for my friends in the NRA

“Everyone get down on the floor,” Dillinger cracked. “Keep your heads down and stay calm. This’s a bank robbery!” Dillinger was his first name, Dillinger Severnson, but it sounded tough so he went with it. People just assumed he was one of the Dillingers.

No one moved.

“Didn’t you hear me? I said get down!” He brandished the shotgun menacingly. It was empty but they didn’t know that.

An old man smiled at him, a saintly smile. “Oh, yes.” Suddenly there was a piece of ordinance in his hands, an enormous, wicked looking black cannon that dwarfed his frail old body. “We heard you, I’d say.”

Guns blossomed across the room, from pockets, from waists, from armpits and sleeves.

“Holy shit,” said Dillinger, not loudly. He threw himself on the floor just as the first gun spat at him.

The next morning the newspapers carried the story: 14 SLAIN IN BANK ROBBERY GONE AWRY.