The Angry Exile: Gunning for the job.

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Monday 15 February 2010

Gunning for the job.

The latest gun tragedy in America is bound to reopen arguments about the pros and cons of the American Constitution's Second Amendment and the idea of armed citizens anywhere (see some of the comments here for example). What most won't consider is that anyone bright enough to be a university professor and reportedly "a brilliant researcher" is probably bright enough to come up with an alternative means to using a gun if she's barking enough to kill over failing to get a cushier job. As I blogged at length some time ago you just can't legislate for crazies when practically anything can be used as a weapon and plenty of things can be made to explode.

...the next Michael Ryan or Thomas Hamilton will not be prevented from killing by the UK’s strict gun laws when they can achieve as much carnage or more by means of a home-made bomb constructed from legal, easy to obtain products. The IRA have proved that with diesel/fertiliser bombs, David Copeland proved it with bombs made from fireworks, and of course more recently the London suicide bombers in 2005 murdered more than 50 with peroxide based bombs followed shortly after by a similar unsuccessful attack and further attempts in 2007 using gas cylinders in cars. Frankly if I went nuts and wanted to maim and kill as many people as possible guns look like the second best choice anyway. So what do we do if we are trying to legislate away the dangers of madmen? Ban motor fuel, fertiliser, fireworks, hair products and barbie cylinders?

On top of which, as I pointed out at the same time, guns are always there for those who want them, and if you want one to commit the very serious crime of shooting and possibly killing someone then the lesser crime of simply getting a gun when they're illegal really isn't much of a deterrent. What then happens is that criminals and/or fucking maniacs are in effect free to arm themselves while law abiding people, people who would shoot only in self defence or to prevent loss of life, are not. Of course in Britain this extends to most police officers as well.

As I said the other day I don't particularly want to carry a handgun in public myself. I don't even want to own a handgun, though unlike the UK here I can actually have one (subject to plenty of restrictions on type, calibre, dimensions etc. - I didn't say it was easy, just that it's possible). I'm not under any illusion about my pistol skills and if I intended to kneecap someone I'd probably remove their brain with it instead. But I do want to be able to carry a gun and I want every other law abiding citizen to be able to carry a gun. Who will have them and who won't? Well, you won't know by looking and neither will the villains.

Of course it won't stop gun murders as long as there are places where guns are banned because, as we've seen again this weekend, that's a barrier to the law abiding and no-one else. Not all gun wielding headcases target areas where they expect no-one else to be armed, but the vast majority do.

Obviously a gun in the right hands might not change anything, but in the same way the police can't help if they're not there the lack of gun guarantees that it can't make a difference.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...: I know how the professor must have felt, I've been in meetings chaired by complete fuckwits who know the square root of fuck all and are surrounded by moronic nodding dog acolytes. Shooting them would be a complete waste of brass, lead and cordite.; 16 February 2010 at 00:12
JuliaM said...: If the other professors hadn't been complete hoplophobes, they might have been equipped to defend themselves...; 16 February 2010 at 03:27
Angry Exile said...: I'd expect no guns is a University policy. If so fair enough, their buildings after all. But hoplophobia seems pretty common among progressive types as can often be found in universities.

Henry, I think you've just described the reason zombie shooting computer games are so popular. And there was me thinking it was just training for the apocalypse scenario where we have to deal with hordes of stumbling, shambling, mindless semi-humans wanting to turn us into one of them... hang on, that describes meetings too. Fuck! If I have to go to any from now on I'll be sure to take a shottie and a chainsaw.; 16 February 2010 at 03:37