“
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
Words, I think, are such unpredictable creatures.
No gun, no sword, no army or king will ever be more powerful than a sentence. Swords may cut and kill, but words will stab and stay, burying themselves in our bones to become corpses we carry into the future, all the time digging and failing to rip their skeletons from our flesh.
”
”
Tahereh Mafi (Ignite Me (Shatter Me, #3))
“
I do not aim with my hand; he who aims with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I aim with my eye.
I do not shoot with my hand; he who shoots with his hand has forgotten the face of his father.
I shoot with my mind.
I do not kill with my gun; he who kills with his gun has forgotten the face of his father.
I kill with my heart.
”
”
Stephen King (The Gunslinger (The Dark Tower, #1))
“
You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl.
”
”
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
“
America...just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson
“
They say that 'Guns don't kill people, people kill people.' Well I think the gun helps. If you just stood there and yelled BANG, I don't think you'd kill too many people.
”
”
Eddie Izzard
“
You were born a child of light’s wonderful secret— you return to the beauty you have always been.
”
”
Aberjhani (Visions of a Skylark Dressed in Black)
“
With guns you can kill terrorists, with education you can kill terrorism.
”
”
Malala Yousafzai
“
Courage is not a man with a gun in his hand. It's knowing you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
The time for crying with your girlfriends about a broken heart is over chocolate ice cream
and chick flicks—not stun guns and bulletproof vests.
”
”
Ally Carter (I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You (Gallagher Girls, #1))
“
She soon says, "You're my best friend, Ed."
You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl.
”
”
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
“
Tariq tucked the gun into the waist of his denims. Then he said a thing both lovely and terrible. "For you," he said. "I'd kill with it for you, Laila.
”
”
Khaled Hosseini (A Thousand Splendid Suns)
“
I'm telling you that you got your facts wrong. I didn't kill your brother. But you killed my mother. You might as well have held the gun to her head!
”
”
Marie Lu (Legend (Legend, #1))
“
Most people are slow to champion love because they fear the transformation it brings into their lives. And make no mistake about it: love does take over and transform the schemes and operations of our egos in a very mighty way.
”
”
Aberjhani (Journey through the Power of the Rainbow: Quotations from a Life Made Out of Poetry)
“
If someone has a gun and is trying to kill you, it would be reasonable to shoot back with your own gun. Not at the head, where a fatal wound might result. But at some other body part, such as a leg.
”
”
Dalai Lama XIV
“
You can’t set fires, Anna. Never again. Promise.”
[Anna] aimed her defiance at Mary.
“And you? What’s your reason to hate me?”
Caroline spoke quietly. “We nearly died — in the fire in those mountains and at the house when Ravi had a gun pointed at us.” Her eyes were full of tears. “The fire you set at The Old Hospital could have killed me as well as Janet and Agnes.”
Anna muttered into the syrupy dregs of her tea. “Fire, you’re firing me?”
Mary grimaced. There had been too much fire.
”
”
Susan Rowland (The Alchemy Fire Murder (Mary Wandwalker #2))
“
with this bullet lodged in my chest, covered with your name, I will turn myself into a gun, because
it’s all I have,
because I’m hungry and hollow and just want something to call my own. I’ll be your slaughterhouse, your killing floor, your morgue and final resting, walking around with this
bullet inside me
‘cause I couldn’t make you love me and I’m tired of pulling your teeth.
”
”
Richard Siken (Crush)
“
Nox didn’t say a word. He waited, counting the seconds in his mind. Sometimes you counted bullets and sometimes you counted time. Either one could kill you.
”
”
Dean F. Wilson (Rustkiller (The Coilhunter Chronicles, #2))
“
Ruger's in there too. Hands covered in blood so they arrested him. He had to tackle your girl to get the gun away from her. She'd gone all Pulp Fiction on us, ready to defend you by killing all of us if she had to. Crouched over your body like Wonder Woman. Gives me a boner just thinking about it.
”
”
Joanna Wylde (Reaper's Property (Reapers MC, #1))
“
You can't kill us all, human.'
He was right. I raised the machine gun a little. 'True, but who's going to be first in line?
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (The Killing Dance (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #6))
“
The world is like a ride in an amusement park, and when you choose to go on it you think it's real because that's how powerful our minds are. The ride goes up and down, around and around, it has thrills and chills, and it's very brightly colored, and it's very loud, and it's fun for a while. Many people have been on the ride a long time, and they begin to wonder, "Hey, is this real, or is this just a ride?" And other people have remembered, and they come back to us and say, "Hey, don't worry; don't be afraid, ever, because this is just a ride." And we … kill those people. "Shut him up! I've got a lot invested in this ride, shut him up! Look at my furrows of worry, look at my big bank account, and my family. This has to be real." It's just a ride. But we always kill the good guys who try and tell us that, you ever notice that? And let the demons run amok … But it doesn't matter, because it's just a ride. And we can change it any time we want. It's only a choice. No effort, no work, no job, no savings of money. Just a simple choice, right now, between fear and love. The eyes of fear want you to put bigger locks on your doors, buy guns, close yourself off. The eyes of love instead see all of us as one. Here's what we can do to change the world, right now, to a better ride. Take all that money we spend on weapons and defenses each year and instead spend it feeding and clothing and educating the poor of the world, which it would pay for many times over, not one human being excluded, and we could explore space, together, both inner and outer, forever, in peace.
”
”
Bill Hicks
“
You don’t need no gun control, you know what you need? We need some bullet control. Men, we need to control the bullets, that’s right. I think all bullets should cost five thousand dollars… five thousand dollars per bullet… You know why? Cause if a bullet cost five thousand dollars there would be no more innocent bystanders.
Yeah! Every time somebody get shut we’d say, ‘Damn, he must have done something ... Shit, he’s got fifty thousand dollars worth of bullets in his ass.’
And people would think before they killed somebody if a bullet cost five thousand dollars. ‘Man I would blow your fucking head off…if I could afford it.’ ‘I’m gonna get me another job, I’m going to start saving some money, and you’re a dead man. You’d better hope I can’t get no bullets on layaway.’
So even if you get shot by a stray bullet, you wouldn't have to go to no doctor to get it taken out. Whoever shot you would take their bullet back, like "I believe you got my property.
”
”
Chris Rock
“
He wanted to kill us. With what? His evil-eye power?
Will pulled a gun out from underneath his loose shirt.
Oh, yeah, that would do it.
”
”
Jennifer L. Armentrout (Opal (Lux, #3))
“
But why can't the language for creativity be the language of regeneration? You killed that poem, we say. You're a killer. You came into that novel guns blazing. I am hammering this paragraph, I am banging them out, we say. I owned that workshop. I shut it down. I crushed them. We smashed the competition. I'm wrestling with the muse. The state, where people live, is a battleground state. The audience a target audience. "Good for you, man" a man once said to me at a party, "you're making a killing with poetry. You're knockin' em dead.
”
”
Ocean Vuong (On Earth We're Briefly Gorgeous)
“
If you keep a gun in your purse, you get killed, because no woman can find anything in her purse in under twelve minutes. It's a rule.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton
“
I could probably have made the head shot from the railing, but with an unfamiliar gun, it was too risky. I didn't want to accidentally shoot the woman in the head. Killing the hostage is always frowned upon.
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (The Killing Dance (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #6))
“
With the rise of chiefdoms around 7,500 years ago, people had to learn, for the first time in history, how to encounter strangers regularly without attempting to kill them.
”
”
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies)
“
Never draw a gun on a man unless you intend to kill him. And believe me, if you do intend to kill him he will already know it. Then he will feel the cold breath of the tomb.
”
”
George S. Patton Jr.
“
So what are you gonna say at my funeral, now that you've killed me? Here lies the body of the love of my life, whose heart I broke without a gun to my head. Here lies the mother of my children, both living and dead. Rest in peace, my true love, who I took for granted. Most bomb p*ssy who, because of me, sleep evaded. Her god listening. Her heaven will be a love without betrayal. Ashes to ashes, dust to side chicks.
”
”
Beyoncé Knowles
“
This world’s anguish is no different
from the love we insist on holding back.
”
”
Aberjhani (Elemental: The Power of Illuminated Love)
“
I know that if I ever have the audacity to blame fate or God for holding a gun to my temple, I also have the wherewithal to remind myself that if I end up with a hole in my head, I was the one who pulled the trigger.
”
”
Tiffanie DeBartolo (How to Kill a Rock Star)
“
There are men with guns up there. When they see me, they will kill me, if they can," I
tell my father quietly. I search his eyes. "Should I let them?"
He stares at me for a few seconds.
"Go," he says, "and God help you.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
“
The truth is, Rosemary, that you are capable of anything. Good or bad. You always have been, and you always will be. Given the right push, you, too, could do horrible things. That darkness exists within all of us. You think every soldier who picked up a cutter gun was a bad person? No. She was just doing what the soldier next to her was doing, who was doing what the soldier next to her was doing, and so on and so on. And I bet most of them — not all, but most — who made it through the war spent a long time after trying to understand what they’d done. Wondering how they ever could have done it in the first place. Wondering when killing became so comfortable.
”
”
Becky Chambers (The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Wayfarers, #1))
“
She's like a bullet through an ocean,
I still remember how you moved so slow,
You tried to kill me with a shot gun,
Bang!
Now we're even,
We don't stop till someone's bleeding!
”
”
Pierce the Veil
“
If you both own a gun and a swimming pool in your backyard, the swimming pool is about 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.
”
”
Steven D. Levitt (Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything)
“
Conner Lassiter. Scheduled to be unwound the 21st of November-until you went AWOL. You caused an accident that killed a bus driver, left dozens of others injured, and shut down an interstate highway for hours. Then, on top of it, you took a hostage AND shot a Juvey-cop with his own tranq gun."
..."He's the Akron AWOL?!
”
”
Neal Shusterman (Unwind (Unwind, #1))
“
We lose eight children and teenagers to gun violence every day. If a mysterious virus suddenly started killing eight of our children every day, America would mobilize teams of doctors and public health officials. We would move heaven and earth until we found a way to protect our children. But not with gun violence.
”
”
Elizabeth Warren (A Fighting Chance)
“
There are things we never tell anyone. We want to but we can’t. So we write them down. Or we paint them. Or we sing about them. It’s our only option. To remember. To attempt to discover the truth. Sometimes we do it to stay alive. These things, they live inside of us. They are the secrets we stash in our pockets and the weapons we carry like guns across our backs. And in the end we have to decide for ourselves when these things are worth fighting for, and when it’s time to throw in the towel. Sometimes a person has to die in order to live. Deep down, I know you know this. You just can’t seem to do anything about it. I guess it’s a sad fact of life that some of us move on and some of us inevitably stay behind. Only in this case I’m not sure which one of us is doing which. You were right about one thing though. It’s not fate. It’s a choice. And who knows, maybe we’ll meet again someday, somewhere up above all the noise. Until then, when you think of me, try and remember the good stuff. Try and remember the love.
”
”
Tiffanie DeBartolo (How to Kill a Rock Star)
“
You can’t kill me with a gun. (Thanatos)
I know, but it’s fun as hell just shooting you. (Zarek)
”
”
Sherrilyn Kenyon (Dance with the Devil (Dark-Hunter, #3))
“
I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point it at anything in the house; and that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he supposed the temptation to go after birds would be too much, and that I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted - if I could hit 'em; but to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
Beasts bounding through time.
Van Gogh writing his brother for paints
Hemingway testing his shotgun
Celine going broke as a doctor of medicine
the impossibility of being human
Villon expelled from Paris for being a thief
Faulkner drunk in the gutters of his town
the impossibility of being human
Burroughs killing his wife with a gun
Mailer stabbing his
the impossibility of being human
Maupassant going mad in a rowboat
Dostoevsky lined up against a wall to be shot
Crane off the back of a boat into the propeller
the impossibility
Sylvia with her head in the oven like a baked potato
Harry Crosby leaping into that Black Sun
Lorca murdered in the road by the Spanish troops
the impossibility
Artaud sitting on a madhouse bench
Chatterton drinking rat poison
Shakespeare a plagiarist
Beethoven with a horn stuck into his head against deafness
the impossibility the impossibility
Nietzsche gone totally mad
the impossibility of being human
all too human
this breathing
in and out
out and in
these punks
these cowards
these champions
these mad dogs of glory
moving this little bit of light toward
us
impossibly
”
”
Charles Bukowski (You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense)
“
In case you haven't noticed, as the result of a shamelessly rigged election in Florida, in which thousands of African Americans were arbitrarily disenfranchised, we now present ourselves to the rest of the world as proud, grinning, jut-jawed, pitiless war-lovers with appalling powerful weaponry - who stand unopposed.
In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as the Nazi's once were.
And with good reason.
In case you haven't noticed, our unelected leaders have dehumanized millions and millions of human beings simply because of their religion and race. We wound 'em and kill 'em and torture 'em and imprison 'em all we want.
Piece of cake.
In case you haven't noticed, we also dehumanize our own soldiers, not because of their religion or race, but because of their low social class.
Send 'em anywhere. Make 'em do anything.
Piece of cake.
The O'Reilly Factor.
So I am a man without a country, except for the librarians and a Chicago paper called "In These Times."
Before we attacked Iraq, the majestic "New York Times" guaranteed there were weapons of destruction there.
Albert Einstein and Mark Twain gave up on the human race at the end of their lives, even though Twain hadn't even seen the First World War. War is now a form of TV entertainment, and what made the First World War so particularly entertaining were two American inventions, barbed wire and the machine gun.
Shrapnel was invented by an Englishman of the same name. Don't you wish you could have something named after you?
Like my distinct betters Einstein and Twain, I now give up on people too. I am a veteran of the Second World War and I have to say this is the not the first time I surrendered to a pitiless war machine.
My last words? "Life is no way to treat an animal, not even a mouse."
Napalm came from Harvard. Veritas!
Our president is a Christian? So was Adolf Hitler.
What can be said to our young people, now that psychopathic personalities, which is to say persons without consciences, without senses of pity or shame, have taken all the money in the treasuries of our government and corporations and made it all their own?
”
”
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (A Man Without a Country)
“
Now I lay me down to sleep my bomb proof cellar's good and deep but if I'm killed before I wake remember god it's for your sake amen.
”
”
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
“
I wanted you to see something about her—I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
I hate how they have the power to kill my future, kill me. They treat my Black skin like a gun or a grenade or a knife that is dangerous and lethal, when really it’s them. The guys at the top powering everything.
”
”
Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé (Ace of Spades)
“
There was a time when you would have taken my heart with stake or gun. Now you have taken it with these delicate hands and the scent of your body."
- Jean-Claude
”
”
Laurell K. Hamilton (The Killing Dance (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter, #6))
“
did anybody ever come back from the dead any single one of the millions who got killed did any one of them ever come back and say by god i'm glad i'm dead because death is always better than dishonor? did they say i'm glad i died to make the world safe for democracy? did they say i like death better than losing liberty? did any of them ever say it's good to think i got my guts blown out for the honor of my country? did any of them ever say look at me i'm dead but i died for decency and that's better than being alive? did any of them ever say here i am i've been rotting for two years in a foreign grave but it's wonderful to die for your native land? did any of them say hurray i died for womanhood and i'm happy see how i sing even though my mouth is choked with worms?
”
”
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
“
I've heard some stupid questions in my life. Usually they come in clusters: Why do you have that gun? What are you doing? Are you going to kill me? Uh, duh. I'm sure as hell not going to shoot myself.
”
”
J.M. Darhower (Menace (Scarlet Scars, #1))
“
I keep hearing this fucking thing that guns don't kill people, but people kill people. If that's the case, why do we give people guns when they go to war? Why not just send the people?
”
”
Ozzy Osbourne
“
Is that why you’re here? To talk about that? Sweet Jesus . . . you men. It’s never your fault, is it? When are you going to admit that it isn’t ‘hockey’ that raises these boys, it’s YOU LOT? In every time and every place, I’ve come across men who blame their own stupidity on crap they themselves have invented. ‘Religion causes wars,’ ‘guns kill people,’ it’s all the same old bullshit!” “I didn’t mea . . . ,” Sune tries, but has to duck when she tries to slap him again. “Keep your trap shut when I’m talking! Fucking men! YOU’RE the problem! Religion doesn’t fight, guns don’t kill, and you need to be very fucking clear that hockey has never raped anyone! But do you know who do? Fight and kill and rape?” Sune clears his throat. “Men?” “MEN! It’s always fucking men!
”
”
Fredrik Backman (Beartown (Beartown, #1))
“
From The Other Side, Uncle Roscoe was still exercising his Second Amendment rights. Protecting me from my stalker? Or was his gun going to get me killed?
”
”
M.S.M. Barkawitz (Feeling Lucky)
“
I wanted you to see something about her - I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
He’d only ever seen a gun once, a smaller one on the hip of that old deputy, a gun he’d always figured was more for show. He stuffed a fistful of deadly rounds in his pocket, thinking how each one could end an individual life, and understanding why such things were forbidden. Killing a man should be harder than waving a length of pipe in their direction. It should take long enough for one’s conscience to get in the way.
”
”
Hugh Howey (Wool Omnibus (Silo, #1))
“
guns don't kill people, husbands that come home early do
”
”
Larry the Cable Guy
“
Guns don’t kill people. The aliens behind the triggers do.
”
”
John Scalzi (Old Man's War (Old Man's War, #1))
“
I read a jaw-dropping online defense of these weapons from a California woman recently. Guns, she said, are just tools. Like spoons, she said. Would you outlaw spoons simply because some people use them to eat too much? Lady, let’s see you try to kill twenty schoolkids with a fucking spoon.
”
”
Stephen King (Guns (Kindle Single))
“
Melt all the guns, I thought, break the knives, burn the guillotines-and the malicious will still write letters that kill.
”
”
Ray Bradbury (Death is a Lonely Business (Crumley Mysteries, #1))
“
I'm glad I didn't have to fight in any war. I'm glad I didn't have to pick up a gun. I'm glad I didn't get killed or kill somebody. I hope my kids enjoy the same lack of manhood.
”
”
Tom Hanks
“
Then there was this freedom the little guys were always getting killed for. Was it freedom from another country? Freedom from work or disease or death? Freedom from your mother-in-law? Please mister give us a bill of sale on this freedom before we go out and get killed. Give us a bill of sale drawn up plainly in advance what we're getting killed for... so we can be sure after we've won your war that we've got the same kind of freedom we bargained for.
”
”
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
“
Tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain.
You are young and life is long and there is time to kill today.
And then one day you find ten years have got behind you.
No one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.
”
”
David Gilmour
“
Sometimes I wanna kill, sometimes I wanna die, sometimes I wanna destroy, sometimes I wanna cry; sometimes I could get even, sometimes I could give up, sometimes I could give, sometimes I never give a f*ck.
”
”
Guns N' Roses
“
Semi-automatics have only two purposes. One is so owners can take them to the shooting range once in awhile, yell yeehaw, and get all horny at the rapid fire and the burning vapor spurting from the end of the barrel. Their other use – their only other use – is to kill people
”
”
Stephen King (Guns)
“
Yeah, but you don’t need a machine gun to kill a fly.
”
”
Julie Kagawa (The Iron Daughter (The Iron Fey, #2))
“
Of course a lot of guys were ashamed. Somebody said let's go out and fight for liberty and so they went out and got killed without ever once thinking of liberty. And what kind of liberty were they fighting for anyway? How much liberty and whose kind of liberty? Were they fighting for the liberty of eating free ice cream cones all their lives or for the liberty of robbing anybody they pleased whenever they wanted to or what? You tell a man he can't rob and you take away some of his liberty. You've got to. What the hell does liberty mean anyhow? It's a word like house or table or any other word. Only it's a special kind of word. A guy says house and he can point to a house to prove it. But a guy says come on let's fight for liberty and he can't show you liberty. He can't prove the thing he's talking about so how in the hell can he be telling you to fight for it? No sir anybody who went out and got into the front line trenches to fight for liberty was a goddamn fool and the guy who got him there was a liar.
”
”
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
“
The gun slipped on Emily's temple, and he suddenly knew that if she killed herself, he would die. Maybe not immediately, maybe not with the same blinding pain, but it would happen. You couldn't live for very long without a heart.
”
”
Jodi Picoult (The Pact)
“
A lady?' Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. 'After all those things she said about you, a lady?'
'She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her- I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.
”
”
Harper Lee (To Kill a Mockingbird)
“
This isn’t a bargain, it’s a deal.”
“I’m not in the business of striking deals with girls in cages.”
I twist my lips into a cruel smile. “Then by all means, let me out.”
Elian laughs, pulls a pistol out, and shakes his head once again.
“You know,” he says, approaching the cell, “I think I might like you. Thing is” – he taps his gun against my prison – “there’s a difference between liking someone and trusting them.”
“I wouldn’t know. I’ve never done either.
”
”
Alexandra Christo (To Kill a Kingdom (Hundred Kingdoms, #1))
“
He explained to Atro that he now understood why the army was organized as it was. It was indeed quite necessary. No rational form of organization would serve the purpose. He simply had not understood that the purpose was to enable men with machine guns to kill unarmed men and women easily and in great quantities when told to do so. Only he still could not see where courage, or manliness, or fitness entered in.
”
”
Ursula K. Le Guin (The Dispossessed: An Ambiguous Utopia)
“
Lolita: Oh my Carmen, my little Carmen…
Humbert: Charmin’ Carmen. Started garglin’
Lolita: I remember those sultry nights
Humbert: Those pre-raphaelites
Lolita: No, come on. And the stars and the cars and the bars and the barmen.
Humbert: And the bars that sparkled and the cars that parkled…And the curs that barkled and the birds that larkled.
Lolita: And oh my charmin, our dreadful fights
Humbert: Such dreadful blights
Lolita: And the something town where arm in…arm, we went, and our final row, and the gun I killed you with, o my Carmen…the gun I am holding now
”
”
Vladimir Nabokov (Lolita)
“
Hunting and fishing involve killing animals with devices (such as guns) for which the animals have not evolved natural defenses. No animal on earth has adequate defense against a human armed with a gun, a bow and arrow, a trap that can maim, a snare that can strangle, or a fishing lure designed for the sole purpose of fooling fish into thinking they have found something to eat
”
”
Marc Bekoff (Animals Matter: A Biologist Explains Why We Should Treat Animals with Compassion and Respect)
“
When I was fourteen, I thought a lot about killing myself—it’s a hobby today, but at age fourteen it was a vocation. On a September morning, just after school started, I’d gotten Diane’s .44 Magnum and held it, babylike, in my lap for hours. What an indulgence it would be, to just blow off my head, all my mean spirits disappearing with a gun blast, like blowing a seedy dandelion apart. But I thought about Diane, and her coming home to my small torso and a red wall, and I couldn’t do it. It’s probably why I was so hateful to her, she kept me from what I wanted the most.
”
”
Gillian Flynn (Dark Places)
“
Hickory dickory dock my daddy’s nuts from shell shock. Humpty dumpty thought he was wise till gas came along and burned out his eyes. A dillar a dollar a ten o clock scholar blow off his legs and then watch him holler. Rockaby baby in the tree top don’t stop a bomb or you’ll probably flop. Now I lay me down to sleep my bombproof cellars good and deep but if I’m killed before I wake remember god its for your sake amen.
”
”
Dalton Trumbo (Johnny Got His Gun)
“
He pointed the gun at me. Then he looked up at my hand & tilted his head slightly.
- Journey, he said. I had forgotten I was still holding the book.
- Céline, I said back in a whisper.
- I love that book.
- I'm only halfway through.
- Have you got to the point where --
- Hey, kill me, but don't tell me the end!
”
”
Steve Toltz (A Fraction of the Whole)
“
This maybe the year when we finally come face to face with ourselves; finally just lay back and say it—that we are really just a nation of 220 million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns, and no qualms at all about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.
”
”
Hunter S. Thompson (The Great Shark Hunt: Strange Tales from a Strange Time (The Gonzo Papers, #1))
“
One saw a bird dying, shot by a man. It was flying with rhythmic beat and beautifully, with such freedom and lack of fear. And the gun shattered it; it fell to the earth and all the life had gone out of it. A dog fetched it, and the man collected other dead birds. He was chattering with his friend and seemed so utterly indifferent. All that he was concerned with was bringing down so many birds, and it was over as far as he was concerned. They are killing all over the world. Those marvellous, great animals of the sea, the whales, are killed by the million, and the tiger and so many other animals are now becoming endangered species. Man is the only animal that is to be dreaded.
”
”
J. Krishnamurti (Krishnamurti to Himself: His Last Journal)
“
But they can rule by fraud, and by fraud eventually acquire access to the tools they need to finish the job of killing off the Constitution.'
'What sort of tools?'
'More stringent security measures. Universal electronic surveillance. No-knock laws. Stop and frisk laws. Government inspection of first-class mail. Automatic fingerprinting, photographing, blood tests, and urinalysis of any person arrested before he is charged with a crime. A law making it unlawful to resist even unlawful arrest. Laws establishing detention camps for potential subversives. Gun control laws. Restrictions on travel. The assassinations, you see, establish the need for such laws in the public mind. Instead of realizing that there is a conspiracy, conducted by a handful of men, the people reason—or are manipulated into reasoning—that the entire population must have its freedom restricted in order to protect the leaders. The people agree that they themselves can't be trusted.
”
”
Robert Anton Wilson (The Eye in the Pyramid (Illuminatus, #1))
“
We know from our recent history that English did not come to replace U.S. Indian languages merely because English sounded musical to Indians' ears. Instead, the replacement entailed English-speaking immigrants' killing most Indians by war, murder, and introduced diseases, and the surviving Indians' being pressured into adopting English, the new majority language.
”
”
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies)
“
I do not understand exactly what you mean by fear," said Tarzan. "Like lions, fear is a different thing in different men, but to me the only pleasure in the hunt is the knowledge that the hunted thing has power to harm me as much as I have to harm him. If I went out with a couple of rifles and a gun bearer, and twenty or thirty beaters, to hunt a lion, I should not feel that the lion had much chance, and so the pleasure of the hunt would be lessened in proportion to the increased safety which I felt."
"Then I am to take it that Monsieur Tarzan would prefer to go naked into the jungle, armed only with a jackknife, to kill the king of beasts," laughed the other good naturedly, but with the merest touch of sarcasm in his tone.
"And a piece of rope," added Tarzan.
”
”
Edgar Rice Burroughs (Tarzan of the Apes (Tarzan, #1))
“
I was learning about journalism, and I was learning about politics. I discovered there was plenty of politics in journalism, dumping a story, a great story, to keep the Mayor happy. I heard Coach Michael’s voice in my head: ‘You can’t run and gun, girl.’ Mitch’s voice: ‘You can’t wear that bikini, girl.’ Even Janice’s voice: ‘You can’t tell anyone, ever.’ Can’t. Can’t. Can’t. That’s why I wasn’t going to back down (about killing the story).
”
”
Karen Hinton (Penis Politics: A Memoir of Women, Men and Power)
“
Guys, gals, now hear this: No one wants to take away your hunting rifles. No one wants to take away your shotguns. No one wants to take away your revolvers, and no one wants to take away your automatic pistols, as long as said pistols hold no more than ten rounds. If you can't kill a home invader (or your wife, up in the middle of the night to get a snack from the fridge) with ten shots, you need to go back to the local shooting range.
”
”
Stephen King (Guns)
“
Twelve thousand years ago, everybody on earth was a hunter-gatherer; now almost all of us are farmers or else are fed by farmers. The spread of farming from those few sites of origin usually did not occur as a result of the hunter-gatherers' elsewhere adopting farming; hunter-gatherers tend to be conservative.... Instead, farming spread mainly through farmers' outbreeding hunters, developing more potent technology, and then killing the hunters or driving them off of all lands suitable for agriculture.
”
”
Jared Diamond (Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies)
“
My feeling toward Republicans is like my feeling about sharks: of course they're stupid and vicious. It's in their nature to be mindless, ravening killing machines. It's nothing personal. They don't know any better. Pretty much the only thing you can do about them is stay out of their waters and, if you're unlucky enough to meet with one, shoot it through its rudimentary brain with a spear gun.
”
”
Tim Kreider (Twilight of the Assholes (The Chronicles of the Era of Darkness 2005-2009))
“
I am not anti-gun. I'm pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We'd turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don't ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.
”
”
Molly Ivins
“
1. So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better make sure kids can’t get guns.
2. So, disturbed kids are taking guns to school and killing teachers and classmates. We better find out what’s making these kids want to kill, fix that, and then they won’t want to use guns to kill teachers and classmates.
See what I did there? Which statement makes more sense? Don’t bring up politics. Don’t refer to statistical data. Don’t nervously look at your cell phone. Just read the two statements and be honest with yourself. We can do better. We’re smarter than this. WAKE UP.
”
”
Aaron B. Powell (Guns Part 2)
“
In 2012, in the United Kingdom, the number of people (regardless of race) shot and killed by police officers: 1 In 2013, in the United Kingdom, the number of times police officers fired guns in the line of duty/the number of people fatally shot: 3/0 In the United States, in the seven year period ending in 2012, a white police officer killed a black person nearly two times a week. “I’m not much of a talker,” she finished up. “You know that. But I know numbers. The numbers don’t lie, kids. The numbers always tell a story.
”
”
Jason Reynolds (All American Boys)
“
Giants isn't eating each other either, the BFG said. Nor is giants killing each other. Giants is not very lovely, but they is not killing each other. Nor is crockadowndillies killing other crockadowndillies. Nor is pussy-cats killing pussy-cats.
'They kill mice,' Sophie said.
'Ah, but they is not killing their own kind,' the BFG said. 'Human beans is the only animals that is killing their own kind.'
'Don't poisonous snakes kill each other?' Sophie asked. She was searching desperately for another creature that behaved as badly as the human.
'Even poisnowse snakes is never killing each other,' the BFG said. 'Nor is the most fearsome creatures like tigers and rhinostossterisses. None of them is ever killing their own kind. Has you ever thought about that?'
Sophie kept silent.
'I is not understanding human beans at all,' the BFG said.' You is a human bean and you is saying it is grizzling and horrigust for giants to be eating human beans. Right or left?'
'Right,' Sophie said.
'But human beans is squishing each other all the time,' the BFG said. 'They is shootling guns and going up in
aerioplanes to drop their bombs on each other's heads every week. Human beans is always killing other human beans.'
He was right. Of course he was right and Sophie knew it. She was beginning to wonder whether humans were actually any better than giants. 'Even so,' she said, defending her own race, I' think it's rotten that those foul giants should go off every night to eat humans. Humans have never done them any harm.'
'That is what the little piggy-wig is saying every day,' the BFG answered. 'He is saying, "I has never done any harm to the human bean so why should he be eating me?'"
'Oh dear,' Sophie said.
'The human beans is making rules to suit themselves,' the BFG went on. 'But the rules they is making do not suit the little piggy-wiggies. Am I right or left?'
'Right,' Sophie said.
'Giants is also making rules. Their rules is not suiting the human beans. Everybody is making his own rules to suit himself.
”
”
Roald Dahl (The BFG)
“
Sam frowns at me, suddenly serious. "You know, I thought--for most of the first year we lived together--that you were going to kill me."
That makes me nearly spit out beer, I laugh so hard.
"No, look--living with you, it's like knowing there's a loaded gun on the other side of the room. You're like this leopard who's pretending to be a house cat."
That only makes me laugh harder.
"Shut up," he says. "You might do normal stuff, but a leopard can drink milk or fall off things like a house cat. It's obvious you're not--not like the rest of us. I'll look over at you, and you'll be flexing your claws, or I don't know, eating a freshly killed antelope."
"Oh," I say. It's a ridiculous metaphor, but the hilarity has gone out of me. I thought I did a good job of fitting in--maybe not perfect, but not as bad as Sam makes it sound.
"It's like Audrey," he says, stabbing the air with a finger clearly well on his way to inebriated and full of determination to make me understand his theory. "You acted like she went out with you because you did this good job of being a nice guy."
"I am a nice guy."
I try to be.
Sam snorts. "She liked you because you scared her. And then you scared her too much.
”
”
Holly Black (Red Glove (Curse Workers, #2))
“
The thing about violence, see, is that the Empire has a lot more to lose than we do. Violence disrupts the extractive economy. You wreak havoc on one supply line, and there’s a dip in prices across the Atlantic. Their entire system of trade is high-strung and vulnerable to shocks because they’ve made it thus, because the rapacious greed of capitalism is punishing. It’s why slave revolts succeed. They can’t fire on their own source of labour – it’d be like killing their own golden geese.
‘But if the system is so fragile, why do we so easily accept the colonial situation? Why do we think it’s inevitable? Why doesn’t Man Friday ever get himself a rifle, or slit Robinson Crusoe’s neck in the night? The problem is that we’re always living like we’ve lost. We’re all living like you. We see their guns, their silver-work, and their ships, and we think it’s already over for us. We don’t stop to consider how even the playing field actually might be. And we never consider what things would look like if we took the gun.
”
”
R.F. Kuang (Babel)
“
It’s just… I wish it was easier, for me, you know?” I make a special point not to look at her. “I wish it was someone else who was chosen for this. Someone competent. If only I didn’t stop that robbery. I wish I didn’t have to go through with it all.” It comes gushing out, with words like spilled milk. “And I wish it was me with you and not that other guy. I wish it was my own skin touching with yours…”
And there you have it.
Stupidity in its purest form.
“Oh, Ed.” Audrey looks away. “Oh, Ed.”
Our feet dangle.
I watch them, and I watch the jeans on Audrey’s legs.
We only sit there now.
Audrey and me.
And discomfort.
Squeezed in, between us.
She soon says, “You’re my best friend, Ed.”
“I know.”
You can kill a man with those words.
No gun.
No bullets.
Just words and a girl.
”
”
Markus Zusak (I Am the Messenger)
“
I think one of the sweetest lessons taught by the Prophet, and yet one of the saddest, occurred close to the time of his death. He was required to leave his plan and vision of the Rocky Mountains and give himself up to face a court of supposed justice.
These are his words: 'I am going like a lamb to the slaughter; but I am calm as a summer's morning; I have a conscience void of offense towards God, and towards all men' (D&C 135:4). That statement of the Prophet teaches us obedience to law and the importance of having a clear conscience toward God and toward our fellowmen. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught these principles--by example.
There was to be one great final lesson before his mortal life ended. He was incarcerated in Carthage Jail with his brother Hyrum, with John Taylor, and with Willard Richards. The angry mob stormed the jail; they came up the stairway, blasphemous in their cursing, heavily armed, and began to fire at will. Hyrum was hit and died. John Taylor took several balls of fire within his bosom. The Prophet Joseph, with his pistol in hand, was attempting to defend his life and that of his brethren, and yet he could tell from the pounding on the door that this mob would storm that door and would kill John Taylor and Willard Richards in an attempt to kill him.
And so his last great act here upon the earth was to leave the door and lead Willard Richards to safety, throw the gun on the floor, and go to the window, that they might see him, that the attention of this ruthless mob might be focused upon him rather than the others. Joseph Smith gave his life. Willard Richards was spared, and John Taylor recovered from his wounds.
'Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends' (John 15:13). The Prophet Joseph Smith taught us love--by example.
”
”
Thomas S. Monson
“
I had some peculiar ideas about love. I’ll tell you what I thought on the subject back then: it’s about as much use as a barrel with no bottom. When I fed the pigs and two of them got to scrapping over an old soft onion, I thought: that’s love. Love is eating. Love is a snarling pig snout and long tusks. Love is a dress like the sun. Love is the color of blood. Love is what grown folk do to each other because the law frowns on killing.
I said I loved her back. I put my hand on the door and I said I loved her back and when I said it I thought of kissing her and also of shooting her through the eye.
”
”
Catherynne M. Valente (Six-Gun Snow White)
“
Generally ‘training’ went something akin to this:
“So what you have to do is—“
Shoot you in the fucking head with your own gun because it would be painfully easy to disarm you with the way you’re holding that weapon.
“Understand?”
Sin stared at the man blankly before raising his own weapon and unloading his entire clip into the paper target. He didn’t speak and didn’t even look at where he was shooting before placing the standard issued gun in front of him as he watched his ‘trainer’ expectantly.
The man, whose name he had not bothered to pay attention to, gave him a strange look and examined the target as it slid closer to them from across the range. His expression became incredulous as he took in the completely obliterated ‘head’ and he turned on Sin with a frown. “You killed it.”
“Yes.”
“You were only supposed to immobilize it…”
“Oh.”
Fucking civilians.
”
”
Santino Hassell (Evenfall (In the Company of Shadows, #1))
“
The shot doesn't come. He stares at me with the same ferocity but doesn't move. Why doesn't he shoot me? His heart pounds against my palms,and my own heart lifts. He is Divergent. He can fight this simulation.Any simulation.
"Tobias," I say. "It's me."
I step forward and wrap my arms around him. His body is stiff. His heart beats faster. I can feel it against my cheek. A thud against my cheek. A thud as the gun hits the floor.He grabs my shoulders-too hard, his fingers digging into my skin where the bullet was. I cry out as he pulls me back. Maybe he means to kill me in some crueler way.
"Tris," he says,and it's him again. His mouth collides with mine.
His arm wraps around me and he lifts me up, holding me against him, his hands clutching at my back. His face and the back of his neck are slick with sweat, his body is shaking,and my shoulder blazes with pain,but I don't care,I don't care,I don't care.
He sets me down and stares at me, his fingers brushing over my forehead, my eyebrows,my cheeks, my lips.
Something like a sob and a sigh and a moan escapes him,and he kisses me again. His eyes are bright with tears. I never thought I would see Tobias cry. It makes me hurt.
I pull myself to his chest and cry into his shirt. All the throbbing in my head comes back,and the ache in my shoulder,and I feel like my body weight doubles.I lean against him, and he supports me.
"How did you do it?" I say.
"I don't know," he says. "I just hear your voice.
”
”
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
“
My father says--used to say-- that there is power in self-sacrifice. I turn the gun in my hands and press it into Tobias's palm. He pushes the barrel into my forehead. My tears have stopped and the air feels cold as it touches my cheeks. I reach out and rest my hand on his chest so I can feel his heartbeat. At least his heartbeat is still him. THe bullet clicks into the chamber. Maybe it will be easy to let him shoot me as it was in the fear landscape, as it is in my dreams. Maybe it will be a bang, and the lights will lift, and I will find myself in another world. I stand still and wait. Can I be forgiven for all I've done to get here? I don't know. I don't know. Please. THE SHOT DOESN'T come. He stares at me with the same ferocity but doesn't move. Why doesn't he shoot me? His heart pounds against my palm, and my own heart lifts. He is divergent. He can fight this stimulation. Any simulation. "Tobias," I say. "It's me." I step forward and wrap my arms around him. His body is stiff. His heart beats faster. I can feel it against my cheek. A thud against my cheek. A thud as the gun hits the floor. He grabs my shoulders--- too hard, his fingers digging into my skin where the bullet was. I cry out as he pulls me back. Maybe he means to kill me in a crueler way. "Tris," he says, and it's him again. His mouth collides with mine. His arm wraps around me and he lifts me up, holding me against him...
”
”
Veronica Roth (Divergent (Divergent, #1))
“
Old Spice
Every Sunday afternoon he dresses in his old army uniform,
tells you the name of every man he killed.
His knuckles are unmarked graves.
Visit him on a Tuesday and he will describe
the body of every woman he could not save.
He’ll say she looked like your mother
and you will feel a storm in your stomach.
Your grandfather is from another generation–
Russian degrees and a school yard Cuban national anthem,
communism and religion. Only music makes him cry now.
He married his first love, her with the long curls down
to the small of her back. Sometimes he would
pull her to him, those curls wrapped around his hand
like rope.
He lives alone now. Frail, a living memory
reclining in a seat, the room orbiting around him.
You visit him but never have anything to say.
When he was your age he was a man.
You retreat into yourself whenever he says your name.
Your mother’s father,
“the almost martyr,
can load a gun under water
in under four seconds.
Even his wedding night was a battlefield.
A Swiss knife, his young bride,
his sobs as he held Italian linen between her legs.
His face is a photograph left out in the sun,
the henna of his beard, the silver of his eyebrows
the wilted handkerchief, the kufi and the cane.
Your grandfather is dying.
He begs you Take me home yaqay,
I just want to see it one last time;
you don’t know how to tell him that it won’t be
anything like the way he left it.
”
”
Warsan Shire (Teaching My Mother How to Give Birth)
“
With time to think, the full reality of what had happened hit Thomas like a falling boulder. Ever since Thomas had entered the Maze, Newt had been there for him. Thomas hadn’t realized just how much of a friend he’d become until now. His heart hurt.
He tried to remind himself that Newt wasn’t dead. But in some ways this was worse. In most ways. He’d fallen down the slope of insanity, and he was surrounded by bloodthirsty Cranks. And the prospect of never seeing him again was almost unbearable. [...]
He pulled the envelope out of his pocket and ripped it open, then took out the slip of paper. The soft lights that ringed the mirror lit up the message in a warm glow. It was two short sentences:
Kill me. If you’ve ever been my friend, kill me.
Thomas read it over and over, wishing the words would change. To think that his friend had been so scared that he’d had the foresight to write those words made him sick to his stomach. And he remembered how angry Newt had been at Thomas specifically when they’d found him in the bowling alley. He’d just wanted to avoid the inevitable fate of becoming a Crank.
And Thomas had failed him. [...]
“Newt suddenly twisted around and grabbed Thomas by the hand holding the gun. He yanked it toward himself, forcing it up until the end of the pistol was pressed against his own forehead. “Now make amends! Kill me before I become one of those cannibal monsters! Kill me! I trusted you with the note! No one else. Now do it!”
Thomas tried to pull his hand away, but Newt was too strong. “I can’t, Newt, I can’t.”
“Make amends! Repent for what you did!” The words tore out of him, his whole body trembling. Then his voice dropped to an urgent, harsh whisper. “Kill me, you shuck coward. Prove you can do the right thing. Put me out of my misery.”
The words horrified Thomas. “Newt, maybe we can—”
“Shut up! Just shut up! I trusted you! Now do it!”
“I can’t.”
“Do it!”
“I can’t!” How could Newt ask him to do something like this? How could he possibly kill one of his best friends?
“Kill me or I’ll kill you. Kill me! Do it!”
“Newt …”
“Do it before I become one of them!”
“I …”
“KILL ME!” And then Newt’s eyes cleared, as if he’d gained one last trembling gasp of sanity, and his voice softened. “Please, Tommy. Please.”
With his heart falling into a black abyss, Thomas pulled the trigger.
”
”
James Dashner (The Death Cure (The Maze Runner, #3))
“
I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem strange to the people of my village... But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly. At times it will seem that nothing changes at all... and then again... the sudden dramatic events which make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution. And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred. But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and will not wonder long. And perhaps... perhaps I will be a great man... I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find my way always with the right course... and perhaps for it I will be butchered in my bed some night by the servants of empire...
...perhaps the things I believe now for my country will be wrong and outmoded, and I will not understand and do terrible things to have things my way or merely to keep my power. Don't you see that there will be young men and women, not British soldiers then, but my own black countrymen... to step out of the shadows some evening and slit my then useless throat? Don't you see they have always been there... that they always will be. And that such a thing as my own death will be an advance? They who might kill me even... actually replenish me!
”
”
Lorraine Hansberry (A Raisin in the Sun)
“
In the cage is the lion. She paces with her memories. Her body is a record of her past. As she moves back and forth, one may see it all: the lean frame, the muscular legs, the paw enclosing long sharp claws, the astonishing speed of her response. She was born in this garden. She has never in her life stretched those legs. Never darted farther than twenty yards at a time. Only once did she use her claws. Only once did she feel them sink into flesh. And it was her keeper's flesh. Her keeper whom she loves, who feeds her, who would never dream of harming her, who protects her. Who in his mercy forgave her mad attack, saying this was in her nature, to be cruel at a whim, to try to kill what she loves. He had come into her cage as he usually did early in the morning to change her water, always at the same time of day, in the same manner, speaking softly to her, careful to make no sudden movement, keeping his distance, when suddenly she sank down, deep down into herself, the way wild animals do before they spring, and then she had risen on all her strong legs, and swiped him in one long, powerful, graceful movement across the arm. How lucky for her he survived the blow. The keeper and his friends shot her with a gun to make her sleep. Through her half-open lids she knew they made movements around her. They fed her with tubes. They observed her. They wrote comments in notebooks. And finally they rendered a judgment. She was normal. She was a normal wild beast, whose power is dangerous, whose anger can kill, they had said. Be more careful of her, they advised. Allow her less excitement. Perhaps let her exercise more. She understood none of this. She understood only the look of fear in her keeper's eyes. And now she paces. Paces as if she were angry, as if she were on the edge of frenzy. The spectators imagine she is going through the movements of the hunt, or that she is readying her body for survival. But she knows no life outside the garden. She has no notion of anger over what she could have been, or might be. No idea of rebellion.
It is only her body that knows of these things, moving her, daily, hourly, back and forth, back and forth, before the bars of her cage.
”
”
Susan Griffin (Woman and Nature: The Roaring Inside Her)
“
Boy everyone in this country is running around yammering about their fucking rights. "I have a right, you have no right, we have a right."
Folks I hate to spoil your fun, but... there's no such thing as rights. They're imaginary. We made 'em up. Like the boogie man. Like Three Little Pigs, Pinocio, Mother Goose, shit like that. Rights are an idea. They're just imaginary. They're a cute idea. Cute. But that's all. Cute...and fictional. But if you think you do have rights, let me ask you this, "where do they come from?" People say, "They come from God. They're God given rights." Awww fuck, here we go again...here we go again.
The God excuse, the last refuge of a man with no answers and no argument, "It came from God." Anything we can't describe must have come from God. Personally folks, I believe that if your rights came from God, he would've given you the right for some food every day, and he would've given you the right to a roof over your head. GOD would've been looking out for ya. You know that.
He wouldn't have been worried making sure you have a gun so you can get drunk on Sunday night and kill your girlfriend's parents.
But let's say it's true. Let's say that God gave us these rights. Why would he give us a certain number of rights?
The Bill of Rights of this country has 10 stipulations. OK...10 rights. And apparently God was doing sloppy work that week, because we've had to ammend the bill of rights an additional 17 times. So God forgot a couple of things, like...SLAVERY. Just fuckin' slipped his mind.
But let's say...let's say God gave us the original 10. He gave the british 13. The british Bill of Rights has 13 stipulations. The Germans have 29, the Belgians have 25, the Sweedish have only 6, and some people in the world have no rights at all. What kind of a fuckin' god damn god given deal is that!?...NO RIGHTS AT ALL!? Why would God give different people in different countries a different numbers of different rights? Boredom? Amusement? Bad arithmetic? Do we find out at long last after all this time that God is weak in math skills? Doesn't sound like divine planning to me. Sounds more like human planning . Sounds more like one group trying to control another group. In other words...business as usual in America.
Now, if you think you do have rights, I have one last assignment for ya. Next time you're at the computer get on the Internet, go to Wikipedia. When you get to Wikipedia, in the search field for Wikipedia, i want to type in, "Japanese-Americans 1942" and you'll find out all about your precious fucking rights. Alright. You know about it.
In 1942 there were 110,000 Japanese-American citizens, in good standing, law abiding people, who were thrown into internment camps simply because their parents were born in the wrong country. That's all they did wrong. They had no right to a lawyer, no right to a fair trial, no right to a jury of their peers, no right to due process of any kind. The only right they had was...right this way! Into the internment camps.
Just when these American citizens needed their rights the most...their government took them away. and rights aren't rights if someone can take em away. They're priveledges. That's all we've ever had in this country is a bill of TEMPORARY priviledges; and if you read the news, even badly, you know the list get's shorter, and shorter, and shorter.
Yeup, sooner or later the people in this country are going to realize the government doesn't give a fuck about them. the government doesn't care about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety. it simply doesn't give a fuck about you. It's interested in it's own power. That's the only thing...keeping it, and expanding wherever possible.
Personally when it comes to rights, I think one of two things is true: either we have unlimited rights, or we have no rights at all.
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George Carlin (It's Bad for Ya)