by Pa Rock
Outraged American
I was up before daylight today listening to news coverage of yet another blood-soaked shooting rampage in America. Last night an old man pointed an automatic weapon out of a window on the thirty-second floor of a hotel in Las Vegas and opened fire on an outdoor country music festival that was being held across the street. Police are now saying that more than fifty people have been killed and over two hundred wounded - making this the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history.
Someone, somewhere is waking up and learning that a loved one, someone who was happy and healthy yesterday and preparing for an evening of boot-stomping country music fun, is now stone-cold dead and gone forever.
Someone, somewhere in the stinking bowels of the NRA headquarters is working through a bag of donuts and a mug of coffee while selecting talking points to feed the press, soundbites that will blame disturbed individuals and stress the absolute necessity of every American arming themselves to the teeth with guns - and thanking God that we live in a country where that is easy to do.
Someone, somewhere has decided that this craziness has gone too far and the only sane thing to do is to buy a gun, a big one, one that can kill dozens of bad guys with a single pull on the trigger.
Someone, somewhere is undoubtedly busy at this very moment planning a strategy to break the record for kills in a mass shooting. This is America, after all.
America will be outraged today, and possibly for much of the rest of the week.
This poem gives a bit of history of mass shootings. They are becoming commonplace symbols of life and death in contemporary America. It also points fingers of guilt toward two deserving targets, the National Rifle Association and the Republican Party - and it makes an appeal for "sane and tough" new laws to bring gun proliferation under control.
Those laws will never be passed, and gun manufacturers will make a killing off of last night's carnage.
It's all bloody crazy.
The Blood-Spangled Banner
by Erika Fine
These tragic acts of wrath and hate
Are likely to proliferate
When men can saunter through a store
And buy a gun conceived for war,
When lies the N.R.A. has spread
Speak louder than the Newtown dead,
When fear of N.R.A. disdain
Numbs Congress to Orlando’s pain.
Assault guns, banned in ’94,
Are not illegal anymore.
The “right to bear” was misconstrued;
The prudent ban was not renewed.
A gun not meant for sport or play,
A gun designed for human prey,
A gun envisioned to destroy,
Is sold as if it were a toy.
The G.O.P. should be ashamed
That gun-rights zealots have them tamed.
A silent moment’s not enough
When laws are needed, sane and tough.
Outraged American
I was up before daylight today listening to news coverage of yet another blood-soaked shooting rampage in America. Last night an old man pointed an automatic weapon out of a window on the thirty-second floor of a hotel in Las Vegas and opened fire on an outdoor country music festival that was being held across the street. Police are now saying that more than fifty people have been killed and over two hundred wounded - making this the deadliest mass shooting in recent U.S. history.
Someone, somewhere is waking up and learning that a loved one, someone who was happy and healthy yesterday and preparing for an evening of boot-stomping country music fun, is now stone-cold dead and gone forever.
Someone, somewhere in the stinking bowels of the NRA headquarters is working through a bag of donuts and a mug of coffee while selecting talking points to feed the press, soundbites that will blame disturbed individuals and stress the absolute necessity of every American arming themselves to the teeth with guns - and thanking God that we live in a country where that is easy to do.
Someone, somewhere has decided that this craziness has gone too far and the only sane thing to do is to buy a gun, a big one, one that can kill dozens of bad guys with a single pull on the trigger.
Someone, somewhere is undoubtedly busy at this very moment planning a strategy to break the record for kills in a mass shooting. This is America, after all.
America will be outraged today, and possibly for much of the rest of the week.
This poem gives a bit of history of mass shootings. They are becoming commonplace symbols of life and death in contemporary America. It also points fingers of guilt toward two deserving targets, the National Rifle Association and the Republican Party - and it makes an appeal for "sane and tough" new laws to bring gun proliferation under control.
Those laws will never be passed, and gun manufacturers will make a killing off of last night's carnage.
It's all bloody crazy.
The Blood-Spangled Banner
by Erika Fine
These tragic acts of wrath and hate
Are likely to proliferate
When men can saunter through a store
And buy a gun conceived for war,
When lies the N.R.A. has spread
Speak louder than the Newtown dead,
When fear of N.R.A. disdain
Numbs Congress to Orlando’s pain.
Assault guns, banned in ’94,
Are not illegal anymore.
The “right to bear” was misconstrued;
The prudent ban was not renewed.
A gun not meant for sport or play,
A gun designed for human prey,
A gun envisioned to destroy,
Is sold as if it were a toy.
The G.O.P. should be ashamed
That gun-rights zealots have them tamed.
A silent moment’s not enough
When laws are needed, sane and tough.
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