“Hey, you hear about Prague?” I asked my brother one afternoon. I was over at his place, copping a beverage from the fridge.
“The ice cream bar?” he says.
“No, the city,” I said.
“I think so,” he said. “Anyway, I heard of it.”
“They had that shooting over there. Remember that?”
“Oh, they making a movie?”
“No—Jesus Christ,” I said.
“I do,” my niece said. “It was, like, four months ago.”
“So…two hundred American shootings ago,” my brother said.
“But you remember it, right?” I said. “Remember the last shooting they had here in the States?”
“Yeah, it was…the one…where they…uhh…,” my brother starts, then can’t finish.
“No,” my niece said. “They happen every day here.”
“It was the school. No, church. No, wait…,” my brother says, “block party!”
“Are you talking about the shootings?” my sister-in-law came into the room and said. “There was just one that happened in Tennessee,” she said.
“That was last year,” I said.
“Nuh-uh. It a big outdoor party in Memphis. A few people got shot.”
“Someone’s tallboy must’ve got palmed by mistake,” my brother said.
“Or someone’s RAM pickup rolled more coal, and somebody got peeyaaaased,” my niece said.
“God, I was just thinking,” my sister-in-law said, “Where can you go in this world to not get randomly shot by some lunatic? There’s gotta be someplace.”
“Singapore has the lowest incident of it, I believe,” I said.
“Oh, they’ll cane your ass down there just for…being late to work,” my brother said.
“You mean ‘can’ your ass?” my sister-in-law said.
“Nuh-uh. Cane it. You’ll be doing a week’s worth of emails upright if you punch in a second after 8 a.m.”
“What about Japan?” my niece said. “It’s pretty safe. Everybody just goes to work, reads manga or joins a social clique, then goes to bed. Even the Yakuza don’t carry guns.”
“Monkeys,” my brother mumbles.
“What?” my niece said.
“Monkeys. They’ll come to your back door and take your baby.”
“Few gun killings, though,” I said. “I mean, unless you’re a former prime minister.”
“But there are a lot of safe places all over without the same kind of gun stuff as America,” my sister-in-law said. “right?”
“Sort of. Anywhere that’s not Brazil, Mexico, India, Colombia, Venezuela, the upper half of Central America, Nigeria, the Philippines or Iraq, I guess. But it is like a ‘pick your poison’ kind of thing. Some of those places, a mob’ll get you. Or a gang. Or a militia. Or the police. Or jihad. Or the actual army. Or…monkeys, I suppose. It’s all kind of the same in the end. Here, that stuff won’t happen.”
“Yeah, but here your next door neighbor’ll get you,” my brother said.
“We have gangs, too,” my sister-in-law said.
“Not the kind that overthrow the government,” I said.
“What I don’t understand is, why is regulating gun ownership such a big deal?” my niece said. “It’s not like guns are getting taken away. Just moderated.”
“’Cause people are f—ing stupid,” my brother said.
“They distrust the government as much as they do some fantastic symbol of evil, like devils with horns and hoofs and sh–,” I said. “And they listen to what right wing media tells them. In effect, they’re not informed and never will be. They think that’s why World War II was fought. Or the American Revolution. Or The Philippine War, or why Europeans left Europe in the 17th f—ing century. So that nobody could take away their guns. You offer it to a sensible person, and it don’t make any sense.”
“Nah, it’s a business,” my brother shrugged. “Same reason Jimmy Borgacientolini is gonna ask help from the mob when some other…Italian bakery shows up on the block, some competitor. Somebody’s gonna lose money. And it ain’t gonna be Jimmy Borgialeonialini.”
“But they’re not,” my niece said. “I mean, people are still gonna buy guns. Everything’ll just be a little bit safer.”
“Nah, it’s just the beginning,” I said. “You can’t lose even the slightest bit of market share. Or see the market take a tumble. A bit of loss can lead to huge loss in no time. They’re scared to death. So, they brainwash. Make it a political issue by exaggerating or lying about it. What do they care? They’re all getting paid. The lobbyists, news anchors, the networks, oftentimes the politicians. At least, they’re benefiting from it.”
“So, people are gonna keep dying because of money? That’s crazy,” my sister-in-law said. I almost spit my drink onto the floor, then looked at my brother. He opened his mouth to say something, then shut it. It really was a whole other conversation.
