My apologies for leaving this empty earlier. Last night I wrote a bit of doggerel criticizing unhappy men who obsess on weaponry. Then the news about the horrors in Lewiston, Maine was broadcast and I withdrew the lines lest the words appear to be frivolous and thus hurtful. I stand by my no-nonsense thesis, though: no one needs one of those ////ed semi-automatic testosterone compensations that fire military rounds.

And no thoughtful man or woman need tolerate for a moment any whatabouts and all the pointless arcana about assault rifles vs. civilian rifles, automatic vs. semi-automatic, magazine vs. clip, and blah, blah, blah.

I was in Viet-Nam.

I know exactly what .556 and 7.62 rounds will do to an adult or a child, and the name of the gun (yeah, I know, "shoulder-fired, gas-operated, blah, blah, and blah") doesn't change anything.

Your grandfather's old J. C. Higgins shotgun is a wonderful thing for bagging supper and eliminating predators. A shiny (they come in Barbie colors now) .556 is good only for inflicting death and suffering on our fellow pilgrims on this earth.