This popped into my head on the bus ride home.
Oh, fair warning. This is satire. But it’s not funny.
(SCENE : An interview room in a prison. Seated opposite one another are RICK PETRIE, a mild mannered middle class middle management type, and ROSCO “ROCK” TELLURIDE, a tall, thickly muscled prisoner. )
PETRIE (P) : First off, I want to thank you for agreeing to talk with me. I have said some pretty hateful things about you in the media, and I pretty much expected you to tell me to go to hell. But I had to task. My faith compels me to work towards forgiveness, and I thought talking to you, one human being to another, would help me along that path. So I appreciate you taking the time to talk to me.
TELLURIDE (T) : Time is the one luxury the government affords us detainees in great abundance, Mister Petrie. I am happy to share some of it with you.
P : Good….. good. Now, the first question I want to ask is…. what was going through your mind the night you shot my wife?
T : When I what now?
P : When you shot my wife. Shot her dead. Dead before she even hit the ground. What were you thinking that night?
T : Are you referring to the incident where the jackbooted thugs of the federal government stormed into my private residence, threw me to the ground and cuffed me in front of my innocent and God-fearing family, then dragged me off like a common criminal in front of a neighborhood full of my peers, all to punish me for exercising my Second Amendment rights?
P : Um…. yeah…. I guess. The night they arrested you. For shooting my wife…. earlier that day.
T : How could I forget the night when the heavy hand of reached out to silence me for being a true patriot and standing up for my constitutional rights?
P : That’s not…. listen, you admit you killed my wife, right?
T : I may have discharged my lawfully acquired and owned firearm in her direction.
P : May have? The cops have video of you doing it! From three different angles! You definitely shot my wife!
T : If you say so, then I believe you. I have no specific recollection of the event. It was, after all, a long time ago.
P : But…. but you remember murdering my wife, right?
T : Murder is just another liberal buzzword used to deny law-abiding Americans their freedom, Mister Petrie. All I did was exercise my right to bear firearms.
P : And I fully support that right. I’ve been an NRA member all my life. But that right doesn’t give you the right to kill my wife! It doesn’t give you the right to murder?
T : Is that so? Where in the Second Amendment does it say that? Surely you are not one of those gun-hating liberals who thinks we get to pick and choose what parts of the Constitution we obey. The Constitution is a perfect document, Mister Petrie. Or are you saying the Founding Fathers made a mistake?
P : Well, no, of course not. But surely they didn’t mean….
T : There you go, thinking you know the minds of the greatest and wisest men ever known. Men who create America, the greatest country there has ever been and will ever be. You are just like all those activist judges who think it’s their job to decide what the Constitution says this week. Their only job is to follow the Constitution, and there is nothing in the Constitution that says I can’t shoot people.
P : But what about “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”?
T : That’s just the preamble. The courts are clear on that. The preamble doesn’t count.
P : Oh, so now you listen to the courts?
T : Of course! I am, after all, a law-abiding citizen.
P : But you broke the law when you killed my wife!
T : It is no crime to defy an unjust law, Mister Petrie. That’s what I told the judge who imprisoned me here just because my opinions aren’t “politically correct”. And after all, doesn’t the tree of liberty need to be watered with blood now and then in order to stay healthy and strong?
P : But that’s supposed to be your own blood!
T : Tell that to the heroes of the American Revolution. They were not afraid to shed the blood of the British in order to shed the chains of tyranny.
P : But all you did was kill my wife?
T : I disagree. You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion.
P : This isn’t a matter of opinion. You killed my wife! It’s a fact!
T : That’s what you liberals always say when someone dares to disagree with your socialist dogma. You liberals think you have the monopoly on truth just because you twist people’s words and make them mean whatever you want. I, for one, am not fooled.
P : Things are true whether or not you believe them!
T : I totally agree. No matter what you or I believe, I didn’t kill your wife for wearing a Jesus pin.
P : What’s wrong with wearing a Jesus pin? Don’t you love Jesus?
T : That dirty socialist hippie? Of course not. All he did was go around telling people about sharing and loving and tolerance with all his unemployed hippie friends. Going and talking about how people should be selling everything and giving it to the poor…. that’s redistribution of wealth! Talk like that has no place in a good Christian nation like the United States of America.
(P gets up angrily)
P : I’ve had all I can take of this bullshit! You killed my wife, you bastard, and I look forward to seeing you rot in hell for what you did!
T : That might happen sooner than you think.
(SFX : Walls of room ignite like paper when a lit match is applied, revealing that they are, in fact, in Hell. )
I will talk to you nice people again tomorrow.