"So that's it?" you demand. "Just murder them all, collateral damage be damned?"
He blinks at you in apparent confusion. "Murder them all? You think that's what I'm talking about?"
"What am I supposed to think when you're going on about 'they won't stop until somebody puts them down permanently' and 'half-measures haven't worked'?!"
"I'm talking about what we're going to do about Hookwolf and Oni Lee and Kaiser. Purity, too, if she leaves the independent life and runs back to the Empire to help once we focus on them. The kind of villains who can't be taken down with anything less than lethal force." He shakes his head. "The dealers and the low-level thugs? We can handle them with baseball bats like we've been doing. We didn't kill anybody on Monday or yesterday, and if we can avoid that for as long as possible, I'm perfectly happy with zip-tying them and leaving them for the cops. I just know that sooner or later, the gangs will step up their game, and we have to be ready to keep pace with them; if we don't, we'll be the ones getting killed. They pull out shotguns? We have some, too. The Empire throws in murderers and monsters? We'll respond with assault rifles. Whenever they escalate, we'll be right there with them, because pulling back and letting them go like the heroes have for the last ten years has done nothing but see more innocent people be beaten and murdered who should have been safe."
"And you expect to run into Hookwolf or Oni Lee anytime soon?" you press.
"Well, no. Right now, we're focusing on the Merchants. They're the lowest of the low, and also the safest to put down. Honestly, we don't need any big weapons at the moment," he admits, "but we intend to move against the Empire eventually, and I'd rather have two or three rifles and never fire them than see Hookwolf show up when all the guys have is a bunch of crowbars. If nothing else, there's always the chance that just seeing the guns will be enough incentive on its own for them to sit quietly and not fight back."
Okay, that's not as bad as you first thought. You were starting to worry that he had lost his mind. "Do you even know how to shoot a gun like that?"
"Carl was in the National Guard, and he said he'd be willing to teach a few guys how to fire them safely. I have given this some thought," he adds in a mutter.
"Maybe you should have saved some of that thinking for how you were going to explain it," is your dry response. "You remember how you said you wanted Alexander and Kurt and Tim and Margaret not to be under your influence so they could tell you if they thought what you were planning was stupid? This is me doing that same job."
"Just keep me in the loop, okay? I feel like I just got my dad back, and I don't want to lose you because you ran headlong into a crusade and got yourself killed."
He grimaces at that last jab. You don't want to hurt him by poking at that wound, but if the alternative is hearing about his death, a little pain now is worth it to get your point across.
