You Feel Lucky, Coach?
A Philadelphia father has been arrested after pulling a gun on his son’s football coach. Wayne Derkotch threatened the coach because he felt his son wasn’t playing enough.
Did I mention this was a game for six- and seven-year-olds?
Leaving aside—for the moment—this country’s manic devotion to football, why is this man allowed to possess a gun? And don’t give me Second Amendment rights. With rights come responsibility, and when it comes to firearms, Americans don’t have any.
These past few months have seen waves of school shooting after school shooting, and I’m tired of it. The only way the majority of students have access to guns is from friends and family; usually parents. A local student recently tried to commit suicide in the parking lot of his high school, with his rifle. Another Missouri student brought an assault rifle to his middle school; the gun belonged to his parents, and was allegedly kept in a safe.
Earlier this month, a fellow blogging father discovered that his daughter had been playing at a friend’s house, where they found four handguns hidden throughout her parents’ bedroom.
Fathers who own guns have told me that it’s important their children learn responsibility and respect toward firearms. I’ve never owned a gun, and I’ve never had difficulty grasping the idea that guns are dangerous. We like to think of our children as responsible and rational. And they have their moments, and the potential. But a thirteen-year-old boy is anything but rational, and is certainly not experienced. It only takes one mistake for your child to die.
Others claim the right to bear arms. I’ll concede the point: we have the right. But I gladly forgo my right to own a handgun for the duty of responsible fatherhood.
October 26th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
[...] On the heels of my rant about gun control comes this story about a father in Pretoria, South Africa: ‘A Pretoria father, shot in the face and stabbed several times in the back and neck, repeatedly fought off two thugs trying to rape his 12-year-old daughter and murder his six-year-old son. [...]