Your Fondest
Wish
by
Russell Madden
This is for any and all of those people who abhor and reject
the very idea of an armed, innocent civilian being present when a
murderer enters an area, whether on an island in the daytime with
hundreds of children around or in a crowded movie theater in the dark.
If you should ever find yourself in such a horrible situation, may you
have your deepest desires fulfilled.
As you listen to the initial thundering cracks of the murderer’s weapon
and have the terrified screams of the first victims tearing at your
ears, rest easy knowing that the cold-blooded killer is the only one
present with a gun. No gun carrying, law-abiding citizen will overcome
his or her fear, his or her urge to flee and pull a firearm from its
holster as more victims collapse before the relentless firing of the
madman. As the acrid smell of cordite floats through the air with the
thickening fog of smoke, you can take solace in the reality that a
well-meaning citizen will not take aim at the mass murderer and fire
his or her gun. As another victim crumples beside you, you need not
fear that a gun owner will miss the intruder and hit another innocent
and wound or kill that person. Smile in the fullness of your inner
peace realizing that you need not experience a situation in which a
citizen shoots the murderer dead and ends the bloodshed in a moment; or
ends the murderer’s rampage but accidentally injures or kills someone
else in the highly unlikely possibility that the bullet exits the
murderer’s now lifeless shell and strikes another.
As the psycho’s next bullet tears into your flesh, you can rejoice in
the fact that no one in your presence has any effective means of
stopping your executioner. As your blood gushes from your falling body
and soaks into the sugar-encrusted, aging carpet, close your eyes safe
in the knowledge that the continued shots of the murderer and the
seemingly endless shouts of horror and pain will stretch into the
future you no longer have. As the beating of your heart erodes to
quiescence and no more of your blood pools beneath you, you need not be
disgusted that any armed innocent will stop the murderer’s streak of
death before he either runs out of ammunition or tires of the
destruction that has finally sated his bloodlust.
If you ever find yourself in such a hopeless, helpless situation, you
can experience the ending to this sick scenario that you prefer, a
termination of your existence that is untainted by the actions of
someone who wanted –– somehow, some way –– to do the right thing, who
tried to save himself and those nearby, both strangers and friends,
even if he or she failed in the valiant attempt, even if that
retaliation focused the murderer’s attention on a real threat to his
obsession. Better for you and for all those dead and wounded that there
be zero chance of succor rather than that there be even the smallest
chance of a rescue.
May you have your fondest wish come to full fruition and may you suffer
as you deserve.
