Twenty Five

America… just a nation of two hundred million used car salesmen with all the money we need to buy guns and no qualms about killing anybody else in the world who tries to make us uncomfortable.

Hunter S. Thompson
Two Hundred Million Used Car Salesmen

walk into a neighborhood bar. A guy with red hair says, 
"Barkeep, what IPAs you got on tap?" And the man
next to him, big bearded guy in a Yankees cap, sucks
down the last of his Miller Lite, pulls a Ruger from his
pants, and blasts the offending ginger in the head. 
Brain matter splatters the bartender and etc.  

Reporters have to sort out 199,999,999 stories 
before the evening news. A source close to the victim 
says that though he often extolled the virtues of 
Indie microbreweries in a "kind of bray" after midnight, 
he was essentially a good guy, never hurt no one,
so how'd he end up with a cap in his ass after
ordering a Sam Adams at Richard Cranium's Bar?

Meanwhile, police say it has nothing to do with 
race, because all lives matter (even swill-sucking 
hipster liberal lives), and also it is not true that 
the shooter was an off-duty cop who managed 
to slip away in the confusion, but that in fact 
they have no leads at this time and are not taking 
any more questions. 

NRA lobbyists argue it was not the Ruger that killed 
the redhead but the unsub's finger on the plastic 
trigger. One bad apple, that is, and not one of the
millions of decent Americans who should be able to
bear arms without submitting to invasive 
background checks, mental health records, or
ridiculous waiting periods.

A half dozen local high school students 
take to the streets in protest, forgetting homework. 
Some of them break a few shop windows. 
At least, that's what the armed out-of-town anti-
protesters say is the case when they're stopped
by the burning gas station and etc.

A lot more Americans stay home, weighing in online.
They make a lot of Chuck Norris jokes.  A meme 
goes viral: "How many Chuck Norrises does it take to
to screw in a lightbulb? / None. Chuck prefers to
kill in the dark."