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By BOB HERBERT
Since 9/11, nearly 120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides1, most of them committed2 with guns.
Late in the afternoon on Good Friday3, in a cold, steady rain, a gray-haired 60-year-old woman sat shivering and praying on
a stone step outside of 1016 Fairfield St., which is where the terrible shooting had occurred. She read from a prayer book
and from time to time would take a drag on a soggy4 Newport cigarette. A candle flickered beside her as she prayed.
Police officers in a squad car5 a half-block away were keeping a close eye on the woman and the house with the boarded-up
windows behind her.
Reluctant to talk at first, the woman eventually whispered, "I'm the grandmother of the kid that killed those cops." She
said her name was Catherine Scott and that she was praying for her grandson, Richard Poplawski, who is 22 and being held
in the Allegheny County Jail, and for the three officers he is accused of gunning down: Stephen Mayhle, who was 29; Paul
Sciullo II, 37; and Eric Kelly, 41.
The officers were killed a week and a half ago as they responded to a disturbance at the house. Police said they were met
there by Poplawski, who was wearing a bulletproof6 vest and was armed with a variety of weapons, including an AK-47
assault rifle.
"My grandson did a terrible thing," said Ms. Scott. "There is no mercy for what he did."
Mercy or not, there is no end to the trauma and heartbreak caused by these horrifying, blood-drenched eruptions7 of
gun violence, which are as common to the American scene as changes in the weather.
On the same day that the three Pittsburgh cops were murdered, a 34-year-old man in Graham, Wash., James Harrison, shot
his five children to death and then killed himself. The children were identified by police as Maxine, 16, Samantha, 14,
Jamie, 11, Heather, 8, and James, 7.
Just a day earlier, a man in Binghamton, N.Y., invaded a civic association and shot 17 people, 13 of them fatally, and
then killed himself. On April 7, three days after the shootings in Pittsburgh and Graham, Wash., a man with a handgun in
Priceville, Ala., murdered his wife, their 16-year-old daughter, his sister, and his sister's 11-year-old son, before
killing himself.
More? There's always more. Four police officers in Oakland, Calif. - Dan Sakai, 35, Mark Dunakin, 40, John Hege, 41, and
Ervin Romans, 43 - were shot to death last month by a 27-year-old parolee8 who was then shot to death by the police.
This is the American way. Since Sept. 11, 2001, when the country's attention understandably turned to terrorism, nearly
120,000 Americans have been killed in nonterror homicides, most of them committed with guns. Think about it - 120,000
dead. That's nearly 25 times the number of Americans killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
For the most part, we pay no attention to this relentless carnage9. The idea of doing something meaningful about the
insane number of guns in circulation is a nonstarter10. So what if eight kids are shot to death every day in America.
So what if someone is killed by a gun every 17 minutes.
The goal of the National Rifle Association and a host of so-called conservative lawmakers is to get ever more guns into
the hands of ever more people. Texas is one of a number of states considering bills to allow concealed11 guns on college
campuses.
Supporters argue, among other things, that it will enable students and professors to defend themselves against mass
murderers, like the deranged12 gunman who killed 32 people at Virginia Tech two years ago.
They'd like guns to be as ubiquitous13 as laptops or cellphones. One Texas lawmaker referred to unarmed people on
campuses as "sitting ducks."
The police department in Pittsburgh has been convulsed14 with grief over the loss of the three officers. Hardened detectives
walked around with stunned looks on their faces and tears in their eyes.
"They all had families," said Detective Antonio Ciummo, a father of four. "It's hard to describe the kind of pain their
families are going through. And the rest of our families. They're upset. They're sad. They're scared. They know it could
happen to anyone."
The front page of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review carried a large photo of Officer Mayhle's sad and frightened 6-year-old
daughter, Jennifer. She was clutching a rose and a teddy bear in a police officer's uniform. There was also a photo of
Officer Kelly's widow, Marena, her eyes looking skyward, as if searching.
Murderous gunfire claims many more victims than those who are actually felled15 by the bullets. But all the expressions
of horror at the violence and pity for the dead and those who loved them ring hollow in a society that is neither mature
nor civilized enough to do anything about it.
C. 800 words
Source: The New York Times, April 14, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/opinion/14herbert.html?_r=1
Annotations:
1. homicide - Mord
2. to commit - begehen
3. Good Friday - Karfreitag
4. soggy - feucht
5. squad car - Streifenwagen
6. bulletproof - kugelsicher
7. blood-drenched eruptions - blutgetränkte Ausbrüche
8. parolee - bedingt Entlassener (aus Gefängnis)
9. relentless carnage - unerbittliches Blutbad
10. to be a nonstarter - ein Reinfall sein, völlig unmöglich sein
11. concealed - verdeckt, verborgen
12. deranged - geistig verwirrt
13. ubiquitous - allgegenwärtig
14. to convulse - erschüttern
15. to fell - niederstrecken
Assignments:
1. Why does the author of the text call his article 'The American Way'?
2. Compare the number of gun related homicides in the USA with those in Germany/Europe.
3. Explain what it means when the author says: "The idea of doing something meaningful about the
insane number of guns in circulation is a nonstarter."
4. From what you know from your course work, why do you think is it that relatively many Americans defend their right to
carry guns?
5. Examine the choice of vocabulary through which the author expresses his viewpoint on the topic concerned.
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