NEVER BEEN CHARGED

I'm a chunk of metal, springs and steel,

No heartbeat underneath my seal.

I don't have anger, I don't make plans,

I don't pick fights, I don't hate man.

I sit on a shelf till somebody comes,

Puts me in a holster, loads me up and runs.

Then somebody makes a choice and suddenly I'm to blame.

Funny how a piece of metal always gets the name.

Someone else pulls the trigger,

Someone else makes the choice.

Someone else has the anger,

Someone else has the voice.

I'm just sitting here waiting,

I don't know wrong from right.

I've never pulled a trigger,

I've never started a fight.

I've never made a decision—

Every decision came through you.

Take me to a courtroom, put me in a case,

Lay me on the evidence table, photograph my face.

Check my serial number, lift the prints you find,

But nobody ever asks me what was going through my mind.

Never read me my rights, never sentence me to time,

I'm evidence every time, but the crime was never mine.

You don't call it car violence when a driver breaks the law,

You don't blame a kitchen knife for what somebody saw.

You blame the one who chose to use the tool that night,

So why do I become the villain when it's me in sight?

Someone else pulls the trigger,

Someone else makes the choice.

Someone else has the anger,

Someone else has the voice.

I'm just sitting here waiting,

I don't know wrong from right.

I've never pulled a trigger,

I've never started a fight.

I've never made a decision—

Every decision came through you.

I've been in a hunter's hands beneath an autumn sky,

I've been locked inside a safe while the years went by.

I've ridden in a holster, I've rested in a drawer,

I've watched generations come and go before.

Then somebody chooses hatred, somebody chooses rage,

And suddenly I'm the headline splashed across the page.

Somewhere a husband won't be coming home,

Somewhere a child is suddenly alone.

Don't tell me that loss isn't real—I know what I've seen.

But don't confuse the tool with the hand that's holding me.

I never pulled my own trigger,

I never chose who dies.

I never felt the anger,

I never made the choice.

I'm just steel in somebody's hand,

I don't know wrong from right.

So don't put the blame on me—

Someone else pulled the trigger that night.

Maybe that's the question nobody wants to ask:

Why does somebody choose to do a terrible act?

Why do we raise a world where anger gets fed?

Why blame the object instead of what's inside the head?

You can lock me away, you can throw me aside,

But if you never face the reason, another tool will arrive.

Someone else pulls the trigger,

Someone else makes the choice.

I've never taken a husband,

Never taken a wife.

I've never taken someone's child,

Never chosen someone's life.

Call me what you want to call me,

Put my picture on the screen.

I'm just a piece of metal—

Somebody else made me mean.