High Capacity Ode

Need not retreat when my hackles are raised
Any rash act will in some circles be praised
Iron in hand works as substitute courage
More guns is the answer promoted by some
(Because more firepower makes so much sense)

Feel threatened by some kid I am stalking?
Feel lessened by his dismissive mocking?
A poser with a gun out in the night
He retreats but I advance gun in hand
(Claim self defense against one departing?)

I much love that added sense of power
Makes up what’s seen lacking in the shower
Testosterone free to come out and play
No need to heed that most prudent warning
(Of living to fight yet another day)

My cash of guns don’t threaten you at all
I’m not the one who’s shooting at a mall
Hope you’re lucky when I clean all my guns
That high power round won’t respect any walls
(Oops I was so sure it wasn’t loaded)

Your tacit consent, please, to my armed might
To respect my freedom, honor my right
Collateral damage is necessary
To preserve my sacred right to carry
(Tough break for those kids without a permit)

Each month a grizzly bell does peel and toll
Like the report from every trigger pull
But do recall that many are killed by cars
And some just trip and fall on a loose rug
Should these things not also receive your ire?

I am a loser but not with a gun

Blasting shit to pieces is lots of fun
Iron makes me a big man tall as am oak
Cold touch twists my soul like Gollum’s precious
(Take more than dead children to give it up)

Add 4 parts mental illness to the pot
Next add social isolation with care
Add first person shooters liberally
And easy access to high powered fare
(Then sit back and watch the show in real time)

Excuses and the typical refrain
Spew simpering platitudes to ease others’ pain

About being home with Jesus, how very nice
Seems almost a favor worth the high price
(But our world is less now absent their smiles)

Guns don't kill people, it's people who stray

They'd just go and do it some other way

Not so easy, nor the counts near as high

Or from such a distance or certainty

(We'll not change our ways, it wasn't our kid)

It Almost Happend!

The Apocalypse of December 21.  It was a close thing.  Though not associated with any of the misrepresentations about the Mayan calender, we almost lost the planet yesterday.  The NRA's long awaited solution to school shootings - armed guards.  The simultaneous explosion of so many irony meters almost set fire to the atmosphere.  The NRA - long preaching a mantra of gun ownership being the only safeguard against a police state, suggest that the solution to idiots with guns is a police state.

Ok, Believers, it's time to put up.

I'm disgusted.  At gun shops across Oregon, the response to the Connecticut Children's Massacre is to go out and buy guns.  Guns for 'protection' and guns because they are afraid that this slaughter of innocents may finally wake this country up to the problem of our pathological reverence for the gun.  That this is the response of my countrymen is beyond appalling.  Unlike all who will no doubt object, I have treated the broken bodies of children wounded by bullets.  I know the effects both short term and long.  My message to those out buying up the guns - you obviously love guns more than children.  

So here's my challenge to the believers out there who oppose abortion and end of life autonomy - care about innocent lives as much as you do the fetus.  Make it harder for deranged souls or complete losers to go out in a blaze of gunfire that catches the innocent in the crossfire. Stop the inane commentary about guns not killing people. 

Here are some thoughts - 

1: Screw the 2nd Amendment.  It's an amendment after all - repeal it.  (admittedly a hard road).  The founders never intended civilians having more firepower than the military.  The only freedom we will give up is the freedom to slaughter large numbers or get some idiotic macho jollies by firing one of these things.

2: Ban military style weapons in civilian hands.  If you want to fire an assault rifle, go out and enlist in the army, reserves or the Guard. Assault rifles aren't varmint guns or legitimate hunting weapons, they are designed to kill humans, period. Or buy a video game.  That way you can sit on your fat behind at home and leave the rest of us in peace.

3: Ban semiautomatic handguns to civilians.  If personal protection is your goal, a revolver is safer, more reliable, and plenty.  If you can't hit something with 6 shots then we don't want you spraying an additional 9 in the air for us to duck.  From what I know, it's not likely to save you but, if you need an adult pacifier, it's better than a high capacity semiauto.

4: Ban antipersonnel rounds other than standard hollow points.  If it's against the Geneva Convention it should be illegal against your fellow countrymen. 

5: Make gun manufacturers subject to the same liability laws as the rest of industry. 

6: Put some teeth into background checks and waiting periods.  Limit carry permits to those under legitimate threat or with extensive background checks and training. 

Would this end private ownership of guns?  No.  If you are a true hunter or sports person you would still have access to hunting weapons like shotguns, bolt action rifles, and black powder firearms.  If you are deluded enough to insist on a handgun for protection, the revolver should suffice.  (a 12 guage with a Deerslayer is a better home defense option in any case.)  If you want something else then you are a potential threat.   Grow up and get a more productive hobby.  If you find yourself getting off on the thrill of shooting, consider counselling. 

Ok, you defenders of life. Prove that it isn't all rhetoric. Put the brakes on this violence.  Care about the living as much as the yet unborn.  And spare us the NRA bullshit, because we aren't buying it. 

The Migration of Memory

They call it schizophrenia.   I kind of like that word.  It sounds sort of out there.  Like the experiences themselves.

They give me medication so that I can be more like them.  Think more like them.  Act more like them when I’m performing some repetitive monkey task at some job they say I should have to be part of society (whatever that is).

The voices they say are only in my head have a lot more interesting things to say than the mouths of the normals. This normal that I keep hearing about in therapy.  Therapy, what a total waste.  As if anyone can can have insights outside of the confines of their own brain chemistry. 

My memories have evolved sort of like the Bible.  Factual events clouded in time that begin to take on epic proportions far more interesting than my real life. 

My problem is that the medication changes how I think about today, but does nothing to alter the memories created in its absence. Those are more colorful and rich.  Much more inviting.  The so called real ones aren’t all that inviting.  Lots of unadorned white rooms and boring halfway houses filled with medicated zombies.  No that’s not fair to zombies.  They would at least be interesting.

The medication prevents me from reliving (or enjoying) the full extent of those past experiences but doesn’t take away the knowledge of their existence and the sadness of not being able to go back there. Back where the colors are brighter, the sounds crisper, the sensations more electric.   I suppose it’s like somebody who’s had a stroke.  You know you’ve lost something important. Something self-defining, but can’t get it back. The shell is still there, but not the person.    Blending in and being normal is just a shell for me. 

Which memories are real?  The ones that my screwed up wiring lays down, or the ones that are bland and gray because my neural pathways have been robbed of the normal freedom they have to experiment by all these damn meds?

The normals don’t get it.  They should but they don’t.  They pay money for experiences that are more exciting than their mechanistic lives.  They go to movies, shows, read books and do drugs to have a few minutes of escape of the kind that just comes naturally to me when left to my own devices.  Why would they think that being like them would be appealing? 

But it’s a losing battle for them.  They can suppress those pathways for a time, but they never go away entirely.  They lie in wait.  For a time in the future when they are reinforced by new splashes of color or sounds from the heavens.  They call it a relapse, my neurons call it freedom.  In time, those bland memories of a strange world called normal will fade away completely.  Till then.