A/N: Wow. My first mothership piece. Hope it doesn't suck too bad...I've never written for this particular fandom, though I have for CI and SVU...anyways...L&O isn't mine...and now I'm done rambling.
It's just metal. That's all it is. It's metal, shaped into something that in one person's hands can save a life and in another person's hands can take a life. It's an object, one that can be controlled in different ways, depending on the person wielding it. It's nothing…unless it's being used for the wrong reasons.
There's a reason why once has to have a license to own one. Why one has to have a license to use one. And a reason why if one doesn't have one, the police can confiscate it. The police are people who use it for the right reasons. Other people…they can't be too sure. They're at constant risk of being hurt by this simple metal object every day. But they're still out there.
That's why when they're around while shots are ringing out, they stiffen, hoping that it isn't what they think it is. But it almost always is. And the next thing they know, they're standing at another crime scene, over another body. Looking for yet another piece of metal, shaped into something innocent enough in one's hands, but lethal in another.
And as they look, they wonder how something as simple as metal can be turned into something that can make their lives a living hell.