fair play to me. i was thinking about what it means to make guns toys. i remember when i got my first real gun. there was a kind of slightly sickening giddiness in my stomach, a metallic keening behind my eyes. i dreaded what i was compelled to do by the gun. it was not a toy, and couldn't be faked anymore. it had to shoot. i shot a bird off a telephone wire and i wanted to crawl into a hole and die. that gun taught me to hate guns, and the culture that made killing the normal way of life. i thought how if i had enjoyed killing a bird i might have gone on and killed game, or the enemy of freedom. i thought how incredible i could so easily take a life. i could never imagine taking my own, though often i've said i wish i was dead. what a strange thing to make a toy for little tiny boys.