Always amazed at the things I see online. Here’s one that showed up in my feed the other day: “Due to the price increase on ammo, do not expect a warning shot!”
This kind of thinking does not go to a place I ever want my heart to go.
It’s just a joke, and I get that. It has to be a joke, because a good person would not really believe that the cost of a round of ammunition is of less value than a human life, nor would we ever kill someone just to save fifty cents if that’s all it would cost to warn them away so they wouldn’t get hurt or killed.
Warning shots aren’t smart, for a whole lot of very solid reasons — but the heart-cold callousness that says something like this and then laughs about it … well, that’s not something I’d want said of where my heart was if I ever faced the heartbreaking choice to save an innocent life at the cost of a criminal’s life. In the best of all possible worlds, such a choice would never be needed.
So I can’t laugh at that callousness here either.
Yes, I’ve seen this “joke” as a yard sign.
One wonders what would happen if a person shoots in self-defense, kills the attacker, is hauled into court… and the lawyer for the other side shows photos of such a sign, prominently displayed on the shooter’s property.
My guess is that suddenly, the shooter won’t find it as funny as before.