Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus was on a private school bus heading to her charter school in the Homestead area when another passenger, 15-year-old Jordyn Alexander Howe, pulled out a loaded gun to show it off. And sure enough, the gun went off, accidentally striking Lourdes in the neck and killing “a beautiful angel,” as her grieving mother calls the honor-roll student.
………
We can look for scapegoats, sure, but the truth is everyone should claim responsibility, starting in the home all the way up to the governor’s office.
Yes, Gov. Rick Scott. Why?
Because his administration continues to defend the Republican-led Legislature’s new law that would ban pediatricians and other doctors from even asking their patients the simple safety question: Do you own a gun and do you keep it locked away from your kids?
Having to write the editorial of a news paper used to be a very important task heavily laden with responsibility. It was publishing an opinion based on facts and careful thought with the intention to illustrate and guide the readership on a particular subject of interest to all.
But those days are long gone.as it shows above. According to the Miami Herald, the shooting of Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus had nothing to do with an irresponsible teenager knowingly bringing a gun to school in violation of the law and school regulations, playing with it as if a toy; no, the only reason that Lourdes Guzman-DeJesus is because the “eeevil” NRA passed legislation forbidding medical personnel from asking about guns in the Howe household.
Now, if the Miami Herald is to be believed, prior to the passage of Florida Statute 790.338, not one single incident of kids bringing guns to school ever happened in the State of Florida or anywhere else in the country. Before such “eeeevil” law was passed, thousands of doctors, totally unprepared and untrained on firearms kept our school grounds and school buses 100% gun free. Yeah, right!
Some researchers blame the tryptophan (a protein found in turkey) for making people relaxed & sleepy after a good Thanksgiving meal. I will also add to its properties that in conjunction with having to prepare an editorial, it makes you write stupidities by the bushel.
“It was publishing an opinion based on facts and careful thought with the intention to illustrate and guide the readership on a particular subject of interest to all.”
Where did you get that crazy idea? I’ve been reading newspaper editorials for 35 years and not once do I remember a Liberal newspaper editorial using facts or careful thought.
The typical editorial has always been an ignorant diatribe against whatever social ill that the editorialist thinks can be cured by the application of more government. They generally don’t show any more “careful thought” than a three year old does when he throws a temper tantrum and refuses to eat his peas.
The problem is always the same, not enough government. And the solution is always the same, more government. And worst of all, their reaction to facts and logic is always the same. They stick their fingers in their ears and scream “la la la la, I’m not listening!” All the while advocating that someone send government agents to your house to force you to eat your government peas as if YOU are the recalcitrant child and not them.
I have to say that I don’t like the fact that Florida’s government has dictated to its doctors what they can and can’t talk to their patients about. Talk about government overreach. We’re supposed to be about “smaller government,” aren’t we?
This was not an unilateral action.For a long time, the NRA and other organizations wanted to get with doctor’s groups to establish a basic set of guidelines regarding firearm owners’ privacy. The groups ignored and action was then taken, not before.
The problem with your problem is…it doesn’t exist. The law does nothing to stop doctors from speaking to anyone about firearms. What it does is forbid a doctor from asking about the presence of firearms in the home, then refusing service on that basis, or recording the answer in your soon to be public (through 0bamacare) medical records. Any doctor can talk to any patient about anything they want, including firearms. They can handout all the literature they want, they can give any speech they would like, they just cannot base your treatment, or lack there of on your answer to do you own firearms. Nor can they record your answer if you are dumb enough to tell them. With or with out this law, my answer to any doctor about whether or not I own firearms is twofold, 1) you have neither the knowledge nor training to advise me on firearms ownership, 2) NONE OF YOUR DAMN BUSINESS!
“Look Doc, you keep my kid from getting sick and help him get healthy when he does. I’ll deal with keeping him safe.”
Unless the kid is walking into the doctor’s office with regular gunshot wounds, it’s none of the doctor’s business whether there’s a gun in the house.
As for the shooting itself… clearly, the problem here is that guns are still viewed as exotic and fantastic. Nobody with half a brain would have thought that a school bus was a good place to be showing off a loaded weapon. Clearly the problem here is that Jordyn’s parents tried to hide the family gun and keep it secret instead of educating the kid properly about gun safety and going shooting regularly like my parents did.
(if you’re showing off a weapon, it should be in a private place where random idiots can’t reach in and cause havoc, and the weapon itself should be unloaded. If it’s loaded, keep it in your pants. Moron.)
Voltram nailed it. Its not the gun’s fault. Its the considerable lack of training/education on the parents’ part, and desensitization on the part of the media that’s the true issue. And this editor is about average…lets slap a .gov-sized BandAid ™ on the arterial bleeding and totally ignore the underlying cause. Nope, no responsibility needed, lets blame someone else!
By using the author’s same stretched logic of culpability…if Eddy Eagle program was prevented from being offered by the victims grade school, they would be at fault. Journalists have reached the level of pond scum.
Nah, the fault resides with the immature 15 year old boy, but the parents were derelict in their duties, too.
Where did the young person get the gun? Buy it on the street, find it, steal it, maybe the parents did not own a firearm? 🙁
Confirmed that the gun was retrieved from his parents’ closet.
Call me paranoid, but I am glal MD’s cant ask about guns in people’s homes. I mave met some very “liberal” MD’s who have some very strong anti-gun (i.e. gun owners are all evil racists) views. MD’s have a “duty to report” any suspected abuse or neglect of children to the authorities. It is not too far fetched an idea, that a very “liberal” MD might get it into their head to report parents who own handguns or assault rifles to Child Protective Services, not for any real issues of endangerment but out of anti-gun ideology.