"Drop that shih-tzu, or I'll shootcha!"

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2014
The Weekly Screed (#664)

“Drop that shih-tzu, or I’ll shootcha!”

by David Benjamin

“… ‘Watch it!’ [Cordell] Jude yelled to Adkins, who was mentally disabled, according to USA Today. Adkins then swung what looked like a pipe in the air and Jude shot and killed him — the pipe-like object turned out to just be a dog leash…”

MADISON, Wis. — Wayne LaPierre, head honcho of the National Rifle Ass’n. appeared to me last night in a dream — well, more of a nightmare.

Wayne was aghast over the verdict in the Michael Dunn case in Florida. Dunn had fired ten shots at a vehicle containing four black teenagers, killing one, Jordan Davis. Because he continued shooting at the car after the kid at the wheel wisely chose to flee, Dunn was convicted on three counts of attempted murder. But the jury, by a 9-3 vote, hung on a charge of first-degree murder in Davis’ death.

“I guess you’re upset,” I said to Wayne, “because a law-abiding gun owner, standing his ground against a quartet of rap-crazed thugs, was convicted of attempted murder for shooting out the tail lights of the thugmobile.”

“Yes, that bothers me, because I favor gunplay in every situation,” said Wayne, who, for some reason, was holding a bouquet of gladiolas. “But you’ve missed the real threat to Americans’ Second Amendment rights here.”

“Which is?” I asked.

“Which is,” replied Wayne, his voice rising an octave, “every law-abiding American’s clearly defined, unalienable, Constitutional right to defend himself against the deadly threat of the imaginary gun.”

“Imaginary gun?”

“Look, fella,” said Wayne. “You followed the trial. Michael Dunn stated absolutely that he saw a shotgun in the hands of that colored boy before Big Mike blew the raving, bloodthirsty thug into Kingdom Come.”

“Did you just say ‘colored boy?’”

“Don’t distract me, son,” said Wayne. “Do you realize that, if not for three courageous white people on that Jacksonville jury, the sacred principle of taking up arms against imaginary guns would have been crippled, perhaps beyond repair.”

“What principle? I’ve never heard of a law about imaginary — ”

“No, there’s no law!” said Wayne. “But American law enforcement has a long, honored tradition of shooting suspicious characters in the dark alleys of ethnic neighborhoods who appeared to be holding a gun that turned out to be imaginary and had to be replaced by what our brave police call a ‘drop gun.’”

“Yes, but that’s — ”

“As American as apple pie!” said Wayne. “As American as baseball!”

“Baseball?”

“Look, fella,” said Wayne. “Remember when you were 12 and you wanted to get up a baseball game but you only had six or seven kids. So, when your team was up, and you got two runners on base and there was nobody to bat, what did you have to do?”

“Well,” I said, “you put an imaginary man on base.”

“There you go!” said Wayne. “And if you hit a home run, that imaginary man would score. He was real enough to help you win the game. Right? And look at me, dummy. You’re having a dream, but you’re talking to me. I’m an imaginary man, beating the hell out of you in a real argument.”

“Wait a minute!” I said, struggling to make sense of my nightmare.

“Here, hold this,” said Wayne, handing me the bouquet of gladiolas. I took it. Grinning with triumph, Wayne crowed, “There. You see?”

“See what?”

“You’ve just demonstrated the ultimate refinement of the imaginary gun.” Wayne drew a 9mm Glock from his shoulder holster. “I handed you an object, You accepted it without thinking. I’m free now to blow your brains out.”

I stood dumbstruck, looking down the barrel of the huge handgun.

“You see, only three jurors in the Michael Dunn trial understood how real and deadly Jordan Davis’ imaginary shotgun could be, especially as it materialized and expanded into a veritable machine-gun, a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a Howitzer, in the bigoted — but sincere — mind of Michael Dunn. Only three astute jurors perceived that, armed with an imaginary gun, Jordan Davis was far better armed — metaphysically — than his killer could ever hope to be.”

“But I don’t understand,” I said helplessly. “A metaphysical shotgun?”

“What do you think you’re holding right now, son?” replied Wayne. “To me, or Michael Dunn, or that gunslinger in Arizona who blasted the retarded guy walking his dog, that isn’t a bunch of flowers. It’s a fully automatic, mega-clip AK-47, and you’re threatening to shoot my nuts off.”

“I am?”

“It doesn’t have to be gladiolas, either. It could be a copy of Vanity Fair, or a bottle of beer, or your pet lapdog. If I think you’re holding a gun, well then, I’ve got a God-given Constitutional right to pump you so full of cop-killer bullets that they’ll have to shovel you off the pavement. And no jury in America — well, at least the real America: Florida, Georgia, Mississippi — would convict me.”

Appalled but also aware that he was right, I asked, “ So, Wayne, you and the NRA want Congress to pass a law allowing deadly force against anyone holding any object that a trigger-happy stranger with a concealed weapon could construe — in his wildest flights of metaphysical paranoia — to be a gun.”

“Law? Who needs a law?” said Wayne, as my nightmare did a slow dissolve. “Right now, friend, as long as we can get one gun-owning white guy onto any jury, we can shoot pretty much anything — or anyone — that moves.”