Bearing arms:

The serious boy at war

“Your father says you bought a gun. He says you bought a surplus army gun.”

“We used the M16A2. This one, they call it AR15. It won’t fire auto.”

“What’s that, Patrick?”

“Automatic, Momma…. That’s semiauto. You need to squeeze off one round at a time, but the rate of fire’s good enough. Anyway, I didn’t buy enough ammo to fire full auto for long. I don’t need that much.”

“For what, dearie? Why do you need a gun?”

—Frederick Busch, “Good to Go”