Two Children Wounded in Florida Road Rage Shootout

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The National Rifle Association (NRA) tells us - relentlessly - that we need guns for self-protection, to keep ourselves safe from all of the other people that the NRA has also encouraged to buy guns.   It is a self-fulfilling prophecy.  The more people that have guns, the more people that need guns.  Guns in America have become an addiction - and an aphrodisiac.  We want to be armed  because guns make us feel safe, and powerful.

This past Saturday evening there was an incident on the highways of Florida in which the driver of a large pickup truck got into a high-speed disagreement with the driver of an SUV.   Five people were in the pickup truck and three were in the SUV.  Shouting ensued from one vehicle to the other, followed by at least one obscene hand gesture, and then a water bottle was thrown from one vehicle into the other, and finally shots were fired.  

The driver of the SUV apparently fired a shot into the pickup, and a five-year-old girl was wounded in the thigh.  Then the pickup chased the SUV and began returning fire and a fourteen-year-old girl in the SUV was shot in the back and suffered a collapsed lung.

Eventually the drivers spotted a deputy along the highway and pulled over.  The manly men got out of their vehicles, began fighting, and the deputy broke up the altercation.    Then the deputy noticed that there was a wounded child in each vehicle.  Ambulances were called, the drivers/shooters were arrested and each charged with attempted murder  (and have since bonded out), and the local sheriff gushed that "at least nobody was killed."

Nobody was killed, but two children endured a Saturday night that they will remember with horror for the rest of their lives - a five-year-old girl who may have long-term or permanent mobility issues, and a fourteen-year-old girl who will always have the memory of a bullet ripping through her torso.

Thank God - and the NRA - that there were plenty of guns around to protect them from obscene hand gestures and a flying water bottle!