My Neighbor has a gun. In fact, not having the good fortune to live in the last house on a dead-end street, I am surrounded by neighbors with guns. My situation is hardly novel, since most American households own at least one weapon. We now have enough privately owned guns to arm nearly every man, woman and child in the country. And some of those children are not just imaginary gun users, as recent statistics indicate.
My neighbors ’guns make me nervous; I’m afraid that they might go off at the wrong time, pointed in the wrong direction. I’ve asked why such dangerous items are allowed to clutter up the house. I’ve gotten several answers, from constitutional rights to the innocent sport of blasting birds out of the skies. I’d like to focus on just one of these reasons.
My neighbor tells me that curling up at night with his gun nearby makes him feel safer. Safer from what? A madman out to better the going entry in the“Guinness Book of World Records ”for bloody brutality? My neighbor faces far less danger from the mentally ill killer, who fortunately is extremely rare, than he does from my other neighbor who also has a gun. Contrary to the public myth, mental patients have crime rates far below those of my neighbor or me; for all categories of crime and for homicide in particular. One of the few safe places left to live in this gun-packing country is on the grounds of your local mental hospital, where the residents are far less aggressive than my neighbor and guns are checked in at the gate.
Safer from some intruder (侵入者 ) in the night seeking to deprive his wife of her virtue or him of his new color television? According to best available estimates, my neighbor’s odds of doing himself in accidentally with his own gun are about five times higher than his odds of being done in by some intruder. As a gun owner, my neighbor would be better advised to invest his money in locks and a loud dog. Actually, the intruder in the night accounts for fewer than three percent of our gun deaths. The bulk comes from perfectly law-abiding ( 守法的 ) but gun-toting ( 持枪的 ) people like my neighbors, who kill each other, themselves, or me.
1)
Which of the following can be inferred from the first paragraph?
A. Each American household owns at least one weapon.
B. Every person in this country knows how to use guns.
C. Some American children have used gun to kill people.
D. The author lives in the last house on a dead-end street.
2)
Which of the following may be NOT the reason why neighbors ’guns make the author nervous?
A. Their guns might go off at the wrong time.
B. Their guns might point in the wrong direction. C. Their arms might kill me by accident.
D. Dislike the sport of blasting birds out of the skies.
3)
What does the author imply in the passage?
A. madman kills people to enter “Guinness Book of World Records”.
B. People like my neighbor have a higher crime rate than mental patients.
C. My neighbor is not likely to be killed by my other neighbor with guns.
D. Living in a mental hospital is dangerous due to its aggressive residents.
4)
What can we conclude from the fourth paragraph?
A. My neighbor is more likely to be killed by his own gun than by intruders’.
B. It’s better to invest money in guns than in locks or dogs.
C. The gun deaths are primarily caused by those intruders in the night.
D. Those people carrying guns don’t abide by the law.
5)
What is the author primarily concerned with In this passage?
A. Discussing the bloody brutality of killing by gun
B. Analyzing crimes committed by mental patients.
C. Worrying about the need for gun control.
D. Explaining why my neighbors need to own guns.
参考答案：
1) C 2) D 3) B 4) A 5) C
