land and take off. That's all gone. Airports are no longer a place of education and fun; they are the most sophisticated of security sites.
且看各地机场。过去家长常常带孩子去登机口看飞机起飞降落。这种事再也没有了。机场不再是一个有趣的学习场所；它们成了拥有最精密的安全检查系统的场所。
13 With electronic X-ray equipment, we seem finally to have figured out a way to hold the terrorists, real and imagined, at bay; it was such a relief to solve this problem that we did not think much about what such a state of affairs says about the quality of our lives. We now pass through these electronic friskers without so much as a sideways glance; the machines, and what they stand for, have won.
凭借着电子透视装置，我们似乎终于想出妙计让恐怖分子无法近身，无论是真的恐怖分子还是凭空臆想的。能解决这一问题真是如释重负，于是我们不去多想这种状况对我们的生活质量意味着什么。如今我们走过这些电子搜查器时已经看都不看一眼了，这些装置，还有它们所代表的一切已经获胜。
14 Our neighborhoods are bathed in high-intensity light; we do not want to afford ourselves even so much a luxury as a shadow.
我们的居住区处在强光源的照射下；我们连哪怕像阴影这样小小的享受也不想给自己。
15 Businessmen, in increasing numbers, are purchasing new machines that hook up to the telephone and analyze a caller's voice. The machines are supposed to tell the businessman, with a small margin of error, whether his friend or client is telling lies. 越来越多的商人正购置连接在电话机上、能剖析来电者声音的新机器。据说那种机器能让商人知道他的朋友或客户是否在撒谎，其出错概率很小。
16 All this is being done in the name of \that is what we tell ourselves. We are fearful, and so we devise ways to lock the fear out, and that, we decide, is what security means. 所有这一切都是以“安全”的名义实施的：我们是这么跟自己说的。我们害怕，于是我们设法把害怕锁在外面，我们认定，那就是安全的意义。
17 But no; with all this \civilized man. What better word to describe the way in which we have been forced to live? What sadder reflection on all that we have become in this new and puzzling time? 其实不然；我们虽然有了这一切安全措施，但我们或许是人类文明史上最不安全的国民。还有什么更好的字眼能用来描述我们被迫选择的生活方式呢？还有什么更为可悲地表明我们在这个令人困惑的新时代所感受到的惶恐之情呢？
18 We trust no one. Suburban housewives wear rape whistles on their station wagon key chains. We have become so smart about self-protection that, in the end, we have all outsmarted ourselves. We may have locked the evils out, but in so doing we have locked ourselves in. 我们不信任任何人。郊区的家庭主妇在客货两用车钥匙链上挂着防强暴口哨。我们在自我防卫方面变得如此聪明，最终聪明反被聪明误。我们或许是把邪恶锁在了门外，但在这么做的同时我们把自己锁在里边了。
19 That may be the legacy we remember best when we look back on this age: In dealing with the unseen horrors among us, we became prisoners of ourselves. All of us prisoners, in this time of our troubles.
那也许是我们将来回顾这一时代时记得最牢的精神遗产：在对付我们中间无形的恐惧之时，我们成了自己的囚徒。在我们这个问题重重的时代，所有的人都是囚徒。
Many people in America own handguns. Some, like Gail Buchalter, buy a gun for self-defense. Others, like her friends, refuse to do so because they think that guns cause more problems than they solve. Gail used to share her friends' views, but eventually changed her mind. Read what she has to say and decide whether she made the right choice.
在美国，许多人拥有手枪。有人为了自卫买枪，如盖尔·巴卡尔特。另外一些人则拒绝这么做，比如她的许多朋友，因为他们认为，枪支引发的问题比解决的更多。以前盖尔与她的朋友们持有相同的观点，但后来她改变了看法。读一读她所说的一切，并判定她的选择是否明智。
Why I Bought A Gun
Gail Buchalter
1 I was raised in one of Manhattan's more desirable neighborhoods. My upper-middle-class background never involved guns. If my parents felt threatened, they simply put another lock on the door.
我为什么买枪 盖尔·巴卡尔特
我在曼哈顿一个相当不错的社区长大。我的中上阶级的社会背景从来与枪支无涉。我的父母要是觉得有威胁存在，他们仅仅是在门上再加把锁。
2 By high school, I had traded in my cashmere sweaters for a black arm band. I marched for Civil Rights, shunned Civil Defense drills and protested the Vietnam war. It was easy being 18 and a peacenik. I wasn't raising an 11-year-old child then.
高中时，我用一件开司米羊毛衫跟人换了个黑色的臂章。我参加人权游行，反对国防演习，抗议越南战争。作为妙龄18的少女，当一名反战分子，真是轻松自在。那时我还没有一个11岁的孩子要抚养。
3 (1) Today, I am typical of the women whom gun manufactures have been aiming at as potential buyers -- and one of the millions who have taken the plunge.
时至今日，我成了一个典型的被枪支制造商看重并视为其潜在买主的那种女人--成了成千上万个采取这种行动的人中的一员。
4 I began questioning my pacifist beliefs one Halloween night in Phoenix, where I had moved when I married. I was almost home when another car nearly hit mine head-on. With the speed of a New York cabbie, I rolled down my window and screamed curses as the driver passed. He instantly made a U-turn, almost climbing on my back bumper. By now, he and his two friends
were hanging out of the car windows, yelling that they were going to rape, cut and kill me.
一个万圣节的晚上，在我婚后移居的凤凰城，我开始怀疑自己的和平主义信条。一辆车与我的车差点迎头相撞时，我几乎都到家了。我以纽约城出租车司机的敏捷，快速摇下车窗高声咒骂那位开车的。他当即掉转车头，几乎撞上我的车后保险杠。这时，他和两个同伴从车窗伸出头来，嚷嚷着要强奸我，砍我，杀了我。
5 I already had turned into our driveway when I realized my husband wasn't home. I was trapped. The car had pulled in behind me. I drove up to the back porch and got into the kitchen,
where our dogs stood waiting for me. The three men spilled out of their car and into our yard. 我开进车道才想起丈夫不在家。这下我进退两难。那辆车尾随着跟了进来。我把车开到后门廊停下，冲进厨房，我家的那两条狗站在那儿等我。那三个家伙从汽车里一拥而出，进了院子。
6 My heart was pumping. I grabbed the collars of Jack, our 200-pound Irish wolfhound, and his 140-pound malamute buddy, Slush. Then I kicked open the back door -- I was so scared that I became aggressive -- and actually dared the three creeps to keep coming. With the dogs, the odds had changed in my favor, and the men ran back to the safety of their car, yelling that they'd be back the next day to blow me away. Fortunately, they never returned. 我的心怦怦直跳。我抓起杰克和斯露西的颈圈――一条是200磅重的爱尔兰狼狗，另一条是它的伙伴，140磅重的北极犬。随后我一脚踢开后门――我吓坏了，变得暴躁好斗――事实上我要激那三人过来。有狗相助，局势变得对我有利，他们退回安全的车里，嚷嚷着说要明天来宰了我。总算幸运，他们没再露面。
7 A few years and one divorce later, I headed for Los Angeles with my 3-year-old son, Jordan (the dogs had since departed). When I put him in preschool a few weeks later, the headmistress noted that I was a single parent and immediately warned me that there was a rapist in my new neighborhood.
几年后，我离了婚，带着3岁的儿子乔丹前往洛杉矶（那两条狗也死了）。几个星期后我送他去幼儿园，老师发现我是个单身母亲，马上提醒我，我刚搬入的居住区里有个强奸犯。
8 I called the police, who confirmed this fact. The rapist followed no particular pattern. Sometimes he would be waiting in his victim's house; other times he would break in while the person was asleep. Although it was summer, I would carefully lock my windows at night and then lie there and sweat in fear. Thankfully, the rapist was caught, but not before he had attacked two more women.
我给警察局打了个电话，他们证实了这一情况。那个强奸犯没有什么特别的作案规律。有时他在受害者家里等候，有时他趁人入睡时潜入。当时正是夏天，可夜间我还是谨慎地锁住窗户，然后躺在床上，吓得浑身是汗。谢天谢地，那个强奸犯被逮捕了，可那是在他又强暴了两名女子之后。
9 Soon the papers were telling yet another tale of senseless horror. Richard Bamirez, who became known as \(2) His alleged crimes were so brutal, his desire to inflict pain so intense, that I began to question
my beliefs about not taking human life under any circumstances. The thought of taking a human life disgusts me, but the idea of being someone's victim is worse. And how, I began to ask myself, do you talk pacifism to a murderer or a rapist? 不久，报纸上又报道起另一个丧心病狂的恐怖人物的事来。此人名叫理查德·巴米里，人称“入室杀手”，被抓获前，一连几个月残害、杀死他人。据称他的犯罪行为非常野蛮，他加害于人的欲望非常强烈，这使我开始对自己在任何情况下决不杀人的信念产生了怀疑。取人性命的想法令我憎恨，但成为他人受害者的念头更可怕。我开始问自己，你怎么跟一个杀人犯或强奸犯来谈论和平呢？
10 Finally, I decided that I would defend myself, even if it meant killing another person. (3) I realized that the one-sided pacifism I once so strongly had advocated could backfire on me and worse, on my son. Reluctantly, I concluded that I had to insure the best option for our survival. My choices: to count on a cop or to own a pistol.
最后，我决定要自我防卫，哪怕这意味着杀死他人。我意识到，自己曾积极提倡的一厢情愿的和平主义会为害自身，更糟的是，会为害我的儿子。于是我极不情愿地决定：为了我们的生存，我必须确保有一个最佳选择方案。我的选择：依靠警察，或拥有一支枪。
11 I called a man I had met a while ago who, I remembered, owned several guns. He told me he had a Smith & Wesson 38 Special for sale and recommended it, since it was small enough for me to handle yet had the necessary stopping power.
我给不久前认识的一个人打电话，我记得他有好几支枪。他告诉我，他有一支史密斯－韦森0.38口径特种枪要出售，建议我买下，因为那支枪小巧好使，又有必要的威慑力。
12 I bought the gun. That same day, I got six rounds of special ammunition with plastic tips that explode on impact. These are not for target practice; these are for protection.
我买下了枪。在同一天，我弄到了6发包着塑料头、一撞击就崩碎的特别的子弹。这些子弹不是打靶练习用的，是防身用的。
13 For about $50, I also picked up a metal safety box. Its push-button lock opens with a touch if you know the proper combination, possibly taking only a second or two longer than it does to reach into a night-table drawer. Now I knew that my son, Jordan, couldn't get his hands on it while I still could.
花了大约50美元，我还买了个金属安全盒。如果知道正确的暗码，它的按钮式锁一碰就开，大概比伸手去床头柜抽屉取他只慢一两秒钟。我知道儿子乔丹拿不到它，但我拿得到。
14 When I brought the gun home, Jordan was fascinated by it. He kept picking it up, while I nervously watched. But knowledge, I believe, is still our greatest defense. And since I'm in favor of education for sex, AIDS and learning to drive, I couldn't draw the line at teaching my son about guns.
我把枪拿回家，乔丹兴奋得不得了。他不停地拿起来看，我紧张地瞧着。但我相信，知识仍是我们最有力的防范手段。由于我主张对孩子进行性知识教育，艾滋病知识教育，以及让孩子学会开车，我不能不赞成教儿子关于枪的知识。
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