars as deadly weapons. Why not guns?
I taught class and sometimes encountered very angry and irrational students. I can see no good in students carrying guns into my classroom. When I hunted in the woods and someone was shooting wildly in my direction, it was scary enough.
From First Love to its destructive end and on to new beginnings, Mary Angela Nangini's poems explore the birth and death of a relationship. The powerful poems are presented in two parts with an introduction to her next book My Ontario Beautiful. (Th
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I agree that people shoot people and not their guns. But we have to determine if a person merely has a gun for hunting or self-defense, or, if they have a gun obsession and/or some mental disorder that would eventually lead to misuse of guns. We register cars as deadly weapons. Why not guns?
I taught class and sometimes encountered very angry and irrational students. I can see no good in students carrying guns into my classroom. When I hunted in the woods and someone was shooting wildly in my direction, it was scary enough.
Ron
Blesssings, John M.D