Give a Boy a Gun (13 page)

Then Gary says we're ready, and he goes back to the bag and he takes out this thing and sets it on the ground right in the middle of the paper room we've created. Then he tells us to get the hell out of there. I ask him
how far, and he says a hundred yards at least. If you want to know the truth, I thought he was nuts. A hundred yards is the length of a football field. It's pretty obvious by now that he's got some kind of homemade bomb. But it's kind of fun and goofy to run off into the woods, so I do it.

We go running, and before long we're all bent over with our hands on our knees, gasping for breath. It's the smoking. And a little while later Gary comes crashing through the trees, and we yell to him that we're over here.

The thing goes off before he can get to us. There's this really sharp, loud
thunk!
sound, and I swear a hundred yards away I can actually feel the ground shake and the leaves in the trees rustle. Now Gary and Brendan take off back toward the “blast zone.”

So I get there, and I can't believe what I'm seeing. First of all, every single piece of paper is blown away. Totally shredded. It's like a big circle of multicolored paper shreds on the ground around the blast site. Leaves are blown off the trees, so the leaves and
paper are mixed together. The whole place reeks of burned gunpowder. Twigs are snapped and some of the smaller branches are broken. You can see that this thing was a lot bigger than it sounded from so far away. Maybe the sound was muffled by the trees and whatnot.

Now Gary says we have to pick up every shred of paper, and he's got rolls of Scotch tape so we can paste them back together. And that's when I figure out what's going on: We're re-creating the scene. Like what they did with that 747 that blew up and they couldn't figure out why.

So now we have to gather up all these little colored shreds of paper and try to tape them together. The thing is maybe you can do it with some of the larger pieces, but the smaller pieces are impossible, and it's not like we haven't been drinking screwdrivers from a plastic half-gallon milk container we brought along.

Finally Brendan says the hell with it. Gary's the only one who doesn't want to stop.
If it were up to him, he'd stay out there for a week until every single shred was taped back together. He wants to see the blast pattern, he wants to make sure they built the bomb right. Brendan says, “Look, if we didn't build it right, you think there'd be all this shredded paper and leaves and branches everywhere?”

And Gary's like, “Yeah, but I still want to see.” Brendan and I quit and just sit and drink and smoke and watch Allison and Gary pick and tape and pick and tape until even Allison's tired of it. You can see it's hopeless, but Gary is like a fanatic. He just has to see the blast pattern.

Brendan, Allison, and I go back to the cabin, and the door's locked, so Brendan gets the tire iron out of Allison's car and uses it to pry the door open. He pretty much destroys the lock, but we're too trashed to care. We go in and hang around and eat some of the food in the fridge and watch TV. After a while Gary shows up and he's like, okay, he's seen enough. He declares it a success.

He says we should go, and I say, “Well,
shouldn't we at least fix the door so your uncle won't have a total fit?” And Gary's like, “Uncle? I don't have any uncle.” Can you believe it?

Anyway, we get in the car and start driving back, and all the way they're talking about who they're gonna blow up with these bombs. And it's a pretty good-size list. The only thing is they really meant it.

—Ryan Clancy

TerminX
:
Pretty awesome 2day, huh? A couple of those suckas in school would put a lot of jerks out of their misery
.

Blkchokr
:
Plus a few non-jerks
.

Dayzd
:
Civilian casualties
.

TerminX
:
Collateral damage
.

Rebooto
:
U guys need 2 make a smart bomb
.

Dayzd
:
Smart bomb 4 dumb jocks
.

TerminX
:
B cool if U could convert that semiautomatic into fully automatic
.

Dayzd
:
Need a hellfire switch
.

Rebooto
:
What R U talking about?

Dayzd
:
You get a 50-round clip, it's almost the
same thing
.

TerminX
:
Jungle-clip them. Then it's 100 rounds
.

Rebooto
:
Hello?

Blkchokr
:
Gunz, Booto
.

Rebooto
: :-o

TerminX
:
I read the marines use a special version of “Doom” 2 train soldiers
.

Dayzd
:
1-shot kills?

TerminX
:
Head and upper-torso shots
.

Blkchokr
:
Seen any good movies lately?

Rebooto
:
Read any good books?

Dayzd
:
“Unforgiven.”

Rebooto
:
O yeah!

Blkchokr
:
Weird flick
.

Dayzd
:
Y?

Blkchokr
:
Couldn't C the message
.

TerminX
:
When a real man has a problem, he gets a gun
.

Rebooto
:
U C where they want 2 expand the movie ratings so they have warnings like cigarettes?

TerminX
:
Stupid. It doesn't work with cigarettes
.

Blkchokr
:
They're on booze, 2
.

Dayzd
:
Warning: Uncontrolled firearm use may
be hazardous to your health
.

Blkchokr
:
LOL!

There are probably about 150 million law-abiding American citizens who enjoy watching football. Myself included. The idea that this incident can somehow be blamed on football is sadly mistaken. These were two sick, disturbed boys. Like many people I know, I also happen to own several hunting rifles and a handgun I keep in my home for personal protection. Is it locked? No, but it's hidden. If I ever have to defend my home against someone trying to break in, the time it takes me to unlock a gun might just be the difference between the life and death of my children.

The Second Amendment to the Constitution gives us the right to bear arms. Are you going to change the Constitution? Why stop at the Second Amendment? Why not throw out the First Amendment, too? Who needs freedom of speech? Hey, who needs the
right to vote? See where this is going?

— Dick Flanagan

A gun kept in the home is forty-three times more likely to kill someone you know than to kill a stranger in self-defense
.
(Lethal Passage)

It's horrible when kids are killed in schools. It's a nightmare. Obviously, after what happened, I should know. But if you want to save kids' lives, you'll save a lot more by raising the driving age than banning guns.

—Allen Curry

Death by Car Vs. Death by Gun

More people die in car accidents than from guns. But the numbers are closer than you might think. In 1995 in many states there were almost as many deaths by firearms as there were traffic fatalities. In the following states there were actually more deaths by firearms.

(Source
: Data from the National Vital Statistics system, National Center for Health Statistics)

It still seems strange to me that I was nobody until Dustin asked me out. I'd be in the girls' room with Deirdre Bunson and some of those other girls, and it was like I didn't even exist. I wasn't on their radar. At my old school you'd say hi to someone even if you didn't know them. Here you say hi and it's like, “Do I know you?”

—Chelsea Baker

I'm sure you've heard about that fight at Dustin's house. If you want to know the truth, up to that point, that was one of the scariest things I'd ever seen. The thing is I always knew [Sam] Flach was mean and strong, but this was just beyond anything you could have imagined.

—Ryan Clancy

I still don't understand why Brendan wanted to go to that party. I mean, he must have felt
that Dustin was his neighbor and sort of his friend, but Dustin was on the football team, and everyone knew it was a football party. Some people say Brendan was just asking for it. I don't know. I think it was more like Rosa Parks. He was tired of sitting in the back of the bus.

—Emily Kirsch