Song of The Day: "Don't Take My Guns Away" by The Elvis Brothers!

In light of yesterday's mass shooting in insert name of city here in which ____ innocent Americans were gunned down in cold blood for no sane reason, we are yet again forced to admit to our own failure to take very simple steps to prevent such acts from happening tomorrow.

In such times, the song that resonates the most for this writer is "Don't Take My Guns Away" by The Elvis Brothers, a band from Champaign-Urbana, Illinois that eventually moved to Chicago and became a fixture on the local club circuit throughout the '90s.

Prior to that, they recorded two sorely under-appreciated albums for Epic/Portrait Records, including 1985's Adventure Time, which included the song we are featuring today.

Written by guitarist Rob Newhouse, the song is sung from the POV of a Bernard Goetz-like character; a self-righteous lone wolf vigilante driven to violence by the changing world around him and the idea that the very thing he believes brings him protection from the outside world might be taken from him.

I say what I wanna say
My fingers do the talking
I'm up on top of my own little world
Don't give me no problems

I saw it on the news today
Another someone blown away
But that's okay
I've got protection, yeah

Yet, yesterday's act of mass gun violence only highlights the fact that the more things change, the more the same primitive acts of violence seek to thwart such advancements. I am reminded of how much better the world would be now if someone very much like yesterday's gunman hadn't felt it was his inalienable right to prevent Martin Luther King Jr.from attempting to make the world a better place and to drag this country out of the proverbial dark ages.

I'm also reminded of the music we never got to hear because John Lennon's voice was silenced by someone who, incredulously, claimed to be a fan of the former Beatle.

When shots ring out, it isn't just MLK, or Lennon, or a student at a community college who is the unfortunate victim, it is all of us.

Yet we are convinced that we are powerless to change such things, leaving this great country stunted and victimized by the perversion of a few.

Stop the mentally ill from committing acts of hatred, prevent terrorists from infiltrating our borders, but, whatever you do, don't take our guns away.

Maybe they can chisel that into america's tombstone and the new country that sprouts in its place long after most of us are dead and buried will have more common sense than we had.