Gunshot, Sunday, 4/7/18


We’re in our yard. The gunshot we hear
is everywhere near. We live in the desert outside Tucson
city limits. Our neighbors to the south have a shotgun
and the neighbors to their south probably do too. We can’t tell
where the report came from and then there’s

another. It’s illegal to kill rattlesnakes here
without a valid hunting license, but who does that stop? That’s
our guess, a neighbor blowing up a snake to protect themselves
and/or their cats and dogs. Republicans in our state House
sponsored a bill, on a Wednesday in 2017, to allow firing guns

within city limits “to allow city dwellers to kill snakes and rats
without having to trap them or bludgeon them to death.” Ah
yes, all those Arizona citizens with their bludgeons. And so many
others scanning local papers for sales on bludgeons,
BUY TWO AND GET THE THIRD BLUDGEON FREE!

The cartridges in the Republican bill must be loaded with pellets
1.3 millimeters or less in diameter. Republicans noted that sand
may be as small as 2 millimeters. A Republican supporting the bill
claimed shooting such pellets is no more dangerous than throwing
sand at someone. The bill ultimately failed. We saw two rattlesnakes

mating in our yard
under a cactus yesterday and I wonder if the female, newly
pregnant, is splattered
all over a nearby
stretch of planet.

John Levy

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