The Only Thing That Stops a Bad Guy With a Gun Is a Dragon

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. It was a difficult decision to make, but we really had no choice, did we? We had to protect our children somehow. I understand why people might object. But it's just the way I was raised.

Sure, the Valley's a pretty chill kind of place. Folks here watch out for each other, check in on their neighbors, help 'em out. Why, there's an elderly couple living right next door to us, my husband'll go over and mow their lawn for 'em, never expect anything for it. The family on the other side, well, we're always sharing stuff back and forth, tools and baking tins and like that. And every Fourth of July the whole neighborhood gets together for a block party-slash-barbeque. We even make sure there's something the vegetarians can eat. We're just that way. Look out for our own.

But when the gover'ment doesn't watch out for you, I mean, you kind of gotta take the bull by the horns, so to speak. Get my drift?

When the politicians who're s'posed to make laws to keep folks safe, well, they just whore themselves out to the special interests—you know the ones I'm talkin' about, no need to say it here—then I figure folks have the right to protect themselves. All of this Second Amendment crap! That might have flown back in 1791, when the onlyest guns folks had were muskets and carbines, but claiming a semiautomatic weapon is the best way to kill a raccoon or squirrel is flat out ludicrous. People make asses of themselves claiming such crap.

Yeah, I know damn well what it says! I went to school, didn't I? "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." What that means is that folks who belong to a "well-regulated militia" can keep their guns. No problem! Let 'em have 'em!

But now, you show me what militia a nineteen-year-old boy who wasn't well-regulated enough to graduate from high school belongs to! None, that's what! You tell me how a bunch of elementary school kids and their teachers posed a military threat to their community so's some hothead who can't even regulate his emotional state needs to go and slaughter them all. Uh uh! Not gonna fly.

So like I said, this Valley has always been peaceful, and we take care of our own. But what's gonna stop some mentally perverted sicko with a grudge against the world from coming down here? With a fucking AR-15 rifle and four hundred rounds of ammunition? Excuse my French. I just get so damn worked up in the face of their stupidity. Did you know that so far this year—and mind you, it's only just startin' June—there have been 213 mass shootings in this country? And not a single one of them has been carried out by a well-regulated militia against an enemy who threatened the people of this country of ours.

No, sir. The number of deaths from gun violence so far this year? Eighteen thousand, four hundred, and forty-three! The number of mass shootings in schools, where our innocent, defenseless children go to learn and make friends and explore what they want to be when they grow up? Twenty-seven! There isn't a kid in this country who can go to school and feel safe, nor yet a teacher, neither. All that makes me fear for what's to become of this country, when we can't go to school or church or the grocery store without risking our lives.

And that, plain and simple, is why there are dragons in the Valley today. "The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun, is a good guy with a gun." You've heard them spout that hogwash over and over. As if a fifty-year-old woman teaching five-year-olds to say their ABCs is gonna be able to grab a gun and blow away some kid wearing body armor whose parents gave their little mentally-deranged sweetheart an AK-47 for his sixteenth birthday. As if a five-foot-four lunch lady is gonna be able to get the drop on some guy standing on a table in the middle of the cafeteria spraying twenty-three bullets per second around at his classmates.

No, guns don't stop guns. Dragons stop guns.

You just look around you, now. Every other business in this Valley has a guard dragon prowling around. Every school and office building has a dragon walking the halls and keeping the peace. School resource officers? Pffft! A bullet'll take one of those guys out quicker than you can blink. But a dragon is naturally armored. Why do you think those knights of old had such a hard time rescuing all them brainless princesses who got themselves carried off? (If they did get carried off, which in my opinion they just wanted to live independent lives and went off with the dragons willingly. Make good pets, they do. Very loyal.)

No, putting the dragons on guard up in the pass wouldn't work. Too many routes over the hills 'sides the main road. And in any case, we have business to conduct. Shipments comin' in and out. Folks visiting their families and friends. You can't really restrict traffic like that. Quality of life.

And we don't have any reason to fear the dragons, not like we do folks with guns. Our dragons are genetically modified so they don't attack people. They're like giant lapdogs, really. Just if they catch a whiff of gun oil, they go crazy. Won't stop 'til they find the gun and melt it into slag. Yeah, one blast of fire from their bellies and a gun turns into a puddle of goo. We haven't had a single incident here in the Valley, not since the summer of '28. You remember that story, right? No, I won't go into the gory details. Suffice it to say that there won't be no twenty-year-old "militiaman" coming down in here again, looking to take out his rage at not being handed a mansion and twenty virgins and a garage full of fancy cars on a bunch of innocent bystanders.

And the modifications include the scales. Our scientists modified the dragons' DNA with some sort of organic Kevlar-type stuff. Something that comes from some type of algae, as I understand it. I don't know the science, but I've seen the demonstrations. A dragon's scales can stop any projectile, from a Samurai sword to armor-piercing bullets.

Yes, that's my five-year-old daughter over there in the park. Kelsey. She loves having a dragon babysitter. Her big brothers—Jason is seven and Robbie is nine—love having a dragon to go on adventures with after school. Nope! Not a single qualm about letting my kids roam the Valley without an adult present. As long as they're with Mephistopheles there, why, they're as safe as can be. See, now, this is how kids deserve to live. Free to roam and explore and learn about the world around them. No worries about armed psychos or pedophiles. And a dragon is the loyal-est friend a kid could ever have.

There weren't always dragons in the Valley. But we'll never be without them again.

***

Author's Note: This was by far the most difficult story I've written lately. Many of my previous dragon stories addressed current issues we're all dealing with: climate change, sexual orientation, creating a meaningful life. The murders of nineteen innocent children and two dedicated teachers in Uvalde, Texas this past month left me, and most others in a world filled with growing and incomprehensible gun violence, reeling. But I worry that it may be too soon to address this in a work of fiction. The issue of allowing anyone to purchase a weapon of mass destruction is a highly politicized issue that should have been an easy one to solve, except that there's too much profit wrapped up in easy access to guns to allow intelligent regulations to be put into law. My Revolutionary War ancestors would be appalled at how we've twisted their intentions for this country to suit a political agenda.

But I've said my piece. There are others more qualified than this reclusive little storyteller to address this issue in the real world. I hope my motives will be understood and forgiven. I want only to get people thinking and acting—FOR GOD'S SAKE, VOTE!!!—and stop the slaughter.

Thank you for reading! Likes, comments, shares, follows, and pledges are always cherished, like a dragon treasures a cavern filled with gold. And books.

I have challenged myself to write twenty-seven dragon prologues/stories for the Vocal.media Fantasy Prologue Challenge, one for each day the challenge runs. And I have accomplished my goal! Here's a link to my first story, taking the challenge full-circle: