I shot Bill
In the gut
He stood there
For a moment
Seeming like a lifetime
His blood flowing
Like
Well
Freely
Or
Might as
Well
Be
‘N aRiA
Souled
A Bill of goods
Now Kosher
A salt of the earth
A haughty boys’ game
So brand-ish
Shrouding
A right end
And a wrong end
Of a gun
This is another anti-gun violence poem in what is yet another recurring theme in my musings. I can relate to the emotions leading to want to hurt someone, even kill them. However, I am chronically puzzled by how humanity (or inhumanity?) allows these gut feelings to get the better of us. This seems to be solidly within the immature stages of human development. In this poem, Bill suffers from the incarnation of such a gut feeling, by feeling a bullet rip through his gut. You may note that there is no context given for why Bill was been shot in the gut. I suspect that many people might presume that Bill somehow deserved being shot in the gut. Our gun culture is moving us ever along a victim blaming worldview. This thought process is similar to people’s reactions and inquiries when someone’s house has been robbed. Were the doors locked? Do you have a security system? As if not locking your door or having a security system is justification for a robber to rob you! Similarly, gun rights folks are selling Americans the wholesale paranoid notion that if you don’t have a gun then you are just asking for trouble, with no little irony, from a person with a gun. The truth of such paranoia may very well be directly proportional to the self-fulfilling aspects of modern America’s love affair with firearms for personal protection. As a trained public health professional, who has studied gun violence as a public health problem, there is a scientific consensus that the easy availability and increased presence of firearms leads to increased deaths. Of course, most gun rights enthusiast deny such scientific evidence. Who knows, maybe their being hot under the collar is confounding this whole climate change brouhaha. What may be of some surprise to people is that increased gun deaths are very often suicides. In fact, those with access to guns are more likely to kill themselves than be killed by someone else. Perhaps this is some cruel twist of human evolution, but surely we can do better than killing off ourselves. The polarization of views on the role of guns in American culture is stark. Whatever your views, America is moving toward resembling the OKKK Corral, and I consider this a move toward increased terrorism, never knowing whose home and family might get caught in the cross fire.
