20160623 (gunlove)

The gun is phallic in U.S. culture. Guns signal dominance over defeated natives, slaves, foreigners in colonies. Asking legislators to restrict guns is like asking them to castrate constituents.

Congress, the workplace of

Reasonable, honorable gentlemen,

Took quite a hit in the last few

Days for its failures to legislate,

Worse, its failures to debate,

Even worse, its failures to 

Deliberate, in the face of one

Of the countries glaringly

Murderous and hateful tragic

Acts, our limiting availability

Of war weapons in terrorist hands.

The people who have little

Regard for this body’s efficiency

In naming post offices, passing

Laws that earmark special funds

To constituencies everywhere 

For unwanted airplanes, and

Writing in leniencies in the tax

Codes to benefit industries whose

Only merit is that the CEO and the

Senator were roomies at Brown,

May not have paid any attention,

Since they knew in their hearts—

If they missed the media’s 

Warnings— “Gun Restrictions

Won’t Pass.” Senator Murphy,

D. Connecticut, threw his 

Verbal corpus on the pyre of

Filibuster for fifteen hours, 

To secure what ultimately proved

Meaningless, the Senate’s voting

Down four bills aimed at barely

Slowing the slaughter. Then at

The House of Representatives

The icon of civil rights struggle,

John Lewis, D. South Carolina,

After being denied by the chair

Any opportunity to discuss,

Debate, and vote on the gun laws

Desperately desired  by the 

People, led a sit-in and disruption

To sidestep house rules and get

The needed action. The systems

Had broken down. Reason did not

Receive its hearing, debate never

Occurred, voting was forestalled

In a manner thoroughly in keeping

With the rules of order. No matter

What the rules call for, they acted.

The time is now to do something

Reasonable, honorable, behaving

Like gentlemen if they could, or 

In civil disobedience if they must,

To make the land safer for its 

Citizens. Researching the stats

On gun violence in America reveals

The tragedies of mass shootings,

Dramatic and horrifying as they

Are, account for only two percent

Of gun deaths annually. If we

Were to reduce domestically

Related and suicide gun deaths 

We would prevent many times

More killings than the mass

Shooters accomplish. But that

Kind of action would require

Registrations of handguns, the 

Weapon overwhelmingly

Implicated in killings. If we

Can’t ban assault weapons,

What chance do we have of

Restricting handguns?

c. J.S.Manista, 2016