Dinosaurs Don’t Kill People

The downstream effects of the Thirtieth Amendment, colloquially known as the Bioshock Bill, weren’t apparent until long after President Thiel’s fifth-term assassination. Neofascists on the right claimed its passing unleashed an unprecedented era of deregulation-inspired economic growth. Neofascists on the left said it made Oklahoma, Arkansas, and Tennessee the most expensive beachfront property in the Empire.

My dad, a macroeconomics professor at the University of The Lincoln Project — an online-only, for-profit institute of higher learning — taught me #bothsides made valid points. My lawyers, however, assured me I’d always been a staunch advocate of the law.

See, the Thirtieth Amendment allowed me to meet Max, my pet Tyrannosaurus, whom I loved dearly, and raised since he was a wee little egg. The Thirtieth Amendment also provided my best legal defense against the slew of civil charges I faced after Max devoured my calculus teacher and slaughtered sixty-four of my high school classmates.

State-, corporate-, and civilian-run media outfits branded my case the “Trial of the Century.” It was simulcast throughout the Empire and across the four inhabitable continents, triggering worldwide protests and breathless neuro-engagement readings.

#NOTALLDINOSAURS trended on PayPal Live week after week after week, while t-shirts emblazoned with a badge-wearing Iguanodon and the words “The only way to stop a bad dinosaur…” became the best-selling item in the history of PayPal’s OmniStore.

As my lawyers anticipated, the prosecution attempted to vilify Max during their opening argument. They said carnivorous dinosaurs were intrinsically violent animals and nobody should own one. They cited “statistics” indicating over one hundred thousand people were killed by violent dinosaur attacks per year.

My mom, a talk show host on our local PayPal OmniNet affiliate, shouted “lies,” “damned lies,” and “neo-leftist deep state conspiracy” from the stands. These outbursts elicited harmless threats of contempt from my uncle, the judge.

The prosecution then had the nerve to suggest Max’s particular species, the Tyrannosaurus Rex, was hardwired for violence. Then they implied ancient carnivorous reptiles like him presented an existential threat to humankind. Almost the twenty-second century and our society still hadn’t moved past this kind of toxic discrimination. Gross.

Thankfully, my lawyers set the record straight during their opening riposte. This case wasn’t about Max. This case wasn’t even about the alleged perils of owning a pet Tyrannosaurus. No, according to the finest legal minds Jones Day could muster, this case was about “a direct and obvious violation of the Thirtieth Amendment of the Imperial Constitution,” as well as “the slippery slope toward harmful and outrageous government infringement upon the civil liberties of ordinary, conscription-class citizens.”

My lawyers read aloud the Thirtieth Amendment’s unambiguous language for the jury:

Disruptive innovation, life, liberty, and the pursuit of freedom, our Schumpeterian ethos, neither the states, nor the federal government, shan’t impinge.

See? Clear as a twentieth century sunrise.

Disruptive innovation begat Max, and disruptive innovation shan’t be impinged. End of story. Frankly, my lawyers suggested, this entire trial was a farce. A waste of time and an erosion of stateholder value. Moreover, even if there had been a sound legal basis for these lawsuits, how could citizens be certain the so-called “victims” of these unverifiable “dinosaur attacks” weren’t paid crisis actors? Everyone knew the neofascist left would plumb the darkest depths for partisan gain.

The real action began during testimony. The prosecution’s first witness was some squirrely epidemiologist from Manila. Definitely a virgin. Anyway, this dude claimed dinosaur-related murders in other “developed” regions — such as the Chinese island of Japan — which strictly prohibited consumers from owning pet dinosaurs, were nonexistent. Seemed like a pretty thin argument to most onlookers, though my lawyers surprisingly declined to cross-examine.

After beating the same drum over, and over, and over again, the prosecution called their final witness, a milquetoast professor from some second-rate law school in New New Boston. Probably a virgin too. Anyway, she said the “spirit” and “intent” of the Thirtieth Amendment was to “clearly” and “obviously” prevent the impingement of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of freedom.”

This time my highly compensated legal team opted to fight back. First, they made it crystal-effing-clear this chick’s entire argument relied upon rhetorical flourishes which were both “desperate” and “semantic.” 

Then, they laid a devastating trap unimaginable to all but the most ruthless and vampiric Sith Lords. An innocuous question about her prior experience here, and some gentle probing on existing case law there, and before you knew it this broad had unwittingly admitted to voting for Chelsea Clinton in 2052.

Audible gasps filled the chamber. Incredibly, the prosecution’s “star” witness had supported the disgraced former Neo-communist Presidential candidate, who was currently serving back-to-back-to-back life sentences for “treasonous collusion.” My uncle, the judge, instructed the jury to disregard this “unrelated” fact. But the geniuses at Jones Day knew those character-assassinating seeds were fertile.

Prepared to deliver the coup de grâce, my lawyers called their lone witness: Jake, an AI-based VR-personality with over four billion daily uploaders. Jake enjoyed direct access to the brains of four-fifths of the world’s population, and possessed firsthand knowledge of the globe-spanning mental health crisis which had clamped down onto humanity like a vise.

Disruptive technologies like Max weren’t the problem, Jake explained. They were the solution. The first resurrected dinosaurs were manufactured and marketed as emotional support animals. Designed to be physical companions in an increasingly isolated and digitized world. See, Max wasn’t just some lethal designer pet with ravenous, uncontrollable impulses. He was my friend. He walked me to school. He tucked me into bed at night. He protected me.

To corroborate Jake’s point, I begged my lawyers to call Max to the stand. My uncle, the judge, already knew he was a good boy. And how better to convince the jury of Max’s innocence than to have him be on his best behavior in court? It’d be like one of those boring Westminster Dinosaur Shows.

Besides, what could go wrong? Before the massacre Max had never hurt a fly. Well, except for that one time he decapitated and ate our neighbor’s stegosaurus. But that was instinct! The predator-prey relationship! And yeah, sure, it’s true dozens of cat and dog bones have been discovered in Max’s droppings. And okay, fine, Max also mauled the Jones Day intern who role-played cross-examiner during trial prep. But that guy was a total dick! Max had every right to stand his ground.

My lawyers wouldn’t budge. Putting a carnivorous super-predator on the witness stand was a losing tactic, they said. I disagreed, but my mom reminded me I wasn’t paying their $10,000-per-hour legal bills. Sometimes in life, my dad explained, you just have to sit back, shut up, and let the fairness and impartiality of the Imperial Justice system work its magic. Sounded like lame-ass grown-up stuff to me, but whatever.

This morning both sides delivered their closing arguments.

The prosecution rehashed their greatest hits, but you could tell their hearts weren’t in it. Defeated exasperation hung over them like isooctane clouds.

My attorneys concluded the proceedings by declaring this entire spectacle a politically motivated witch hunt. Cheers and applause thundered throughout the courtroom. When the synchronized chants of “Dinos don’t kill people — people kill people!” fizzled, my uncle, the judge, called for order.

The jury deliberated for fifteen excrutiating minutes, then returned and rendered their verdict.

My face broke into a toothy, Max-inspired grin.

Justice had been served.

The genesis of this newest debauchery

Back in early June I whipped up a “Totally kid friendly summer activity guide,” which served as the syllabus for several summer stories. The final “exercise” on the list was this pièce de résistance:

Political science: Imagine a world where dinosaurs, including murderous, rampaging carnivores, are resurrected and kept as pets (#invisiblehand). Imagine said dinosaurs are ubiquitous and readily available at PetSmart. To purchase a dinosaur you need only be eighteen years old. Imagine that each year tens of thousands of people are killed in violent dinosaur attacks. Imagine dinosaur attacks are the leading cause of death among children.

Suggest viable public policy responses to such a hypothetical societal plague. Examples could include: limiting which types of dinosaurs were available for purchase, conducting detailed background checks on prospective dinosaur buyers, requiring extensive training and licensing before allowing a person to purchase a dinosaur, limiting how many dinosaurs an individual owner can purchase, barring dinosaurs from public spaces, creating and adequately funding a federal agency to centralize oversight of dinosaur purchases and dinosaur trafficking, instituting a value-added dinosaur tax, creating a dinosaur buyback program for regretful buyers, and removing legal statutes preventing research into dinosaurs’ impact on public health, among others.

Write a comprehensive draft law detailing how you’d appropriately regulate the consumer dinosaur market, focusing in particular on reducing the negative externalities associated with dinosaur ownership without imposing unnecessary or undue burdens on reasonable dinosaur owners (to the extent reasonable dinosaur owners exist).

In your final draft, replace all instances of “dinosaur” with “firearm.”

An impassioned reader wrote to me after and suggested I draft an entire novel based on this premise.

While I absolutely loved that idea, it’s now been six months and I’ve yet to complete my other novel. At the time beginning a totally new project seemed beyond daunting. That said, I always planned to pursue this concept further.

Fast forward to late September, when I got wind of a flash fiction contest and live literature event here in Chicago. Attending that shindig provided the impetus for me to revisit this dinosaur depravity, so I threw together a muchrougher (and shorter) draft of the piece above and submitted it to the competition.

Unfortunately, I didn’t get called to read, so I didn’t get any feedback on the story.

After, I looked at a few flash fiction and short fiction writing contests and — worse than the certainty of knowing I wouldn’t win — was utterly demotivated by the protracted timelines (e.g., we’ll let you know by next March). #publishing

Hence, on this unholiest of days, “The Thirtieth” is born.