Licence To Kill

[Frank E Gibbard]

It is not the gun that kills

But the man who fills the gun

Said actor Mr Charlton Heston

Staunch proponent of the NRA.

Yes, let no man defy or naysay,

An American's right to bear arms;

His logic: it's not the gun that harms,

A convoluted construction for it allows

A civilian weapons of mass destruction.

 

Can someone ever prise the gun from

The dead, dead hands of dead thinking?

Add deaths at Aurora now, to Columbine,

Oakland, more murdered citizens in a line.

 

Legislate for new gun law now USA, make that Moses leap,

Or just wring and wash your bloody hands again, and weep

And when those hands are really pure, pristine and clean,

Serve your people more succulent meals of Soylent Green.

[Benjamin]

American films and series that find their way onto our t/v screens to pass as entertainment, make some of the streets in cities there seem worse than foreign war zones. I fear it would be easier to un-invent the wheel than to alter the course of American gun history.

[David W. Parsley]

It is a comfort to hear from my poet friends on PMO, with this latest tragedy played out to such heart-wrenching effect in Aurora. Thank you, Frank. As Benjamin says, there is a lot of sentiment in the USA that still adheres to the concept that the possibility of armed resistance helps to protect civil liberties. And the Cheney Administration (not a typo, I am speaking of the first six years of the so-called Bush Administration) demonstrated to so many, abusers of executive power can achieve it and do much mischief. I confess that I agonizingly return to this view every time I consider it. But I hate it.

 

Thanks,

- Dave

[eclipse]

such power and steel in your words

[Frank E Gibbard]

Thanks David

It is a comfort to hear from my poet friends on PMO, with this latest tragedy played out to such heart-wrenching effect in Aurora. Thank you, Frank. As Benjamin says, there is a lot of sentiment in the USA that still adheres to the concept that the possibility of armed resistance helps to protect civil liberties. And the Cheney Administration (not a typo, I am speaking of the first six years of the so-called Bush Administration) demonstrated to so many, abusers of executive power can achieve it and do much mischief. I confess that I agonizingly return to this view every time I consider it. But I hate it.

 

Thanks,

- Dave

Thanks David for your always interesting comments. The finer points of your national politics is lost on me due to lack of knowledge but all I know is amending the "rights" is possible to control access to army levels of ammo flling into the hands of weirdos, at least that minor incursion on the constitutional rights is gonna have to come, surely. Frank

[Frank E Gibbard]

American films and series that find their way onto our t/v screens to pass as entertainment, make some of the streets in cities there seem worse than foreign war zones. I fear it would be easier to un-invent the wheel than to alter the course of American gun history.

Thanks but let's hope not.

[Frank E Gibbard]

such power and steel in your words

Yes - thanks & passion on this subject. Frank

[tonyv]

The Second Amendment guarantees all the rest. Without it, talk about rights is just that ... only talk.

 

Tony

[fdelano]

Most nations have no Second Amendment, nor a guarantee of any rights. The American Constitution has been violated since the words had time to dry. Still, the words are there. Too bad there is no thought to allowing Syrians to arm themselves as protection against an evil regime. For me, I will guard my family and others as my old bones will allow. I promise not to go out looking for victims.

[tonyv]

Americans' constitutional rights are God-given rights (human rights that belong to all people everywhere) which merely happen to be enumerated in our Constitution. They are not "government-given" rights. There's nothing preventing Syrians, Chinese, North Koreans, or whatnot from picking up arms, even primitive ones, and revolting against their oppressors. Americans did that. They revolted against their oppressor, the King of England. What's wrong with these other people?

[fdelano]

Tony, I think we must share DNA.

[Larsen M. Callirhoe]

my sentimental inclinations concur tony and franklin. anyone care to study cantonese with me lol....

[tonyv]

I'm curious where this out of work guy got the money to buy all that gear. And he was in the neuroscience field. Who knows what kind of mind experiments were taking place during the research he was involved in? Just sayin' ...

 

Thanks for raising awareness as you so often do, Frank. Isn't poetry just the best medium?

 

Tony