This is sort of the reverse of my previous question on Clint Smith's poem "The Gun". While it's blatant about referring to all of the kids as "guns", I find it interesting that the other characters aren't called as such.
At the very least they are given pronouns other than it/its. The shooter is "he":
the gun heard he’s down!
The mother is "her":
the gun hugged its sobbing mother and cried into her arms
Recall that in addition to the main character being referred to over and over as a "gun", the other students are "guns" as well.
the gun moved to a closet filled with several other shaking guns
Why are these other characters in the poem given human pronouns? What significance/meaning does that add to the poem?
