Sound of a Gun

April 22, 2007... Riding my bike to work one day this week, Clipse song stuck in my head, I suddenly understood what they was tryna say.

Clipse - Chinese New Year

When Pusha T raps "Front of your crib sounding like Chinese New Year / Brrraaattt - brrraaattt, brrraaattt - brrraaattt, brrraaattt - brrraaattt, ka-ka-ka-kat," he's imitating the sound of a gun. Chinese New Year = firecrackers = sound similar to gunfire. Geddit?

It took me weeks of listening to the CD to figure this out because I have never heard gunfire. Though I have lived in the biggest city in the country for twenty years, I ain't never heard no one pop a cap.

For a second, this realization humbled me. To have lived for so long without ever having heard someone fire a gun, to be able to walk almost anywhere at almost any hour and not have to worry about being emmenthalerized... Well, there aren't many people in the world who can say that. Not the Lebanese or Jamaicans. Certainly not the Iraqis of Afghanis. I feel so lucky to live here.

The rate at which people are murdered with firearms is almost six times higher in the United States than in Canada, 2.9 per 100,000 people versus 0.5 per 100,000 people. Why such a big difference between two countries that are otherwise so similar? Well, surely the ease of access to firearms has something to do with it.

Even though Cho Seung-Hui was declared a danger to himself in 2005 and sent for psychiatric treatment, he was able to walk into a gun shop and purchase a Glock a year-and-a-half later. He passed a cursory background check and was sent, packing. You already know the results.

Lynyrd Skynyrd - Saturday Night Special

Dim-witted gun nuts like to parrot the line "Guns don't kill people, people kill people." Strictly speaking, it's true. A gun can't pull its own trigger. Then again, a person can't pull the trigger of a gun they don't have. I suspect it'd be a lot easier to outlaw guns than people. Let's go with that one.

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Stronach Leaving Politics?

April 11, 2007... Former Conservative and current Liberal Member of Parliament, Belinda Stronach, has announced that she will not be seeking re-election. Stronach, a former blonde who is currently a brunette, will be rejoining the executive of her father's car parts company after a storied three-year career in politics.

What? Oh. Scratch that. She's changed her mind.

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