Gimme Back My Bullets

I really like using the phrase "Is it still illegal to shoot someone?" because the answer is completely obvious so no one would take you seriously yet they get the point that you are incredibly aggitated with someone.

I was thinking this to myself last night while driving home and an immediate afterthought was "What if it wasn't?" I mean, what if we were all given one freebie, one shot on-the-house? You know, kind of like that other fun remark of "You only get one of those" after someone has hit you with a snowball, or has somehow otherwise zinged you. I bet most of us would waste it as teenagers, you know how rash they can be.

Would there then be some type of black market where shots were bought and sold? That would lead to interesting ethical delimas (after, of course, we have resolved the original delima of being allowed to actually kill someone); if the goodie-two-shoes people always somehow got rid of theirs so they could claim that they would never do such a thing even if it was allowed, could they still claim they were better than others if they knew someone was going to get two shots? I bet all of the manipulators out there would figure out ways to convince others to use theirs on people they really want dead and so that in essence, they could really have more than one free shot.

But there would be no guarantee that the shot would kill the other person. Then you have the issue of someone having a grudge against you forever; maybe they turn and use theirs on you and you actually die. Just like a good old-fashioned duel. Someone once told me that there is documentation of a duel held down in the South in the 1800's where it took something like three days for the two men to die; they had so many wounds that they were just slowly bleeding out. That certainly takes the romance out of those duel scenes in the movies, but not the movie "Duel" because that's between automobiles.

What if there were some countries or governmental units that decided to not follow that free-shot policy? Would the people rise up and revolt? What if that leader was replaced with someone who didn't even like punching or any action that could be construed as assault but then constructed invisible fencing around the border so the people couldn't leave? Oh, that's just silly.

This all started because a new co-worker has a very bad habit of throwing insults into the middle of her sentences but ending with a question so you then answer the question and you always mean to go back and address the insult but somehow never get the chance to...and it leaves you angry. So angry that if you had one free shot, you'd probably use it on her.