Rifle Gun Quotes

The rifle itself has no moral stature, since it has no will of its own. Naturally, it may be used by evil men for evil purposes, but there are more good men than evil, and while the latter cannot be persuaded to the path of righteousness by propaganda, they can certainly be corrected by good men with rifles.

The great body of our citizens shoot less as times goes on. We should encourage rifle practice among schoolboys, and indeed among all classes, as well as in the military services by every means in our power. Thus, and not otherwise, may we be able to assist in preserving peace in the world... The first step – in the direction of preparation to avert war if possible, and to be fit for war if it should come – is to teach men to shoot!

I'm tired of the whole anti gun thing. Saying that Guns cause Murders is like saying Steering Wheels cause car wrecks

We spoke about our dreams and how we always felt safe in them, no matter how bad everthing else seemed. He told me it was one of the best days of his life and then he took out his gun. A .22 rifle. And he leaned forward and whispered, "Forgive me, Taylor Markham." Before I could ask how he knew my name and what I was to forgive him for he said, "Take care of my little girl." And then he told me to close my eyes. And I've been frightened to do just that ever since.

The Japanese fought to win - it was a savage, brutal, inhumane, exhausting and dirty business. Our commanders knew that if we were to win and survive, we must be trained realistically for it whether we liked it or not. In the post-war years, the U.S. Marine Corps came in for a great deal of undeserved criticism in my opinion, from well-meaning persons who did not comprehend the magnitude of stress and horror that combat can be. The technology that developed the rifle barrel, the machine gun and high explosive shells has turned war into prolonged, subhuman slaughter. Men must be trained realistically if they are to survive it without breaking, mentally and physically.

And where were you when my mate was shooting ferals with a damn sniper rifle?" he demanded, exhaustion adding a bite to his words. Ryuu gave him a flat look. "Holding her ammunition.

The Constitution gives you the right, as a white man, to have a rifle in your home. The Constitution gives you the right to protect yourself. Why is it ‘ominous’ when black people even talk of having rifles? Why don’t we have the right to self-defense? Is it because maybe you know we’re going to have to defend ourselves against you?

He held up the AK-47, the muscles in his arm bunching against the weight. “This is an assault rifle.” Then held up the handgun. “This is a semi-automatic pistol.” Then he gave a little thrust of his hips and looked down at his penis. “That is my gun. As you’ve discovered, it’s pumpaction like a shotgun , but it doesn’t fire bullets.

You know, I'm sick and tired of people pointing rifles at me.

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children...The term “pro-life” should be a shorthand for respect for the sanctity of life. But I will not let that label apply to people for whom sanctity for life begins at conception and ends at birth. What about the rest of life? Respect for the sanctity of life, if you believe that it begins at conception, cannot end at birth.

She covered his hand with hers over her abdomen. His was so much bigger than hers and had probably fired guns, rifles, and god knew what else, but right here, right now, his tenderness broke down her will as sure as any grenade.

They say the road to Hell is paved with good intentions. In the case of William Jessup Brady, it’s been hand carved with a lever-action Henry rifle over his shoulder and a Smith & Wesson six-gun strapped to his hip.’ – Solace Walters

A man with a rifle or a club can only be stopped by a person who defends himself with a rifle or a club. That's equality. If the United States government doesn't want you and me to have rifles, then take the rifles away from those racists. If they don't want you and me to use clubs, take the clubs away from the racists. If they don't want you and me to get violent, then stop the racists from being violent. Don't teach us non-violence!!!

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.

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.

The tank, the submarine, the torpedo, the machine-gun, even the rifle and the hand grenade are still in use.

Then the Communists set up a front organization, the National Rifle Association, to encourage the wide usage of guns of all sorts, and to battle any attempt to control guns as “unconstitutional.” Thus, they guaranteed that the murder rate in Unistat would always be the highest in the world. This kept the citizens in perpetual anxiety about their safety both on the streets and in their homes. The citizens then tolerated the rapid growth of the Police State, which controlled almost everything, except the sale of guns, the chief cause of crime.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes, Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall, Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds.

Fixin’ onything is man’s work,” came Opal’s firm answer. Tearin’ down or killin’, that thar’s easy. Any addle-pated fool kin pull the trigger of a rifle-gun or fling a rock. It’s fixin’ that’s hard, takes a heap more doin’.

So I'm guessing you're Seven and Ten; What can you do?" I say as I find our rifles in the sand and hand each of them a gun. "You can call me Marina," the girl with the brown hair says. "And I can breathe under water and see in the dark and heal the sick and wounded. And I have telekinesis." Call me Ella, I hear ten say in my head. Aside from my telepathy, I can change ages. "Awesome. I'm four, that nut job with the long black hair is nine and the beast is my chimaera, Bernie Kosar.

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.

I remember still how full of bad magic all those spearpoints to be put on the ends of rifles seemed to be. One was like a sharpened curtain rod. Another was triangular in cross-section, so that the wound it made wouldn't close up again and keep the blood and guts from falling out. Another one had sawteeth - so it could work its way through bone, I guess. I can remember thinking that war was so horrible that, at last, thank goodness, nobody could ever be fooled by romantic pictures and fiction and history into marching to war again. Nowadays, of course, you can buy a machine gun with a plastic bayonet for your little kid at the nearest toy boutique.

Does it scare you?” said Clare. “Living in a house with guns?” Hunter smiled. “It’s not like I wake up in the middle of the night to find them staring down at me.” “Shut up.” She gave him a light shove. “No, I mean, are you ever worried you’ll accidentally get shot?” “You mean, when I catch the assault rifle raiding the refrigerator? Like maybe it’ll turn on me?” Her breath caught again. “You have an assault rifle in your house?” “Sure. It’s partial to lime Jell-O.

Where is outrage from the National Rifle Association? Where’s the damned NRA? The NRA claims to believe the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States grants all of our citizens the right to survive and protect their families with any gun they want. I guess that’s only true when those citizens are Caucasian! Does the Second Amendment apply if you’re a black man driving through a white neighborhood?

The sight of so many guns, mostly deer rifles and duck guns but with a smattering of black rifles and riot shotguns, made him glad that this was going down in a rural area where people still had their heads screwed on right about personal defense.

What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor's voice came from far away, and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.

These kids spend a majority of their time in school, and if they’re not having a positive experience, they can become depressed. In some cases, they lash out, grabbing whatever weapon is available to them. It can be an assault rifle, a knife, a Molotov cocktail, poison, Indian burns or MMA. But if you take one weapon away, these kids are just going to grab the next thing available to them. Maybe they will use a gun with a smaller clip, limiting the amount of lives they can take. Or maybe they’ll get more creative, and think of something far more terrible. So taking a weapon away won’t really solve anything, and this is my point here.

Even after the horror of Newtown, Congress appeared determined to block any measure that could help keep guns out of the wrong hands, with legislators more interested in collecting campaign donations from the National Rifle Association than they were in protecting kids.

One. The Gun File. A detailed index of every kind of insane gun Americans can own and state-by-State regulations, which he has to comb through for research on a new set of federal assault rifle policies. It’s got a giant smudge of pizza sauce on it because it makes him stress eat.

I cannot make myself believe that God wanted me to hate. I'm tired of violence, I've seen too much of it. I've seen such hate on the faces of too many sheriffs in the South. And I'm not going to let my oppressor dictate to me what method I must use. Our oppressors have used violence. Our oppressors have used hatred. Our oppressors have used rifles and guns. I'm not going to stoop down to their level. I want to rise to a higher level. We have a power that can't be found in Molotov cocktails.

I had the whole road to myself, for no one was yet stirring, and I walked on, with a slouching, dogged gait. The gray shooting-jacket was on my back, and from the end of my brother’s rifle hung a small bundle of my clothes. My fingers worked moodily at the stock and trigger, and I thought that this indeed was the way to begin life, with a gun in your hand!

I grew up in Montana, where an old, unregistered rifle was worth a lot more than a new gun whose ownership could be traced. Not that the gun owners in Montana are planning on committing crimes with their unregistered guns—they just don’t like the federal government knowing their every move.

The Occidental snobbery which is invading us, the gunboats, rapid-fire guns, long-range rifles, explosives... what else? Everything which makes death collective, administrative and bureaucratic - all the filth of your progress, in fact - is destroying, little by little, our beautiful traditions of the past.

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons.

When Gonzalez and Canley were close enough to the machine gun they called for suppressing fire and then stood and hurled grenades. At the blast, they charged, firing their rifles on automatic, silencing the gun.

Some of the pilgrims behind the stretcher carried his arms—two shot-guns, a heavy rifle, and a light revolver-carbine—the thunderbolts of that pitiful Jupiter.

You go out into your world, and try and find the things that will be useful to you. Your weapons. Your tools. Your charms. You find a record, or a poem, or a picture of a girl that you pin to the wall and go, "Her. I'll try and be her. I'll try and be her - but here." You observe the way others walk, and talk, and you steal little bits of them - you collage yourself out of whatever you can get your hands on. You are like the robot Johnny 5 in Short Circuit, crying, "More input! More input for Johnny 5! as you rifle through books and watch films and sit in front of the television, trying to guess which of these things that you are watching - Alexis Carrington Colby walking down a marble staircase; Anne of Green Gables holding her shoddy suitcase; Cathy wailing on the moors; Courtney Love wailing in her petticoat; Dorothy Parker gunning people down; Grace Jones singing "Slave to the Rhythm" - you will need when you get out there. What will be useful. What will be, eventually, you? And you will be quite on your own when you do all this. There is no academy where you can learn to be yourself; there is no line manager slowly urging you toward the correct answer. You are midwife to yourself, and will give birth to yourself, over and over, in dark rooms, alone. And some versions of you will end in dismal failure - many prototypes won't even get out the front door, as you suddenly realize that no, you can't style-out an all-in-one gold bodysuit and a massive attitude problem in Wolverhampton. Others will achieve temporary success - hitting new land-speed records, and amazing all around you, and then suddenly, unexpectedly exploding, like the Bluebird on Coniston Water. But one day you'll find a version of you that will get you kissed, or befriended, or inspired, and you will make your notes accordingly, staying up all night to hone and improvise upon a tiny snatch of melody that worked. Until - slowly, slowly - you make a viable version of you, one you can hum every day. You'll find the tiny, right piece of grit you can pearl around, until nature kicks in, and your shell will just quietly fill with magic, even while you're busy doing other things. What your nature began, nature will take over, and start completing, until you stop having to think about who you'll be entirely - as you're too busy doing, now. And ten years will pass without you even noticing. And later, over a glass of wine - because you drink wine now, because you are grown - you will marvel over what you did. Marvel that, at the time, you kept so many secrets. Tried to keep the secret of yourself. Tried to metamorphose in the dark. The loud, drunken, fucking, eyeliner-smeared, laughing, cutting, panicking, unbearably present secret of yourself. When really you were about as secret as the moon. And as luminous, under all those clothes.

Twenty-one-year-old Chris Reed was gunned down with four bullets, including one that “exploded and took out a big chunk “of his left thigh. He listened in terror as troopers debated in front of him whether to kill him or let him bleed to death. As they discussed this the troopers had fun jamming their rifle butts into his injuries and dumping lime onto his face and injured legs, until he fell unconscious.

When has a civilian ever stopped a mass shooting with an AR-15? An AR-15 is a perfect weapon for mass murderers -- not so much for self-defense. Would you bring an AR-15 along on a date? To your place of work? To the movies? If not, how can owning an AR-15 save your life in the event of a mass shooting? Why does the NRA keep telling us we need semi-automatic rifles for self-defense? Whose side are they really on?

Victor stepped away from the spy hole of the door opposite and raised his gun. He fired, squeezing the trigger ten times in rapid succession, emptying the magazine of exactly half its ammunition. The hotel door was thick, solid pine, but the bullets in the FiveseveN were shaped like rifle rounds and cut through it with barely any loss in velocity. Two heavy objects hit the carpet, one thud after the other. The door creaked in front of him.

You cannot reason with a rifle bullet fired from across the battlefield. You cannot negotiate with an artillery shell lobbed from over the horizon. You cannot compromise with a nuclear warhead screaming in from half a world away. The only answer to the gun, the only defense for the gun, has been more guns.

Watching the lecture hall fill for a while longer, Rummings picked up the gun, rested the barrel on the parapet and waited expectantly. A senior mining executive walked up to a rostrum and began to talk to the waiting audience. Rummings took careful aim and squeezed the trigger. A large hole appeared in the curtain glazing surrounding the building and the executive staggered sideways. After pumping a few more bullets into the dying man’s body, Rummings abandoned the rifle, ran back to the exit door, paused long enough to strip off the coveralls and then raced down the stairs. Once in the corridor, he deliberately slowed himself down, calmly called a lift and went down to the ground floor again.

She thought she should take a moment to pray. But, as she was holding a loaded rifle, conventional prayer did not seem entirely suitable. Sister Peg hoped that God would help her, but it was her belief that He much preferred for people to attend to themselves. Life was a test; it was up to you to pass it or not. She raised the gun to her clavicle and angled one eye down the length of the barrel.

But guns are not the whole story. In Switzerland, every adult male is issued an assault rifle for militia duty and is allowed to keep the gun at home. On a per capita basis, Switzerland has more firearms than just about any other country, and yet it is one of the safest places in the world. In other words, guns do not cause crime.

His cellphone alarm beeped. Now. Who would he nail? A single target tonight. So, a single bullet in the gun. David put the crosshairs on one of the guys walking out of the Quick Trip. Tall man, longish hair, scruffy beard. The guy pulled keys from his pocket and the crosshairs settled on his face. What was next? David pulled the trigger. The back of the guy’s head exploded. A massive wound. The guy’s friend looked around. The pregnant woman screamed. The black guy ran. The girls hugged each other. David pulled the trunk lid back down. Clicked and locked. A gentle walkway wound around the mall. Sol slowly drove away. David’s breaths came fast, almost pants. He then took his black pants off and removed his soiled underwear. He reached in the plastic bag for the fresh pair. Changing in the trunk of a dark and hot and moving car was difficult. Just part of the job now. When he pulled the trigger, he orgasmed. Always did. David slowed his breathing. Taylor series for ex = 1 + x + X2 / 2! + X3 / 3! etc. Yes, that was better. He closed his eyes and let go of the rope and let the rifle roll to one side. That guy’s head exploded. They drove away, below the speed limit. Didn’t want to attract attention. No need to, in no hurry.

He was completely detached from every thing except the story he was writing and he was living in it as he built it. The difficult parts he had dreaded he now faced one after another and as he did the people, the country, the days and the nights, and the weather were all there as he wrote. He went on working and he felt as tired as if he had spent the night crossing the broken volcanic desert and the sun had caught him and the others with the dry gray lakes still ahead. He could feel the weight of the heavy double-barreled rifle carried over his shoulder, his hand on the muzzle, and he tasted the pebble in his mouth. Across the shimmer of the dry lakes he could see the distant blue of the escarpment. Ahead of him there was no one, and behind was the long line of porters who knew that they had reached this point three hours too late. It was not him, of course, who had stood there that morning, nor had he even worn the patched corduroy jacket faded almost white now, the armpits rotted through by sweat, that he took off then and handed to his Kamba servant and brother who shared with him the guilt and knowledge of the delay, watching him smell the sour, vinegary smell and shake his head in disgust and then grin as he swung the jacket over his black shoulder holding it by the sleeves as they started off across the dry-baked gray, the gun muzzles in their right hands, the barrels balanced on their shoulders, the heavy stocks pointing back toward the line of porters. It was not him, but as he wrote it was and when someone read it, finally, it would be whoever read it and what they found when they should reach the escarpment, if they reached it, and he would make them reach its base by noon of that day; then whoever read it would find what there was there and have it always.

Evan stares at me. I try to hug him. He takes a step back. I pause, my heart in my throat. I’ve got to reach out to him, let myself be vulnerable. I find the courage, but he backs up again. “You can’t go to Iraq anymore.” “I know.” He looks up at Deanna, then back to me. “Did you fight bad guys? You told me you weren’t.” His voice is suspicious, full of accusation. He doesn’t trust me, and I don’t blame him for that. “No, Evan. I didn’t fight bad guys.” I can’t bring myself to tell him the complete truth. I want so desperately to go back into this fight. I miss it every day. I always felt I could change the world with a rifle in my hands and our flag on my shoulder. “Did you get shot?” he looks me over, apparently searching for bullet wounds. I grin a little. “No, Bud, I didn’t get shot.” “People get shot in Iraq.” “Yes, they do.” It strikes me then that Evan for the first time has a grasp on the dangers that are faced over there. He’s six now, and the world is coming into focus for him. “People get shot, Daddy. They die. Bad guys kill them.” I think of Edward Iwan and Sean Sims. “Yeah, I know they do, Evan.

We bumped into other silent lines of kids going in the same direction. We looked like we were much younger and our lines were headed to the cafeteria or recess or the carpool line. Or it could’ve been a fire drill. Except for the stone-faced police officers weaving between us with rifles.

So close. He'd get there. Not today, but soon. He had a task to accomplish here, and the sooner he completed it, the sooner he could rejoin his regiment. He wasn't stopping for anything. Except sheep. Blast it. It would seem they were stopping for sheep. A rough voice said, "I'll take care of them." Thorne joined their group. Bram flicked his gaze to the side and spied his hulking mountain of a corporal shouldering a flintlock rifle. "We can't simply shoot them, Thorne." Obedient as ever, Thorne lowered his gun. "Then I've a cutlass. Just sharpened the blade last night." "We can't butcher them, either." Thorne shrugged. "I'm hungry." Yes, that was Thorne--straightforward, practical. Ruthless.

We Should Ban the AR-15 (or Insert Scary Gun of the Week Here)!” They say that because the AR-15 is the only rifle they can name. When I was younger, they would have said AK-47 or Uzi instead, because those got mentioned on the news more. If they were arguing to ban handguns, they would say Glock, because it’s the most common brand and they’ve heard its name on TV a lot. Same principle. An AR-15 is just one

Jyn had been at the Empire’s mercy before. Sometimes she’d even deserved her troubles—she couldn’t blame some petty dictator for ordering her dragged off the street and slammed into holding when she really, truly was planning to blow up his ship and steal his guns. She’d had rifles pointed at her, felt stun prods deliver jolts to her spine, and generally suffered the worst a stormtrooper was authorized to deal out. What

It was there in that green forest that we ran into the most frightening weapon of the war, the one that made us almost sick with fear: antipersonnel mines. By now I had gone through aerial bombing, artillery and mortar shelling, open combat, direct rifle and machine gun firing, night patrolling, and ambush. Against all of this we had some kind of chance; against mines we had none. They were vicious, deadly, inhuman. They churned our guts.

grew up with guns and I needed them. Most people don’t. All these high-capacity guns flashed by the nutcakes? They’re a disaster. If I had my way, there’d be no guns but single-shot hunting rifles and single-shot shotguns. You could do all the target shooting you want with those. You could hunt to your heart’s content. Of course, you’d actually have to learn how to hunt or how to hit a target, and most of those dimwits don’t want to be bothered.

I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hallowness, the futility of the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd --- seemingly the leading actor of the piece ; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the "natives", and so in every crises he has got to do what the "natives" expect of him.

During the day she notices mostly his arms in the short-sleeved army shirt and the rifle which is always with him, even though battles seem now to be over for them. He has various postures with the gun—half-staff, half a crook for his elbows when it is over his shoulders. He will turn, suddenly realizing she is watching him. He is a survivor of his fears, will step around anything suspicious, acknowledging her look in this panorama as if claiming he can deal with it all.

Our eyes are always pointing at things we are interested in approaching, or investigating, or looking for, or having. We must see, but to see, we must aim, so we are always aiming. Our minds are built on the hunting-and-gathering platforms of our bodies. To hunt is to specify a target, track it, and throw at it. To gather is to specify and to grasp. We fling stones, and spears, and boomerangs. We toss balls through hoops, and hit pucks into nets, and curl carved granite rocks down the ice onto horizontal bull’s-eyes. We launch projectiles at targets with bows, guns, rifles and rockets. We hurl insults, launch plans, and pitch ideas. We succeed when we score a goal or hit a target. We fail, or sin, when we do not (as the word sin means to miss the mark70). We cannot navigate, without something to aim at and, while we are in this world, we must always navigate.

She quickly realized she had an affinity for the older books and their muted scents of past dinners and foreign countries, the tea and chocolate stains coloring the phrases. You could never be certain what you would find in a book that has spent time with someone else. As she has rifled through the pages looking for defects, she had discovered an entrance ticket to Giverny, a receipt for thirteen bottles of champagne, a to-do list that included, along with groceries and dry cleaning, the simple reminder, 'buy a gun.' Bits of life tucked like stowaways in between the chapters. Sometimes she couldn't decide which story she was most drawn to.

According to the L.A. news, the explosion at the Santa Monica beach had been caused when a crazy kidnapper fired a shotgun at a police car. He accidentally hit a gas main that had ruptured during the earthquake. This crazy kidnapper (a.k.a. Ares) was the same man who had abducted me and two other adolescents in New York and brought us across country on a ten-day odyssey of terror. Poor little Percy Jackson wasn’t an international criminal after all. He’d caused a commotion on that Greyhound bus in New Jersey trying to get away from his captor (and afterward, witnesses would even swear they had seen the leather-clad man on the bus—“Why didn’t I remember him before?”). The crazy man had caused the explosion in the St. Louis Arch. After all, no kid could’ve done that. A concerned waitress in Denver had seen the man threatening his abductees outside her diner, gotten a friend to take a photo, and notified the police. Finally, brave Percy Jackson (I was beginning to like this kid) had stolen a gun from his captor in Los Angeles and battled him shotgun-to-rifle on the beach. Police had arrived just in time. But in the spectacular explosion, five police cars had been destroyed and the captor had fled. No fatalities had occurred. Percy Jackson and his two friends were safely in police custody.

Kolya rose to a crouch and crept to the front door, keeping his head below the window line. I followed. We kneeled with our backs against the door. Kolya checked his pistol one last time. I pulled the German knife from my ankle sheath. I knew I looked silly holding it, the way a young boy looks holding his father’s shaving razor. Kolya grinned at me as though he was about to start laughing. This is all very strange, I thought. I am in the middle of a battle and I am aware of my own thoughts, I am worried about how stupid I look with a knife in my hand while everyone else came to fight with rifles and machine guns. I am aware that I am aware. Even now, with bullets buzzing through the air like angry hornets, I cannot escape the chatter of my brain.

Still, the Pakistanis beat the CIA’s systems. In Quetta in 1983, ISI officers were caught colluding with Afghan rebels to profit by selling off CIA-supplied weapons. In another instance, the Pakistan army quietly sold the CIA its own surplus .303 rifles and about 30 million bullets. A ship registered in Singapore picked up about 100,000 guns in Karachi, steamed out to sea, turned around, came back to port, and off-loaded the guns, pretending they had come from abroad.

As a matter of fact, states everywhere are highly intent on outlawing or at least controlling even the mere possession of arms by private citizens—and most states have indeed succeeded in this task—as an armed man is clearly more of a threat to any aggressor than an unarmed man. It bears much less risk for the state to keep things peaceful while its own aggression continues, if rifles with which the taxman could be shot are out of the reach of everyone except the taxman himself!

One day about a month ago, I really hit bottom. You know, I just felt that in a Godless universe, I didn't want to go on living. Now I happen to own this rifle, which I loaded, believe it or not, and pressed it to my forehead. And I remember thinking, at the time, I'm gonna kill myself. Then I thought, what if I'm wrong? What if there is a God? I mean, after all, nobody really knows that. But then I thought, no, you know, maybe is not good enough. I want certainty or nothing. And I remember very clearly, the clock was ticking, and I was sitting there frozen with the gun to my head, debating whether to shoot. [The gun fires accidentally, shattering a mirror] All of a sudden, the gun went off. I had been so tense my finger had squeezed the trigger inadvertently. But I was perspiring so much the gun had slid off my forehead and missed me. And suddenly neighbors were, were pounding on the door, and, and I don't know, the whole scene was just pandemonium. And, uh, you know, I-I-I ran to the door, I-I didn't know what to say. You know, I was-I was embarrassed and confused and my-my-my mind was r-r-racing a mile a minute. And I-I just knew one thing. I-I-I had to get out of that house, I had to just get out in the fresh air and-and clear my head. And I remember very clearly, I walked the streets. I walked and I walked. I-I didn't know what was going through my mind. It all seemed so violent and un-unreal to me. And I wandered for a long time on the Upper West Side, you know, and-and it must have been hours. You know, my-my feet hurt, my head was-was pounding, and-and I had to sit down. I went into a movie house. I-I didn't know what was playing or anything. I just, I just needed a moment to gather my thoughts and, and be logical and put the world back into rational perspective. And I went upstairs to the balcony, and I sat down, and, you know, the movie was a-a-a film that I'd seen many times in my life since I was a kid, and-and I always, uh, loved it. And, you know, I'm-I'm watching these people up on the screen and I started getting hooked on the film, you know. And I started to feel, how can you even think of killing yourself. I mean isn't it so stupid? I mean, l-look at all the people up there on the screen. You know, they're real funny, and-and what if the worst is true. What if there's no God, and you only go around once and that's it. Well, you know, don't you want to be part of the experience? You know, what the hell, it's-it's not all a drag. And I'm thinkin' to myself, geez, I should stop ruining my life - searching for answers I'm never gonna get, and just enjoy it while it lasts. And, you know, after, who knows? I mean, you know, maybe there is something. Nobody really knows. I know, I know maybe is a very slim reed to hang your whole life on, but that's the best we have. And then, I started to sit back, and I actually began to enjoy myself.

A strange, sweet sound pierced the air. "Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng, lendten isen en de waaaanden." Fjerdan words Jesper didn't understand crested over the courtyard in a shimmering, perfect tenor that seemed to catch upon the black stone battlements. Wylan. The guards whirled, rifles pointed at the walkway that led to the courtyard, seeking the source of the sound. "Olander?" one called. "Nilson?" said another. Their guns were raised, but their voices were more bemused and curious than aggressive. What the hell is he doing? A silhouette appeared in the walkway arch, lurching left and right. "Skerden Fjerda, kende hjertzeeeeeng," Wylan sang, doing a surprisingly convincing impression of a drunk but very talented Fjerdan. The guards burst out laughing, joining in on the song. "Lendten isen . . .

It's wrong because if you pick up a rifle, the Man picks up a machine gun, by the time you find some machine gun he's all set up to shoot rockets, begin to see a pattern?

No one would believe that in this howling waste there could still be men; but steel helmets now appear on all sides out of the trench, and fifty yards from us a machine-gun is already in position and barking. The wire entanglements are torn to pieces. Yet they offer some obstacle. We see the storm-troops coming. Our artillery opens fire. Machine-guns rattle, rifles crack.

David Abrams’s Fobbit, Giorgio Agamben’s The Open, Omnia Amin and Rick London’s translations of Ahmed Abdel Muti Hijazi’s poetry, Peter Van Buren’s We Meant Well, Donovan Campbell’s Joker One, C. J. Chivers’s The Gun, Seth Connor’s Boredom by Day, Death by Night, Daniel Danelo’s Blood Stripes, Kimberly Dozier’s Breathing the Fire, Nathan Englander’s What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank, Siobhan Fallon’s You Know When the Men Are Gone, Nathaniel Fick’s One Bullet Away, Dexter Filkins’s The Forever War, David Finkel’s The Good Soldiers, Jim Frederick’s Black Hearts, Matt Gallagher’s Kaboom, Jessica Goodell’s Shade It Black, J. Glenn Gray’s The Warriors, Dave Grossman’s On Killing and On Combat, Judith Herman’s Trauma and Recovery, Kirsten Holmstedt’s Band of Sisters, Karl Marlantes’s Matterhorn, Colum McCann’s Dancer, Patrick McGrath’s Trauma, Jonathan Shay’s Odysseus in America and Achilles in Vietnam, Roy Scranton’s essays and fiction, the Special Inspector for Iraq Reconstruction Report Hard Lessons, Bing West’s The Strongest Tribe and No True Glory, Kayla Williams’s Love My Rifle More Than You.

Twelve years ago, when I was 10, I played at being a soldier. I walked up the brook behind our house in Bronxville to a junglelike, overgrown field and dug trenches down to water level with my friends. Then, pretending that we were doughboys in France, we assaulted one another with clods of clay and long, dry reeds. We went to the village hall and studied the rust rifles and machine guns that the Legion post had brought home from the First World War and imagined ourselves using them to fight Germans. But we never seriously thought that we would ever have to do it. The stories we heard later; the Depression veterans with their apple stands on sleety New York street corners; the horrible photographs of dead bodies and mutilated survivors; “Johnny Got His Gun” and the shrill college cries of the Veterans of Future Wars drove the small-boy craving for war so far from our minds that when it finally happened, it seemed absolutely unbelievable. If someone had told a small boy hurling mud balls that he would be throwing hand grenades twelve years later, he would probably have been laughed at. I have always been glad that I could not look into the future.

My grandmother, perhaps the biggest Elvis fan on earth, loved going to Memphis and visiting Graceland with her sister, daughter, and nieces. She had photo albums full of their trips; they’d go and she would take photos of the exact same things trip after trip. It was her mecca. She had a photo of Elvis’s headstone in various seasons, and you could watch her daughter and nieces grow up in a series of photos in front the mansion’s driveway gate. It was routine. I’ve come to regard Dianne Feinstein’s “assault weapons” press conferences in the same way. Every few years or so, Senator Feinstein calls a press conference, the D.C. version of theater, and plays Vanna White with guns strapped to whiteboards. You can watch her age through the years at these pressers via Google Images. She begins with a youthful plump to her cheeks, standing tall, holding up a rifle to her chest and as the years go by she takes on the posture of a cocktail shrimp and simply motions to the boards. I give her credit for her dedication to never learning a single thing about the firearms she proposes to ban. It takes devotion to remain ignorant about a topic when you spend decades discussing it.

Sittin’ in a café in dark glasses sippin’ coffee dunkin’ doughnuts while it’s sunny thinking guns guns guns and I’ve got pockets full of bullets and a suitcase full of money and a fuckin’ awful headache and a police rifle that fires dummies and I’m listening to Barney because she really wants to tell me all the fifty million reasons why she’s feelin’ fuckin’ funny and she wants to kill her mummy and she wants me to kill her daddy but there really is no logic to the way we’re spending Sunday because we don’t know where we’re going and we’ve been drinking since last Monday and Booga’s sharpening sticks and he’s looking like a monkey and I’m waiting for my tank and I know it will look chumly because Dobson is my man and he’s part of my fuckin’ family and when I see him next I’m gonna buy him half a shandy.

Let us have it plain: my society is comprised of metal-worshipers. They pray to metal, are owned by metal, and metal uses them; it shoots them, it stabs them. I witness its sycophants, grave zombies, moved about humorlessly as its agents. My minions are spiritually rapt as the ages climaxes in gunpowder. One notes that, upon first being handed a rifle -- by Burton or Speke? -- a chieftain blithely shot one of his own lackeys, expressing radiant joy as the man tumbled dead. Do not stop there, happy Klansman, but watch with me early in the morning as I come in from work: across the street here in the clean "burbs" your white policeman goes reverently to his car with a deer rifle coddled in his right arm like a precocious, beautiful child. This man lives with a pistol on his hip all week, but that is not enough, no, he is devout and it is the Christmas season. His own cowardice, affirmed by the use of guns, would not occur to him any more than the cowardice of God. The gun lobby, oh my peaceful friends, you may hate, but first you had better understand that it is a religion, only secondarily connected to the Bill of Rights. The thick-headed, sometimes even close to tearful, gaze you get when chatting with one of its partisans emanates from the view that they're holding a piece of God. There is no persuading them otherwise, even by a genus, because a life without guns implies the end of the known world to them. Any connection they make to our " pioneer past" is also a fraud, a wistful apology. Folks love a gun for what it can do. A murderer always thinks it was an accident, he says, as if a religious episode had passed over him.

At that distance, peacefully eating, the elephant looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then and I think now that his attack of “must” was already passing off; in which case he would merely wander harmlessly about until the mahout came back and caught him. Moreover, I did not in the least want to shoot him. I decided that I would watch him for a little while to make sure that he did not turn savage again, and then go home. But at that moment I glanced round at the crowd that had followed me. It was an immense crowd, two thousand at the least and growing every minute. It blocked the road for a long distance on either side. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the garish clothes-faces all happy and excited over this bit of fun, all certain that the elephant was going to be shot. They were watching me as they would watch a conjurer about to perform a trick. They did not like me, but with the magical rifle in my hands I was momentarily worth watching. And suddenly I realized that I should have to shoot the elephant after all. The people expected it of me and I had got to do it; I could feel their two thousand wills pressing me forward, irresistibly. And it was at this moment, as I stood there with the rifle in my hands, that I first grasped the hollowness, the futility of the white man’s dominion in the East. Here was I, the white man with his gun, standing in front of the unarmed native crowd — seemingly the leading actor of the piece; but in reality I was only an absurd puppet pushed to and fro by the will of those yellow faces behind. I perceived in this moment that when the white man turns tyrant it is his own freedom that he destroys. He becomes a sort of hollow, posing dummy, the conventionalized figure of a sahib. For it is the condition of his rule that he shall spend his life in trying to impress the “natives,” and so in every crisis he has got to do what the “natives” expect of him. He wears a mask, and his face grows to fit it. I had got to shoot the elephant. I had committed myself to doing it when I sent for the rifle. A sahib has got to act like a sahib; he has got to appear resolute, to know his own mind and do definite things. To come all that way, rifle in hand, with two thousand people marching at my heels, and then to trail feebly away, having done nothing — no, that was impossible. The crowd would laugh at me. And my whole life, every white man’s life in the East, was one long struggle not to be laughed at.

When the NSSF fights against legislation designed to prevent mass shootings because it “won’t work and is a violation of rights,” we understand that many people agree with that argument. But that’s not, at all, even a little bit why the organization lobbies so hard. It works hand in hand with the NRA and certain senators, and spends millions of dollars per year for one reason and one reason only: to make more money. And every time a shooting happens, it makes even more money. Yes. For real. When a mass shooting makes national headlines, the gun lobby purposefully stokes up fear and paranoia over proposed new gun laws so that scared citizens get out their checkbooks and buy a new AR-15 (or sporting rifle). So why would the NSSF have any interest in stopping mass shootings? Why would it engage politically and invest in compromise, a reform plan that attempts to make all Americans safer, or any sort of reckoning of the role guns play in gun violence? It won’t. However you feel about guns and their place in America—whether we’re talking about rifles for hunting or assault rifles, or anything in between—it’s undeniable that the gun lobby has refused to acknowledge or entertain any sort of regulation or reform aimed at making us a safer and saner nation. The reason why: because that does not make it more money. A customer base kept terrified at all times that this will be “the last chance before the government bans” whatever gun manufacturers are peddling is much more valuable. A customer base absolutely convinced that the just-about-anyone-can-buy culture we have is politically necessary without seeing that it serves those companies is what they’re after. They have achieved it.

The first school shooting that attracted the attention of a horrified nation occurred on March 24, 1998, in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Two boys opened fire on a schoolyard full of girls, killing four and one female teacher. In the wake of what came to be called the Jonesboro massacre, violence experts in media and academia sought to explain what others called “inexplicable.” For example, in a front-page Boston Globe story three days after the tragedy, David Kennedy from Harvard University was quoted as saying that these were “peculiar, horrible acts that can’t easily be explained.” Perhaps not. But there is a framework of explanation that goes much further than most of those routinely offered. It does not involve some incomprehensible, mysterious force. It is so straightforward that some might (incorrectly) dismiss it as unworthy of mention. Even after a string of school shootings by (mostly white) boys over the past decade, few Americans seem willing to face the fact that interpersonal violence—whether the victims are female or male—is a deeply gendered phenomenon. Obviously both sexes are victimized. But one sex is the perpetrator in the overwhelming majority of cases. So while the mainstream media provided us with tortured explanations for the Jonesboro tragedy that ranged from supernatural “evil” to the presence of guns in the southern tradition, arguably the most important story was overlooked. The Jonesboro massacre was in fact a gender crime. The shooters were boys, the victims girls. With the exception of a handful of op-ed pieces and a smattering of quotes from feminist academics in mainstream publications, most of the coverage of Jonesboro omitted in-depth discussion of one of the crucial facts of the tragedy. The older of the two boys reportedly acknowledged that the killings were an act of revenge he had dreamed up after having been rejected by a girl. This is the prototypical reason why adult men murder their wives. If a woman is going to be murdered by her male partner, the time she is most vulnerable is after she leaves him. Why wasn’t all of this widely discussed on television and in print in the days and weeks after the horrific shooting? The gender crime aspect of the Jonesboro tragedy was discussed in feminist publications and on the Internet, but was largely absent from mainstream media conversation. If it had been part of the discussion, average Americans might have been forced to acknowledge what people in the battered women’s movement have known for years—that our high rates of domestic and sexual violence are caused not by something in the water (or the gene pool), but by some of the contradictory and dysfunctional ways our culture defines “manhood.” For decades, battered women’s advocates and people who work with men who batter have warned us about the alarming number of boys who continue to use controlling and abusive behaviors in their relations with girls and women. Jonesboro was not so much a radical deviation from the norm—although the shooters were very young—as it was melodramatic evidence of the depth of the problem. It was not something about being kids in today’s society that caused a couple of young teenagers to put on camouflage outfits, go into the woods with loaded .22 rifles, pull a fire alarm, and then open fire on a crowd of helpless girls (and a few boys) who came running out into the playground. This was an act of premeditated mass murder. Kids didn’t do it. Boys did.

We moved forward towards and then across a manioc field in the direction of a palm plantation. Then keeping among the palms to avoid observation by any lurking VC sharp shooters we pressed on as ordered to a point at the edge of the plantation and just short of a tobacco field. There we immediately took incoming rifle and machine gun rounds that missed and whizzed off through the palm trees. There was a muddy ditch at the edge of the plantation but we could not use it for cover due to its knee deep muddy ooze, so we moved on. Charlie caught us on the move with a fusillade of rounds that wounded two men, and while scrambling to take what little cover available an RPG round came, missed the forward guys only to exploded among those behind with the blood spatter soaking everyone. It was a dreadful sight for sure. Sergeant Walker, author of Southlands Snuffys.

A man is thrown down on his back and three or four men sit on his arms and legs and hold him down and either a gun barrel or a rifle barrel or a carbine barrel or a stick as big as a belaying pin … is simply thrust into his jaws … and then water is poured onto his face, down his throat and nose … until the man gives some sign of giving in or becomes unconscious.… His suffering must be that of a man who is drowning, but who cannot drown.

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.

IT BEGAN WITH A GUN. On September 1, 1939, the German army invaded Poland. Two days later, Britain and France declared war on Germany. In the October 1939 issue of Detective Comics, Batman killed a vampire by shooting silver bullets into his heart. In the next issue, Batman fired a gun at two evil henchmen. When Whitney Ellsworth, DC’s editorial director, got a first look at a draft of the next installment, Batman was shooting again. Ellsworth shook his head and said, Take the gun out.1 Batman had debuted in Detective Com-ics in May 1939, the same month that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in United States v. Miller, a landmark gun-control case. It concerned the constitutionality of the 1934 National Firearms Act and the 1938 Federal Firearms Act, which effectively banned machine guns through prohibitive taxation, and regulated handgun ownership by introducing licensing, waiting period, and permit requirements. The National Rifle Association supported the legislation (at the time, the NRA was a sportsman’s organization). But gun manufacturers challenged it on the grounds that federal control of gun ownership violated the Second Amendment. FDR’s solicitor general said the Second Amendment had nothing to do with an individual right to own a gun; it had to do with the common defense. The court agreed, unanimously.2

You. Man at the machine and man in the workshop. If tomorrow they tell you you are to make no more water-pipes and saucepans but are to make steel helmets and machine-guns, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Woman at the counter and woman in the office. If tomorrow they tell you you are to fill shells and assemble telescopic sights for snipers' rifles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Research worker in the laboratory. If tomorrow they tell you you are to invent a new death for the old life, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Priest in the pulpit. If tomorrow they tell you you are to bless murder and declare war holy, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Pilot in your aeroplane. If tomorrow they tell you you are to carry bombs over the cities, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Man of the village and man of the town. If tomorrow they come and give you your call-up papers, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! You. Mother in Normandy and mother in the Ukraine, mother in Vancouver and in London, you on the Hwangho and on the Mississippi, you in Naples and Hamburg and Cairo and Oslo - mothers in all parts of the earth, mothers of the world, if tomorrow they tell you you are to bear new soldiers for new battles, then there's only one thing to do: Say NO! For if you do not say NO - if YOU do not say no - mothers, then: then! In the bustling hazy harbour towns the big ships will fall silent as corpses against the dead deserted quay walls, their once shimmering bodies overgrown with seaweed and barnacles, smelling of graveyards and rotten fish. The trams will lie like senseless glass-eyed cages beside the twisted steel skeleton of wires and track. The sunny juicy vine will rot on decaying hillsides, rice will dry in the withered earth, potatoes will freeze in the unploughed land and cows will stick their death-still legs into the air like overturned chairs. In the fields beside rusted ploughs the corn will be flattened like a beaten army. Then the last human creature, with mangled entrails and infected lungs, will wander around, unanswered and lonely, under the poisonous glowing sun, among the immense mass graves and devastated cities. The last human creature, withered, mad, cursing, accusing - and the terrible accusation: WHY? will die unheard on the plains, drift through the ruins, seep into the rubble of churches, fall into pools of blood, unheard, unanswered, the last animal scream of the last human animal - All this will happen tomorrow, tomorrow, perhaps, perhaps even tonight, perhaps tonight, if - if - You do not say NO.

...Not yet dry behind the ears, not old enough to buy a beer, but old enough to die for his country. He can recite to you the nomenclature of a machine gun or grenade launcher and use either one effectively if he must. He digs foxholes and latrines and can apply first aid like a professional. He can march until he is told to stop, or stop until he is told to march. He obeys orders instantly and without hesitation, but he is not without spirit or individual dignity. He is self-sufficient. ...He sometimes forgets to brush his teeth, but never to clean his rifle. He can cook his own meals, mend his own clothes, and fix his own hurts. If you're thirsty, he'll share his water with you; if you are hungry, food. He'll even split his ammunition with you in the midst of battle when you run low. He has learned to use his hands like weapons and weapons like they were his hands. He can save your life-or take it, because that is his job. He will often do twice the work of a civilian, draw half the pay, and still find ironic humor in it all. He has seen more suffering and death than he should have in his short lifetime. He has wept in public and in private, for friends who have fallen in combat and is unashamed. He feels every note of the National Anthem vibrate through his body while at rigid attention, while tempering the burning desire to "square-away" those around him who haven't bothered to stand, remove their hat, or even stop talking. ...Just as did his father, grandfather, and great-grandfather, he is paying the price for our freedom. Beardless or not, he is not a boy. He is the American Fighting Man that has kept this country free for over two hundred years. He has asked nothing in return, except our friendship and understanding. Remember him, always, for he has earned our respect and admiration with his blood. And now we have women over there in danger, doing their part in this tradition of going to war when our nation calls us to do so. As you go to bed tonight, remember this. A short lull, a little shade, and a picture of loved ones in their helmets.

And out in the rural, when Mrs. Laura McGhee--who if she thought it necessary, sat on the porch with her Winchester rifle--permitted movement workers to use her farm outside Greenwood for a rally, the sheriff came to warn her against holding it. She told him that *he* was on *her* property, that *he* was trespassing and hadn't ever offered any protection from the terrorists who kept threatening to shoot up her farms, and that he therefore had nothing to offer her now and had better leave, get off her land. And the sheriff left.

If you can feel it on your face, it’s about three to five. Leaves in constant motion, six to eight or so. Small tree branches in constant motion, about ten. Large branches in constant motion, twelve to fifteen. Dorothy and Toto hurtling past thirty feet off the ground, time to go home.

With Herr Hitler’s consent, he just passed a new ordinance,” the man said. “It’s a law called the Regulations against Jews’ Possession of Weapons. Effective immediately, no Jew in Germany has the right to own, possess, or carry a gun. All weapons and ammunition in the possession of Jews must be turned over forthwith. Any Jews caught with a handgun or rifle will be imprisoned and fined.” “And?” Dr. Weisz asked. “I’m no sportsman. Are you?” “No, I’m not,” the man from Dresden said. “But don’t you see? These attacks on our communities are just the beginning. Now Hitler is disarming us, and when we are completely defenseless, he will come for us, for all of us. Mark my words.

Mist and the smoke of guns lie breast-high over the fields. The moon is shining. Along the road troops file. Their helmets gleam softly in the moonlight. The heads and the rifles stand out above the white mist, nodding heads, rocking barrels. Farther on the mist ends. Here the heads become figures; coats, trousers, and boots appear out of the mist as from a milky pool. They become a column. The column marches on, straight ahead, the figures resolve themselves into a block, individuals are no longer recognizable, the dark wedge presses onward, fantastically topped by the heads and the weapons floating on the milky pool. A column—not men at all. Guns and munition wagons are moving along a cross-road. The backs of the horses shine in the moonlight, their movements are beautiful, they toss their heads, and their eyes gleam. The guns and the wagons float past the dim background of the moonlit landscape, the riders in their steel helmets resemble knights of a forgotten time; it is strangely beautiful and arresting.

If a boy fires off a gun, whether at a fox, a landlord or a reigning sovereign, he will be rebuked according to the relative value of these objects. But if he fires off a gun for the first time it is very likely that he will not expect the recoil, or know what a heavy knock it can give him. He may go blazing away through life at these and similar objects in the landscape; but he will be less and less surprised by the recoil; that is, by the reaction. He may even dissuade his little sister of six from firing off one of the heavy rifles designed for the destruction of elephants; and will thus have the appearance of being himself a reactionary. Very much the same principle applies to firing off the big guns of revolution. It is not a man's ideals that change; it is not his Utopia that is altered; the cynic who says, "You will forget all that moonshine of idealism when you are older," says the exact opposite of the truth. The doubts that come with age are not about the ideal, but about the real. And one of the things that are undoubtedly real is reaction: that is, the practical probability of some reversal of direction, and of our partially succeeding in doing the opposite of what we mean to do. What experience does teach us is this: that there is something in the make-up and mechanism of mankind, whereby the result of action upon it is often unexpected, and almost always more complicated than we expect.

The cloak coupled with a black leather vest made me suitably menacing. All that was missing was a giant neon sign with rotating sparklers proclaiming HARD CASE. LINE TO GET YOUR ASS KICKED FORMS TO THE RIGHT. A wide smile stretched Raphael’s lips. “If you laugh, I’ll kill you,” I told him. “Why the rifle? Everybody knows you can’t shoot.” Who were these everybodies and would they like to stand in front of me, preferably within ten feet, so I could discuss this issue in greater detail? “I can shoot just fine.” I just missed eighty percent of the time. With the gun anyway. I did better with a crossbow and even better with the knife. “Do you know the runes on your sword are nonsense?” “Yes, but they look mysterious.

I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!

screen T.V. A comfortable and well-stocked family room, including a wet bar with a locked liquor cabinet and a closet with door standing open, shelves packed with tennis rackets and snowshoes and ice skates. All the accoutrements of a well-off, athletic family in a room now tainted with the overwhelming presence of death. The father was slumped in a club chair in front of the television with a rifle at his feet and a bloody cavern where his head had been. Blood and brains sprayed the carpet beneath him. At first glimpse just about anyone would see it as a suicide. “Basement is concrete block,” Epps said. “Family probably never heard the shot.” “The gun his?” Roarke asked, and heard the edge in his voice. “From the cabinet upstairs. Guy is a sportsman,” Aceves answered.

He unlocked the safe and pulled out three guns and several magazines, as well as his FIB badge, an extra harness, and an extra pair of knives. Some of these disappeared to various concealed locations under his clothes and the rest went in his duffel bag. I blinked at the haul. “Are you planning to go to war? Sure you don’t want to pack an assault rifle as well?” He looked up from the bag. “You have met yourself, right?” He zipped the bag closed. “So should I get a gun too?” “I’d fear the day.” He grabbed a blazer and pulled it over his shoulder rig. “You do have a good blade,” he said, nodding toward the dagger concealed in my boot. “It was a gift.” “I never doubted as much. If you’re going to carry a dagger, you need to learn to use it.” I frowned at him. “I know how to use it. I stick the pointy end in things I don’t like.

This is the Sandman,’ Francisco said. ‘Its non-lethal mode is derived from the same technology as the Sleeper guns that you’re already familiar with, but with far greater range and accuracy.’ He pressed a button just above the rifle’s trigger guard and a glowing, blue holographic sight appeared in the air above the weapon. ‘This targeting array will identify and track multiple targets through heat signature, electromagnetic emissions or movement. It’s also capable of up to twelve times’ magnification for long-range sniping. If it should prove necessary the weapon can also be switched to lethal mode which fires magnetically accelerated microslugs, which have the stopping power of a bullet but are much lower in mass, giving it greatly increased ammo capacity. Each clip holds two hundred and fifty rounds, allowing for sustained rapid fire if necessary. The Sandman fires almost silently, with no muzzle flash and without the need for a suppressor, making it an ideal stealth weapon. It also has a full thermoptic camouflage coating tied into the system on board your ISIS armour. You have ten minutes to fire the weapon on the range in order to better familiarise yourself with it. Any questions?’ ‘Are they going to be in the shops in time for Christmas?’ Shelby asked.

The established German Army no longer had the physical power to overcome the uniformed private armies of Left and Right. This weakness was not due to a lack of rifles, machine guns, or artillery, or even to a lack of men, but to a shortage of trucks. The vital role of the truck had already been recognized by some military experts. In England Captain B. H. Liddell Hart greeted the six-wheel truck as a landmark in military evolution.

I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as school-boys do to bullies,—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way!

At the edge of Saint-Michel is the Wildwood. The wolves who live there come out at night. They prowl fields and farms, hungry for hens and tender young lambs. But there is another sort of wolf, one that's far more treacherous. This is the wolf the old ones speak of. "Run if you see him," they tell their granddaughters. "His tongue is silver, but his teeth are sharp. If he gets hold of you, he'll eat you alive." Most of the village girls do what they're told, but occasionally one does not. She stands her ground, looks the wolf in the eye, and falls in love with him. People see her run to the woods at night. They see her the next morning with leaves in her hair and blood on her lips. This is not proper, they say. A girl should not love a wolf. So they decide to intervene. They come after the wolf with guns and swords. They hunt him down in the Wildwood. But the girl is with him and sees them coming. The people raise their rifles and take aim. The girl opens her mouth to scream, and as she does, the wolf jumps inside it. Quickly the girl swallows him whole, teeth and claws and fur. He curls up under her heart. The villagers lower their weapons and go home. The girl heaves a sigh of relief. She believes this arrangement will work. She thinks she can be satisfied with memories of the wolf’s golden eyes. She thinks the wolf will be happy with a warm place to sleep. But the girl soon realized she’s made a terrible mistake, for the wolf is a wild thing and wild things cannot be caged. He wants to get out, but the girl is all darkness inside and he cannot find his way. So he howls in her blood. He tears at her heart. The howling and gnawing –it drives the girl mad. She tries to cut him out, slicing lines in her flesh with a razor. She tries to burn him out, holding a candle flame to her skin. She tries to starve him out, refusing to eat until she’s nothing but skin over bones. Before long, the grave takes them both. A wolf lives in Isabelle. She tries hard to keep him down, but his hunger grows. He cracks her spine and devours her heart. Run home. Slam the door. Throw the bolt. It won’t help. The wolves in the woods have sharp teeth and long claws, but it’s the wolf inside who will tear you apart.

What do you remember about the Soviets?” “Lots of things.” I said, “Above all they were realistic, especially about human nature, and the quality of their own personnel. They had a very big army, which meant their average grunt was lazy, incompetent, and not blessed with any kind of discernible talent. They understood that, and they knew there wasn’t a whole lot they could do about it. So instead of trying to train their people upward toward the standard of available modern weaponry, they designed their available modern weaponry downward toward the standard of their people. Which was a truly radical approach.” “OK.” “Hence the AK-47. For instance, one example, what does a panicky grunt do under fire? He grabs his rifle and hits the fire selector and pulls the trigger. Our guns go from safe to single shot to full auto, which is nice and linear and logical, but they knew that would mean ninety-nine times in a hundred their guys would panic and ram the selector all the way home, and thereby fire off a whole magazine on the first hasty and unaimed shot. Which would leave them with an empty weapon right at the start of a firefight. Which is not helpful. So the AK selector goes safe, then full auto, then single shot. Not linear, not logical, but certainly practical. Single shot is a kind of default setting, and full auto is a deliberate choice.

When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn’t teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn’t interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.” That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. “Your father’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.

Then he happened to glance at the viscount, and his blood stilled. The viscount’s eyes followed Celia’s every move, and his finger kept stroking his goblet as if he wanted to stroke some part of her. Jackson gritted his teeth. No way in hell was he letting that bloody foreigner-or Devonmont, or even the duke-stroke anything of hers. “Are we going to stand around all day discussing which guns are more effective at killing,” he snapped, “or are we actually going to kill something?” Gabe exchanged a glance with his sister. “You’re right. ‘Prickly’ is the word.” “Mr. Pinter is probably just eager to earn his kiss,” Stoneville put in. “And given how the numbers stand right now, he may very well do so.” They all pivoted to look at his lordship. Stoneville chuckled. “Devonmont has killed a pathetic eight brace of birds, Gabe a respectable fifteen, Basto an impressive seventeen and a half, Lyons an even more impressive nineteen, and Pinter an astonishing twenty brace. My sister is tied with him at twenty brace.” “Good show, Pinter!” Gabe said amiably. “You must beat her so none of us have to pay for a blasted rifle.” “Here now, Gabe,” the duke cut in irritably, “I have as much chance of beating her as Pinter does. I’m only behind by one brace.” “I don’t’ care who beats her,” Gabe said. “Just make sure one of you does, in case I can’t catch up. She’ll pick the most expensive gun in Manton’s shop.” “You’re such a pinchpenny, Gabe,” Celia teased as they tramped back over the field, headed toward the east end of the estate. “That’s because need every guinea I have, in case you don’t marry.” The lord might have meant the comment as a joke, but clearly Celia didn’t take it that way. When the blood drained from her face, Jackson felt a stab of sympathy. He could understand why she wanted to show her family that she could find a decent husband. But decent was the operative word. “Oh, I daresay Lady Celia will be married sooner than you think,” the duke remarked. When he slid a knowing glance at Celia and she smiled faintly, Jackson felt his heart drop. The duke seriously had his eye on her. And apparently she knew it. Confound it all. As they stopped, Jackson began loading his gun with quick, efficient movements. That blasted duke could look all he wanted, but he was not marrying Celia. Nor even getting another chance to kiss her. Not if Jackson had anything to say about it.

Like most other `Christians', he believed in taking thought for the morrow, what he should eat and drink and wherewithal he was to be clothed. He thought it wise to layup for himself as much treasure upon earth as possible. The fact that Jesus said that His disciples were not to do these things made no more difference to Slyme's conduct than it does to the conduct of any other `Christian'. They are all agreed that when Jesus said this He meant something else: and all the other inconvenient things that Jesus said are disposed of in the same way. For instance, these `disciples' assure us that when Jesus said, `Resist not evil', `If a man smite thee upon he right cheek turn unto him also the left', He really meant 'Turn on to him a Maxim gun; disembowel him with a bayonet or batter in his skull with the butt end of a rifle!' When He said, `If one take thy coat, give him thy cloak also,' the `Christians' say that what He really meant was: `If one take thy coat, give him six months' hard labour. A few of the followers of Jesus admit that He really did mean just what He said, but they say that the world would never be able to go on if they followed out His teachings! That is true. It is probably the effect that Jesus intended His teachings to produce. It is altogether improbable that He wished the world to continue along its present lines. But, if these pretended followers really think - as they say that they do - that the teachings of Jesus are ridiculous and impracticable, why continue the hypocritical farce of calling themselves `Christians' when they don't really believe in or follow Him at all?

tortured, unashamedly reproachful. They seemed to burn right through me. I peered at the picture more closely – at the incongruous item strapped to Gabriel’s torso. A rifle. ‘That’s the gun that killed him?’ Jean-Felix nodded. ‘Yes. It belonged to him, I think.’ ‘And this was painted before his murder?’ ‘A month or so before. It shows you what was on Alicia’s mind, doesn’t it?’ Jean-Felix moved on to the third picture. It was a larger canvas than the others. ‘This one’s the best. Stand back to get a better look.’ I did as he said and took a few paces back. Then I turned and looked. The moment I saw the painting, I let out an involuntary laugh. The subject was Alicia’s aunt, Lydia Rose. And it was obvious why she had been so upset by it. Lydia was nude, reclining on a tiny bed. The bed was buckling under her weight. She was enormously, monstrously fat – an explosion of flesh spilling over the bed and hitting the floor and spreading across the room, rippling and folding like waves of grey custard. ‘Jesus,’ I said. ‘That’s cruel.’ ‘I think it’s quite lovely.’ Jean-Felix looked at me with interest. ‘You know Lydia?’ ‘Yes, I went to visit her.’ ‘I see,’ he said with a smile. ‘You have been doing your homework. I never met Lydia. Alicia hated her, you know.’ ‘Yes,’ I said, staring at the painting. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ Jean-Felix began carefully wrapping up the pictures again. ‘And the Alcestis?’ I said. ‘Can I see it?’ ‘Of course. Follow me.’ Jean-Felix led me along the narrow passage to the end of the gallery. There the Alcestis occupied a wall to itself. It was just as beautiful and mysterious as I remembered it. Alicia naked in the studio, in front of a blank

The cabin; by the stern windows; Ahab sitting alone, and gazing out. I leave a white and turbid wake; pale waters, paler cheeks, where'er I sail. The envious billows sidelong swell to whelm my track; let them; but first I pass. Yonder, by the ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun— slow dived from noon—goes down; my soul mounts up! she wearies with her endless hill. Is, then, the crown too heavy that I wear? this Iron Crown of Lombardy. Yet is it bright with many a gem; I the wearer, see not its far flashings; but darkly feel that I wear that, that dazzlingly confounds. 'Tis iron—that I know—not gold. 'Tis split, too—that I feel; the jagged edge galls me so, my brain seems to beat against the solid metal; aye, steel skull, mine; the sort that needs no helmet in the most brain-battering fight! Dry heat upon my brow? Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low, enjoying power; damned, most subtly and most malignantly! damned in the midst of Paradise! Good night—good night! (waving his hand, he moves from the window.) 'Twas not so hard a task. I thought to find one stubborn, at the least; but my one cogged circle fits into all their various wheels, and they revolve. Or, if you will, like so many ant-hills of powder, they all stand before me; and I their match. Oh, hard! that to fire others, the match itself must needs be wasting! What I've dared, I've willed; and what I've willed, I'll do! They think me mad— Starbuck does; but I'm demoniac, I am madness maddened! That wild madness that's only calm to comprehend itself! The prophecy was that I should be dismembered; and—Aye! I lost this leg. I now prophesy that I will dismember my dismemberer. Now, then, be the prophet and the fulfiller one. That's more than ye, ye great gods, ever were. I laugh and hoot at ye, ye cricket-players, ye pugilists, ye deaf Burkes and blinded Bendigoes! I will not say as schoolboys do to bullies—Take some one of your own size; don't pommel me! No, ye've knocked me down, and I am up again; but ye have run and hidden. Come forth from behind your cotton bags! I have no long gun to reach ye. Come, Ahab's compliments to ye; come and see if ye can swerve me. Swerve me? ye cannot swerve me, else ye swerve yourselves! man has ye there. Swerve me? The path to my fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, whereon my soul is grooved to run. Over unsounded gorges, through the rifled hearts of mountains, under torrents' beds, unerringly I rush! Naught's an obstacle, naught's an angle to the iron way! CHAPTER

Among the many people Chris met while doing charity work was Randy Cupp, who invited him and Bubba out to shoot with him come deer season. When Chris passed away, Randy made it clear to me that the offer not only still stood, but that he would love to give Bubba a chance to kill his first buck. With deer season upon us, the kids and I decided to take him up on the offer. Angel, Bubba, and I went out to his property on a beautiful morning. Setting out for the blind, I felt Chris’s presence, as if he were scouting along with us. We settled into our spots and waited. A big buck came across in front of us a short time later. It was an easy shot--except that Bubba had neglected to put his ear protection in. He scrambled to get it in, but by the time he was ready, the animal had bounded off. Deer--and opportunities--are like that. We waited some more. Another buck came out from the trees not five minutes later. And this one was not only in range, but it was bigger than the first: a thirteen pointer. Chris must have scared that thing up. “That’s the one,” said Randy as the animal pranced forward. Bubba took a shot. The deer scooted off as the gunshot echoed. My son thought he’d missed, but Randy was sure he’d hit him. At first, we didn’t see a blood trail--a bad sign, since a wounded animal generally leaves an easily spotted trail. But a few steps later, we found the body prone in the woods. Bubba had killed him with a shot to the lungs. Like father, like son. While Bubba left to dress the carcass, I went back to the blind with Angel to wait for another. She was excited that she might get a deer just like her brother. But when a buck walked within range, tears came to her eyes. “I can’t do it,” she said, putting down her gun. “It’s okay,” I told her. “I just can’t.” “Do you want me to?” I asked. She nodded. I took aim. Even though I was married to a hard-core hunter, I had never shot a deer before. I lined up the scope, walking him into the crosshairs. A slow breath, and I squeezed the trigger. The shot surprised me--just as Chris said it should. The deer fell. He was good meat; we eat what we kill, another of Chris’s golden rules. “You know, Angel, you’re going to be my hunting partner forever,” I told her later. “You’re just so calm and observant. And good luck.” We plan to do that soon. She’ll be armed with a high-powered camera, rather than a rifle.

I turned and entered the airport with my escort. Suddenly, I had a horrible realization: in order to return to the flight line I needed to move through a modern international airport complete with metal detectors and X-ray machines and I had a loaded pistol in my fanny pack. And, because of the ongoing civil war, security was beefed up and the guards were extra wary. Before we reached the first checkpoint, I pretended that I needed to use the restroom and told my escort to go on ahead. I needed to think. One option was to drop my pistol in a trash can and exit the airport, later claiming I lost the gun somehow. The lost-gun option had serious flaws. I couldn’t ditch my pistol because I had signed it out by serial number. Police could easily trace the gun back to me. My personal interpretation of the, “no weapons” order would probably not be an effective defense at my court marshal. My other option was to try and sneak through the airport onto the flight line, somehow avoiding a gauntlet of security checkpoints. This was the ninja option. This daunting course of action was fraught with serious danger. If guards confronted me and caught me with a loaded pistol I knew I would not have a pleasant day. There was no telling where that situation would lead; there was a real possibility I could spend time in a Yemeni prison. Despite the risks I decided on the ninja option. I figured I might have one slim advantage. Maybe the guards would remember me coming through the airport from the flight-line side with the embassy official and not pay me much attention. I was sweating bullets as I approached the first checkpoint. I tried to act casual and confident, not furtive and suspicious like a criminal. I waited until the guard looked away, his attention elsewhere and boldly walked behind him past the checkpoint. When I approached the X-ray and metal detectors I strode right past the line of people, bypassing the machines. I had to play it that way. I could not hang out near the detectors waiting for guards to look the other way and then sneak past; there were just too many. As I brazenly strode around each checkpoint I feared to hear a sudden barked command, rushing feet behind me, and hands spinning me around to face angry guards with drawn weapons. The last part of my mission to get on the airfield was tricky and nerveracking. Imagine being at an American airport in the gate area where people board the airplanes. Then imagine trying to sneak out a Jetway or access door without being stopped. I remembered the door I had used to enter the terminal and luckily it was unlocked. I picked my moment and quickly slipped out the door onto the airfield. I boldly strode across the airfield, never looking behind me until I reached my plane. Finally, I turned and looked back the way I came and saw … nothing. No one was pursuing me. I was in the midst of an ongoing civil war, surrounded by fresh bomb craters and soldiers carrying soviet rifles, but as scary situations go, so far Tiger Rescue was a relaxing walk in the park compared to Operation Ninja Escape.