Give a Boy a Gun by Todd Strasser Read Free Book Online Page A

Killing)

    TerminX : Gun control is friggin’ stupid. Gunz don’t kill people. People kill people .
    Rebooto : But if people can’t get gunz.. .
    TerminX : They find a way .
    Dayzd : My granddad’s from WY. Everyone has gunz. U get a .22 at 10 and hunt squirrels .
    Blkchokr : Y?
    TerminX : Y what?
    Blkchokr : Y hunt squirrels?
    Dayzd : Eat them .
    TerminX : U never 8 squirrel?
    Blkchokr : Gross, and neither have U, Trm .
    Dayzd : How come when my granddad was akid, kids didn’t go 2 school and kill people?
    Rebooto : MayB they nu it was wrong .
    TerminX : U think Klebold and Harris didn’t know it was wrong in Littleton?
    Rebooto : Then Y?
    Dayzd : Nothing better 2 do .
    TerminX : K&H didn’t care. Want 2 know what’s different between now and 50 years ago? Back then kids cared .
    Blkchokr : What about?
    Dayzd : Santa Clauz .
    TerminX : They believed in crap. Don’t ask me what, ’cause whatever it was is gone now. Back then U had a reason not 2 kill people .
    Blkchokr : U don’t now?
    Dayzd : Lethal injection .
    Rebooto : Milky Ways .
    TerminX : No 1 cares anymore. No 1 believes. Nothing 2 care about. Nothing 2 believe in .
    Dayzd : I believe in love .

    Sales of the semiautomatic AKS assault rifle increased dramatically after Patrick Edward Purdy killed five children and wounded thirty more on a school playground in California. (Lethal Passage)

    Rebooto : I’m dyslexic. I believe in doG .
    TerminX : We’re all gonna die. MayB I’ll die before U, but sooner or later U’ll croak 2 .
    Blkchokr : Duh .
    Dayzd : I won’t die .
    Rebooto : I’ll come back as an amoeba .
    TerminX : Once U’re dead, U’re gone and 4gotten. But it’ll be a long time before they 4get about Littleton .
    Dayzd : Huh?
    Blkchokr : Trm, U think that’s Y they did it? 2 B remembered?
    TerminX : It’s part of it. Remember JesseJames? Al Capone?

    â€œThirty-five years’ experience in newspapers convinces me that teenagers are influenced by the news they see and read. I have no proof of that. It’s my belief. Some children see only the front page of a newspaper, in a box on the street, on the porch or over the breakfast table. I did not want to take the risk that another front-page story about another school shooting might cause some unbalanced fifteen-year-old to add one more disaster to the recent series.’”
    â€”Nigel Wade, Chicago Sun-Times newspaper editor, on why he refused to run the story of the Springfield, Oregon, shooting on the front page, New York Times , 5/23/98

    Blkchokr : Attila the Hun. Hitler .
    Rebooto : That creep who 8 people .
    Dayzd : Dahmer .
    Blkchokr : Impressed, Dayz .
    Dayzd : I can C it, Trm. The combo plate. Get the buttholes who make Ur life miserable. Plus Ur name in history. And “nothing really matters . . . to me.”
    TerminX : Starts 2 look good. U get them. They get what they deserve. Plus U’re famous .
    Dayzd : Infamous .
    Rebooto : Like President Clinton!
    Blkchokr : O. J. Simpson .
    Dayzd : Michael Jackson .
    Rebooto : That’s sick .
    TerminX : 13 kids went down in Littleton. Who do U remember?
    Dayzd : Klebold and Harris .
    TerminX : I rest my case .
    At the end of ninth grade we had this awards assembly. It was for everything, not just sports. I was sitting with the guys on the [football]team. Principal Curry announced the awards for the speech and debate team, and these kids started to go up on stage. So, you know, these were the brainy kids, and some of them looked okay, but a couple of them were wearing thick glasses and had funny builds. So the guys on the football team start booing. It was just plain stupid. I recall I actually felt embarrassed. I think I even bent my head down so people would see that I wasn’t one of them. But it was like a glimpse at how those other kids must have felt, you know? Could you imagine the speech and debate team booing when the football players