Great American "Dead Pool" (Satire)

I write this blog on Wednesday February 14th, 2018. It's Valentine's day and the VERY first news story I heard upon turning on my television when I walked into  the house wasn't about someone buying a ridiculously expensive gift for their significant other, or of some elderly couple who've spent the past 70 years together and never let the romance leave their union.
       
              Rather than hearing about the candy, floral and greeting card industry holiday that IS St. Valentines day, I heard about some kid in Florida who showed up at his old high school with an AR-15 and decided to shoot up  the place. Over the past few years I've turned on my TV immediately after work and heard about guys with handguns and AR-15s and AK-47s shooting up shopping malls, movie theatres, colleges campuses concerts and work places and my law makers always have the same reaction. They all come out and offer their prayers and condolences. They all show up at memorials and candle light vigils, then they go back to their legislative bodies and argue over what should be done. The arguing turns ugly then is forgotten until a month later when it happens again and they repeat the process.
            Let me give my reader a little more perspective here. Men (the shooters are RARELY EVER women) have shot up hospitals and clinics,  ELEMENTARY SCHOOLS and even a public park where the members of the United States Congress were playing baseball. Those SAME Congressmen then went on to argue about existing and possible gun laws and ultimately changed the subject two weeks later.

        There are those who try to politicize the shootings. I will NOT attempt to do so in this essay.  I will NOT blame a religion, ideology, nationality or ethnic group for all these shootings. I will simply say they are a symptom of an apathetic society which would rather watch our citizenry die than even contemplate enforcing existing gun laws OR attempting to put safeguards in place to make sure that the handful of people who SHOULD NOT have access to spoons to consume pudding (for fear that they could kill some with one) don't ever get to possess a fire arm.

        I imagine the cynics among you will ask me for MY solution. Well I have one. All of us can bitch and say that something should be done, but who can come up with an actual solution.  Well to silence my critics I DO have a solution. My solution is THIS, a nation wide DEAD POOL!


We will pass NO laws infringing upon ANY citizen's right to own ANY fire arm, pyrotechnic, ordnance or other deadly device. In fact we should allow citizens to own FULLY automatic weapons, hand grenades, land mines, artillery pieces, anti tank guns, anti aircraft guns, mortars, flame throwers and even the elusive exploding and rarely seen exploding herring of Ecuador.

Our dead pool? Well, It will operate like a lottery, and be headed by British bookmakers who have NO STAKE in American gun policy or violence as our OWN Las Vegas odds makers MAY be a tad biased.

Participants have to fill out forms  and answer the following questions about the shooting.

A Weapon: What was used? Gun? Knife? Sherman tank? Banana?

B. Sex of the shooter:  Man? Woman? Tran-sexual? Maybe the shooter's a hermaphrodite!

C. Location/Geography: Is it in the north, south, Midwest. southwest, Hawaii? Guam? Puerto Rico? come on pick a place!

D. Location: School, house of worship, work place, concert, restaurant? Maybe you'll pic a ball pit at a pizza place and luck up!

E. Religion/ Nationality/ Ideology: Why did the shooter do it? Was he a Muslim? A Mexican? A Mexican Muslim with a bad haircut who got tired of being called "Dukakis"? Was the shooter a racist? A member of a group that wishes to popularize ball room dancing or just some guy with a bad overbite who felt he wasn't being fairly portrayed in national media?

F, Reason: Did the shooter claim some deity made him/her do it? Did he blame society as a whole? Was some institutional 'ism" to blame?  Did he/she simply want to be on TV for shooting someone?

If you get all six correct you get a HUGE pile of cash to be paid out by the state in which the incident occurs, the individuals serving as their District attorneys and ALL of their elected officials on the local, county, state and FEDERAL level!

Since we can't STOP our countrymen from slaughtering one another with high powered weapons, let's AT LEAST allow citizens who are law abiding win fabulous prizes guessing when a group of their fellow Americans will be used as target practice! No one gets their gun taken away! No one with a six foot, psychotic, imaginary rabbit as a best friend has "big government" tell him/her they CAN'T have a gun or any OTHER deadly device and we all get a new game of chance, and the best part is our government gets tax revenue from every "winning entry!" It's a HUGE win win!