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| Seven minutes. That's how long it took me to buy an AR-15, the semiautomatic rifle used in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. Seven minutes. From the moment I handed the salesperson my driver's license to the moment I passed my background check. It likely will take more time than that during the forthcoming round of vigils to respectfully read the names of the more than 100 people who were killed or injured. It's obscene. Horrifying. —by Helen Ubiñas [@NotesFromHel] The Philadelphia Inquirer Daily News, June 14, 2016. Photo: Daily News columnist Helen Ubinas with a newly purchased AR-15 semiautomatic rifle on Monday. AARON RICKETTS / STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER |
For so long as the NRA
controls Congress
With its pumping poison
mutant lifeblood
Corrupting souls,
buying silence,
Innocents will
continue to die
From high-powered
weapons of war
As lone wolves sing
their rancid noteless song:
A witch’s brew of shrill
staccato tempo
That our numbed eyes
don’t hear anymore
and that tastes
forgotten anyway.
Gil Hoy is a Boston trial lawyer and is currently studying poetry at Boston University, through its Evergreen program, where he previously received a BA in Philosophy and Political Science. Hoy received an MA in Government from Georgetown University and a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. He served as a Brookline, Massachusetts Selectman for four terms. Hoy's poetry has appeared (or is scheduled for publication) most recently in Right Hand Pointing-One Sentence Poems, The Potomac, Clark Street Review, TheNewVerse.News and The Penmen Review.