Try to imagine a society, if you will,
where everyone from the teenager to
the nonagenarian is free to carry a gun.
There’d be rules of conduct - what to do,
when the gun should be drawn, fired. Still,
people acting as they do, laws become undone.

Why, it would be dangerous to be on the street!
Even if you were polite and quite careful whose
path you crossed, no telling who you’d meet.
He might be high on drugs or drunk from booze.
She may be annoyed at her kids, fly into a rage.
The accidents, the killings would fill a news page.

Can you even envision such a sorry societal state?
Surely some would want to outlaw the gun. Still,
its proponents would argue the necessity, the fun
of having a gun; too bad it happens to maim, to kill
thousands each year…Preposterous you say? Wait!
Replace the carrying of guns with driving automobiles...