This song by Joel Mabus is on his CD called "Six of One." I think that Joel makes an important point that *anyone* can snap at anytime. God help anyone who's around when someone with a gun, even a normally rational, safe and well intentioned person, snaps. It happens often in America and thousands of us die every year because of it.

A Virus On The Town

There's a story going round
About a virus on the town
It can strike at anytime or anyone
How your hand goes to your heart
When you hear the first report
Somebody snapped, somebody got a gun

In the schoolyard - in the office
In the church or on a train
Here we go, here we go again
Interview the neighbors, the lovers and the friends
The characters keep changing but the story never ends

Call the doctors - call the priest
Call the counselors of grief
Point the camera at the man who wears the frown
For the camera will not tell
Anything it cannot sell
And the headline is - a virus on the town

In a famine or a feast
It's the nature of the beast
To prey upon the weak and the diseased
Now there's an odor in the air
You can smell it everywhere
The taste of gun smoke on the breeze

And the fingers point to Hollywood
It's a storyteller's crime
Oh, the lobbyists are working overtime
For the ammunition makers
And the congressmen they buy
They're selling you "protection" and the pistols multiply

There's a virus on the land
You can hold it in your hand
You can fill the chamber with another round
You can pull the hammer back
And prepare for the attack
There's no safety with a virus on the town.

line breaks added by
- el joeclone -