Morons With Guns
By Gregg Wendorf
Advance News Journal
Okay, granted, Hidalgo County has a population of approximately 1 million people, not counting the new arrivals, so three people injured over the New Year’s holiday by morons firing bullets into the air may not seem like a lot, but that’s only because you and I are not one of the injured. Enough to ruin anyone’s holiday.
My condolences to the three victims (one in Edinburg, one in Mission, one in Pharr), all of whom are expected to fully recover, but you have to ask, who were the walking brain-dead shooters who fired the shots? All told, across the RGV, there were nine reports of “celebratory gunfire” over the NY’s weekend. (Source: KRGV-TV.)
Some of these morons (preferred personal pronoun: Stupid) started shooting in the air early. One of the reported shots in Edinburg actually occurred last Sunday at 10:45 a.m., before lunch, leaving one to wonder how drunk was the shooter by the time the calendar turned into 2024 at midnight that same day?
Granted, it may not be professional or courteous to refer to someone as a “moron” or “stupid” in the pages of this newspaper, but how else to describe a person so lacking in common sense that they will fire a weapon into the air, with no thought as to where the bullet might land?
Do they think that the fired round magically disintegrates in the air before the law of physics takes hold and drops the 9mm slug into a home?
Ah, I know, they’re probably drunk and not really thinking.
“Hey, baby, toss me another beer while I load this thing.”
“You want the hollow points?”
“No, save them for the Fentanyl drug deal I got goin’ down tonight. Just give me some target ammo.”
Seriously, this isn’t even funny. Three years ago, a 61-year-old nurse standing in her Houston driveway was struck by a bullet fired into the air.
No small loss, the psych nurse, Philippa Ashford, had recently been honored by the Texas Nurses Association for her work; and she was also an adjunct professor at Houston’s University of Texas Health Science Center; and a member of the Sigma Theta Tau International Honor Society of Nursing.
Meaning, one drunk (no suspects were ever found) cost us the life of a woman who had devoted her life to caring for the sick.
They may be even dumber in the Ft. Worth area, compared to Hidalgo and Cameron counties, where nine shots were reported.
Up in Cow Town (Ft. Worth), cops had 55 reports of morons firing guns on NY’s Eve. One stray round struck a leg, but no one was killed.
According to a CBS story published Jan. 2, 2024, in Mesquite, Texas, a 1-year-old baby boy and his dad are recovering from the same scenario — a moron with a gun, shooting a bullet into the air.
With any luck, the bullet, estimated at traveling more than 200 feet per second, would land on the person who shot it, but alas, that’s not how life seems to work. The innocents suffer as opposed to the perps.
The same celebratory morons also love July 4th. Another reason to celebrate and shoot bullets into the air.
Local Rep. Struck
Locally, state Representative Armando Martinez (D-District 39) almost lost his life New Year’s Eve 2016 when a bullet struck his head with such intensity that it took the skill of a neurosurgeon to remove it. At the time, he was in a rural area outside Weslaco city limits.
He would later say, “I often think if it would have hit my wife, or that would have hit one of my kids, maybe they wouldn’t be around today.”
Trying to do the right thing, not an easy thing to do in Texas, Martinez would later try to get a new law passed by the state legislature that would have criminalized “celebratory gunfire,” but no luck.
In Texas, if someone is caught recklessly firing their gun inside the corporate city limits of a town of over 100,000 people, they could be charged with a Class A misdemeanor — a fine of up to $4,000 and a jail sentence of up to a year. It is still illegal to recklessly fire a gun in smaller cities, according to statutes, but it drops to a Class B misdemeanor.
Meaning what exactly? You’ll suffer less consequences if you let off a round in a small town as opposed to a big city?
Yep. Call it Texas Pride. We love our guns, even when they injure or kill people because some moron wants to fire a round into the sky to celebrate an event.
“It (the law) definitely needs to change,” Martinez recently told KRGV. “It’s very sad to see that there are so many issues that continue to arise every holiday. We have attempted to pass legislation year after year. Ultimately, it fails because a Republican-led legislature may not find it appealing.”
Martinez said he’s received some support for such legislation from some GOP colleagues, but not enough to bridge the gap.
That’s because none of them have been struck by a bullet, Representative Martinez.
I’d bet that if Ken Paxton fell victim to a “celebratory” round, whether in the company of his wife or girlfriend, the law would get changed real quick like. He’d call up the governor and former radio jock and current Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick, and before you could say, "Bob’s Your Uncle," the law would get changed.
Such is life.