Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol as an indictment of nineteenth century industrialization and economic social classes. The following is a modern take on the tale exploring a different issue.

Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley’s intervention. He noted that he had become uncomfortably cold but did not want to get out of bed to stoke the fire, for he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and made nervous.

Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at any moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion.

At last, however, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

The moment Scrooge’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

It was his own room, there was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. Red, white and blue streamers decorated the walls and hung from the ceiling. A blazing fire, the likes of which he had never seen before, danced and rolled in the fireplace. Heaped on tables - which hadn’t been there before! – were all manners of food you might expect to see at a summer picnic such as hamburgers, hotdogs, BBQ chicken, grilled steaks, sausages, bratwurst, pizza, macaroni salad, potato salad, jello salad, bean salad, vegetable trays, gallons of dip, potato chips, cheese puffs, pretzels, cookies, brownies, cakes, pies, puddings, and every type of pop, punch, beer, and wine imaginable. The whole room looked like the world’s most opulent Fourth of July party. In the middle sat a tall, beautiful woman dressed in a flowing green robe. She wore a crown with seven spikes upon her head and carried a large tablet in her left arm. Her right hand bore a glowing torch which she held aloft and it shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door.

“Come in!” exclaimed the Ghost. “Come in and know me better!”

Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

“I am the Ghost of Gun Rights Present,” said the Spirit.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge submissively as she rose, “conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight, if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.”

“Touch my robe!”

Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. Instantly the room vanished and Scrooge found himself standing in the streets of the city. The streetlights were lit but many of the windows and storefronts were dark and the sky was gloomy.

“The city can be a dangerous place, particularly at night,” said the Spirit.

“It can,” agreed Scrooge.

“Do you see the young woman across the street?” asked the Spirit.

“I do.”

“In some countries, women have few, if any, civil rights. They are little more than property and treated as such.”

“I know, but it is not that way here.”

“Though, you have said that she has too many rights.”

“Not her, in particular, Spirit.”

“So you generalize ‘the public’ without considering the individual?” the Ghost asked. Scrooge was silent.

“You attempt to remove rights in political halls,” continued the Spirit. “But what of those who would assail them in person?”

“I don’t get your meaning, Spirit.”

“Look there,” she said and pointed to a dark alley. Scrooge peered forth and was able to perceive a hulking, shadowy form.

“Is that a mugger?” he asked.

“Perhaps,” came the reply. “Or perhaps a rapist or even a killer. Should that woman, being small and weak, be at the mercy of the strong?”

“Of course not!” cried Scrooge.

“What’s to protect her then?”

“The law!”

“What would the law do to protect her from a criminal, who by definition breaks the law?”

“There are police!” Scrooge insisted.

“Where? I see none in the area.”

“She could carry pepper spray or a stun gun,” Scrooge said triumphantly, feeling he had the better of the Spirit this time.

“She could,” agreed the Ghost. “Although, pepper spray is not always effective particularly if the attacker is on drugs or wearing glasses. And most stun guns require close contact. Would you really advise allowing a dangerous criminal attacker to get that close? If she had a taser she could maintain a distance, but must be able to hit her attacker with one shot.”

“You would suggest she carry a gun, Spirit?”

“I would suggest she have a choice,” came the reply.

“As small as she is, a gun would just be taken away from her!” insisted Scrooge.

“Possible, yet couldn’t pepper spray or a stun gun also be taken away? It is very unlikely in truth. Have you ever even heard of that happening?”

“I have not.”

“Police officers confront criminals regularly and even with them it is rare.”

They both watched as the woman passed the alley and continued on her way.

“That man,” explained the Spirit, “is harmless. Looks can be deceiving.”

The Spirit began walking again and Scrooge followed. They passed into a darker area of the city where streetlights were scarcer. The Spirit’s torch kept the way well lit, though Scrooge could well imagine the gloom were she not there. He followed her to an old apartment building and they went inside and passed into one of the apartments. There, Scrooge saw his own assistant resting in a chair in the kitchen.

“Is Martha still coming for dinner?” Bob Cratchit asked.

“She is,” replied his wife. “She should be here soon, it is a long walk from where the city bus drops her off.”

“I should have liked to go meet her there and walk with her, it isn’t safe.”

“You can’t be with her all the time, Bob,” said his wife. “Especially since you had to go pick up Tim from daycare and it is in the opposite direction.”

“How was work today,” he asked to distract himself.

“It was a good day. A full-time position has opened up and I’m hopeful I’ll get it. We could use the money.”

“Yes,” agreed her husband. “Perhaps it would allow us to move out of this wretched city and to a place that doesn’t legislate defenselessness.”

Just then there was a knock at the door, Martha had arrived. Mrs. Cratchit let her in and Scrooge recognized the woman he had seen earlier.

“You and Jacob Marley,” said the Ghost to Scrooge, “worked to allow cities to ban guns. Now, it is people like the Cratchits, those who obey the law, who do not have guns, while the criminals who don’t obey the law still have them. Is that what you intended?”

“It is not.”

“Even if the city did allow them, you also banned what you called ‘Saturday Night Specials,’ which were in reality just small inexpensive guns that a family like the Cratchits would be able to afford. With every crime committed, you tried to pass a new law. What sense does it make to disarm the people who do not commit crimes to try to stop those who do?”

Scrooge said nothing, but watched the small family reunion now that Martha was home. The other Cratchit children gathered around, including small Tim spinning excitedly about in his wheelchair. His eyes were bright and clear, though he quickly grew tired due to his enthusiasm.

“Spirit,” said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, “tell me if Tiny Tim will live.”

“I see a vacant seat,” replied the Ghost, “and a wheelchair without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.”

“No, no,” said Scrooge. “Oh, no, kind Spirit! Say he will be spared.”

“If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none other of my race,” returned the Ghost, “will find him here.”

“But surely,” reasoned Scrooge, “there are city welfare programs that can help him!”

“There are,” explained the Spirit. “Yet it is not the sickness within that will kill the child.”

“What then?” asked Scrooge.

“What do you care,” asked the Spirit. “if he lives or dies? His destiny is not to go to an ivy league school and join the social elite you wish to have run the country. Why should one poor boy make a difference to you?”

Scrooge had no reply.

“It is time to move on,” advised the Ghost and walked out with Scrooge close behind, casting glances over his shoulder as he left, especially upon Tiny Tim at the last.

After they passed beyond the door and walked on, their speed seemed to increase. Though Scrooge worked his legs no faster than a walk, the scenery began to blur and buildings whisked by. Soon, they slowed and Scrooge recognized the house they were at as belonging to his nephew. They went inside.

“I can’t believe, Fred,” Scrooge heard the voice of his nephew’s wife as he came in, “that you got into another argument about gun control with him. You know he won’t change!”

“I know,” returned the Nephew. “I just keep hoping that he will. It’s kind of funny, he thinks I’m paranoid for owning guns and was furious when he saw my name on the list of concealed carry licensees he printed in his newspaper, yet he’s the one who locks himself tightly away from the world.”

“He’s rich enough,” returned his wife. “Why doesn’t he just hire a bodyguard to go with him everywhere?”

“I doubt he could stand the company,” laughed Fred. “Him or the guard!”

One of Scrooge’s great-nephews ran into the room.

“Father,” he asked. “Are we going shooting tomorrow?”

“We are,” answered Fred smiling. “You did very well in your gun safety class.”

“Guns and kids don’t mix, so you say Scrooge,” said the Ghost. “Yet here is a child who knows every bit as much about gun safety as you and your friends did when you were a boy. Now he and his father will spend the day at the range tomorrow. They will also go hunting later this year, something that you always wanted to do with your father and grandfather as I recall.”

Scrooge felt a twinge of envy.

“Oh, Fred,” Scrooge’s niece interrupted his thoughts. “Don’t forget that tonight is ladies' night at the range.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” came the reply. “Would you mind picking up a few bricks of .22 for when I take the kids to the range tomorrow?”

“Certainly,” she said cheerily. “Oh, did you convince Ebenezer to come to dinner tonight?”

“I did not. He didn’t even want to talk about it. It is too bad, because I was going to invite him to go with us tomorrow. Mom always talked how he wanted to go hunting when he was younger. I had hoped a trip to the range might ease some of his prejudice against guns and then maybe he’d go when deer season opens.”

“A lost cause, if you ask me,” said his wife.

“You might be right, but I keep hoping.”

Scrooge felt an unexpected longing at the thought of being included. If he had been asked two days ago he would have never even considered it, but after the trip back home he was surprisingly interested in the idea and the thought of teaching his great-nephew and great-niece how to shoot as his grandfather had done for him was very appealing.

Presently, there was a knock on the door and Fred got up to answer it.

“Fred!” cried the visitor breathlessly. “Have you heard?”

“Come in, my friend,” Fred beckoned. “I have been out of touch today. What has happened?”

“Your Uncle’s last editorial was read in the Senate today. It may have persuaded enough Senators to vote for the assault weapon ban!”

“That is terrible news,” observed Scrooge’s nephew.

“It gets worse,” continued the visitor. “It looks like your Uncle listened to you for once. You convinced him that the ban as written was little more than a ban on how guns looked, so the Senate added an amendment to ban all semi-automatic firearms!”

“Father,” asked Scrooge’s great-nephew, who had been eavesdropping all along. “Does that include the rifle we are taking to the range tomorrow?”

“It does,” answered his father. “But fear not, the ban has not yet been passed and we’ll still be able to go tomorrow.”

“Victor,” he said, turning back to his guest. “We must get to work immediately working the phones and getting people to call their representatives. We cannot allow an entire class of firearms to be outlawed!”

“Spirit,” Scrooge said. “I’d rather I had not written that editorial now.”

In a flash they were back outdoors. “The past cannot be changed,” came the reply. “Only the Future has not been set. We must be going, my time here grows short.”

Scrooge caught a glimpse of movement beneath the Spirit’s robes as she spoke.

“Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,” said Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit’s robe, “but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?”

“It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,” was the Spirit’s sorrowful reply. “Look here.”

From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children; wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and dread.

Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.

“Spirit, are they yours?” Scrooge could say no more.

“They are Man’s,” said the Spirit, looking down upon them. “And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Denial. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!” cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. “Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse. And bide the end!”

The bell in the old church steeple rang twelve. Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

Part 1: Marley's Ghost
Part 2: The First Spirit
To be continued in part four tomorrow!