What's The Point Of No Return?

The old joke, that I have related here before, has the cuckolded husband rushing into the bedroom where he finds his wife with her lover in flagrante delicto. He pulls a gun to his temple, at which point his wife and her paramour begin to snicker. "What are you laughing at?" he rages, "You're next!"
And that is pretty much how I feel about this whole murder-suicide thing. I am not a fan of either, but I heartily suggest to anyone who will take my advice: pick one. Both are terrible solutions to just about any problem I can imagine, but piling one on top of the other completely undercuts any chance for justice or resolution for the families and friends of the victims. I understand that bringing up this practical matter in the midst of a discussion about crimes of passion or despair is somewhat incongruous. Maybe even disingenuous. This doesn't trouble me much, since I have rarely been described as ingenuous, and it is with even less frequency that someone has called me congruent. That said, I would like to encourage those with mortal thoughts to consider their options carefully before committing. Anything.
Step one: Land the plane. Step two: admit you have a problem. I understand this little diversion from Bill W's rules may mess with the dominant paradigm, but saving innocent lives is what this is really all about. If you are not flying a commercial aircraft with hundreds of passengers on board, you might be driving a car. If you have any passengers, you should consider giving them the common courtesy of pulling over to the curb just before you accelerate into the solid object of your choice. If one of those passengers happens to be the bane of your existence, then by all means ask if they wouldn't mind putting themselves in harm's way just to expedite matters.
Which brings us to the matter of innocent bystanders. There really shouldn't be any. I'm looking at you, suicide bombers. If you're dumb enough to buy into that whole seventy-two virgins awarded to you in Paradise, then you probably deserve to have a dozen pounds of plastic explosive strapped to you, but that doesn't mean you should be wearing it into a crowded plaza or market or Starbucks. It's not going to end well for anyone. And while we're on the subject of virgins, if you're hoping to impress a girl by plummeting to your death or flying a plane into the side of a mountain, let me remind you that just barely worked for Romeo and Juliet, and by the time they did the remake, they let Natalie Wood live. Remember, it was Bill Shakespeare who wrote "All's Well That Ends Well." But I guess if you're not well in the first place, none of this will do much good.
And that's too bad.