One of my favorite Lynyrd Skynyrd songs is “Mr. Saturday Night Special.” The US Senate’s decision to disregard the will of 92% of the US population today regarding mandatory background checks for gun sales makes it apropos to share the lyrics on my blog. I used to blast Lynyrd Skynyrd on my car stereo in tenth grade when I wore cowboy boots and a Texas Ranger belt buckle to school every day. It used to be okay for wannabe redneck teenage kids to listen to Southern rock songs that weren’t in line with the ideological orthodoxy of the NRA. That was before the crazies took over.
Mr. Saturday Night Special
Two feets they come a creepin’
Like a black cat do
And two bodies are layin’ naked
Creeper think he got nothin’ to lose
So he creeps into this house, yeah
And unlocks the door
And as a man’s reaching for his trousers
Shoots him full of .38 holes
Mr.Saturday night special
Got a barrel that’s blue and cold
Ain’t no good for nothin’
But put a man six feet in a hole
Big Jim’s been drinkin’ whiskey
And playing poker on a losin’ night
And pretty soon, Big Jim starts a thinkin’
Somebody been cheatin’ and lyin’
So Big Jim commences to fightin’
I wouldn’t tell you no lie
And Big Jim done pull his pistol
Shot his friend right between the eyes
(Chorus)
Oooh Saturday night special…
For twenty dollars you can buy yourself one too…
Oooh let me tell you all about it…
Well hand guns are made for killin’
They ain’t no good for nothin’ else
And if you like to drink your whiskey
You might even shoot yourself
So why don’t we dump ’em people
To the bottom of the sea
Before some ole fool come around here
Wanna shoot either you or me
(Chorus)
Ooooh it’s a Saturday night special
And I’d like to tell you what you can do with it too…
(Chorus)
Mercy not Sacrifice 
There are different ways of looking at it.
A “Saturday night special” is often purchased by working class persons in order to protect themselves and their families, as is their right. Or would you prefer only the rich and well-connected own guns?
Another perspective…
“That rifle hanging on the wall of the working-class flat or labourers’ cottage is the symbol of democracy. It is our job to see that it stays there.”
-George Orwell
Personally, I would not care to live in a society where only the agents of the government and the rich owned weapons.
That’s called an oligarchy.
And since you treated us to Skynyrd’s music, let me reciprocate with this, from the Clash, which many Southern youth at the time found much more relevant to our own lives…
When they kick out your front door
How you gonna come?
With your hands on your head
Or on the trigger of your gun
When the law break in
How you gonna go?
Shot down on the pavement
Or waiting in death row
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you’ll have to answer to
Oh, Guns of Brixton
The money feels good
And your life you like it well
But surely your time will come
As in heaven, as in hell
You see, he feels like Ivan
BORN under the Brixton sun
His game is called survivin’
At the end of the harder they come
You know it means no mercy
They caught him with a gun
No need for the Black Maria
Goodbye to the Brixton sun
You can crush us
You can bruise us
But you’ll have to answer to
Oh-the guns of Brixton
Fair enough. Just realize you’re writing to a youth pastor who has lost three kids to handguns: one dead, one in jail, and one ruined for life by the fact that he accidentally killed his sister.
I listened to this song just the other day and wondered why we hadn’t dumped ’em all in the bottom of the sea…
I know.