Guns, Guns Everywhere But Never A Shooter Who Thinks

America’s so-called “well-regulated militia” is in fact so unregulated that any paranoid punk with a gun can shoot first and cry “self-defense” later. We can barely keep up with the latest incidents, but we must never become inured to them. It’s like the Wild West but without sensible gun safety laws.

Last Saturday, Broward County, Florida couple Waldes Thomas and Diamond D’arville were out delivering groceries for Instacart when their GPS took them to the wrong address. They were on the phone with the customer when they ended up at a home on Southwest 178th Avenue in suburban Southwest Ranches.

It was 9 p.m., and 18-year-old D’arville explains that “It was super dark. There were no streetlights … I’m like, I don’t know if this is it because I see we’re driving and there’s like cows and there’s a tractor and there’s rocks.”

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Well-Regulated POS Fatally Shoots 20-Year-Old Woman Who Pulled Into His Driveway

Kansas City Confirms It Is Crime To Shoot Black Teenager Who Rings Your Doorbell

Only A Sick Culture Worships Guns

They were about to leave when they saw a flashlight and assumed it was someone picking up the grocery delivery. Thomas and D’Arville said they identified themselves as Instacart drivers but that wasn’t sufficient. They claimed this person started shouting at them and blocked their car with his truck.

“I had seen him pull out a gun and that’s when I said, ‘We got to go, we got to go,’” D’arville told WTVJ. “I was scared, I’m not going to lie.”

That was a reasonable response. Significantly less reasonable is the homeowner firing at D’arville’s car as she made a U-turn and tried to flee the property. Her car was hit several times. When they were safely away, Thomas and D’Arville contacted the police, but the incident report suggests it was just one of those wacky mixups that occur and might turn fatal when everyone’s armed.

The shooter, identified as Antonio Caccavale, claimed that Thomas and D’Arville were “driving erratically” on his property and he feared for his young children’s lives. He told authorities he fired three rounds at the car after it almost ran over his foot and his intention was to disable the vehicle so that it no longer posed a threat. (This is how a 20-year-old woman in New York was fatally shot.) Maybe a basic gun safety course could involve explaining to people that life is not an action movie.

Local police said they were “unable to determine if either party committed a criminal act.” Thomas and D’Arville were on Caccavale’s property, even if accidentally, so coupled with Florida’s “stand your ground” laws, there is not much that can be done, although D’Arville believes Caccavale shouldn’t keep his gun license.

“It’s just not right — even if you have a gun, I understand you’re trying to protect your family, but you don’t come outside shooting,” D’arville told WTVJ. “We’re telling you what we’re here, we’re trying to leave and you’re blocking us in. [We] could’ve just been on our way and they made it bigger than what it was.”

“We could’ve been dead, our window was down and they’re shooting,” she added. “It’s not good to be trigger-happy when you have a gun.”

Fortunately, the Black teenagers working an Instacart shift on Saturday night weren’t gunned down, but two high school cheerleaders were shot in a Texas supermarket parking lot last week when one of them accidentally got into the wrong car. There’s no room for error in a heavily armed society.

Heather Roth was trying to apologize to the man when he got out of the passenger’sdoor. She said, “He just threw his hands up, and then he pulled out a gun and he just started shooting at all of us.”

Roth was shot but treated at the scene. Unfortunately, Payton Washington was shot in the leg and back, severely damaging her pancreas and diaphragm and requiring surgery to remove her ruptured spleen.

Pedro Tello Rodriguez Jr., 25, was arrested and charged with multiple felonies. However, he never should’ve had a gun in the first place. Meanwhile, Washington’s life has been shattered for no good reason. Her cheer team is set to perform in a championship competition this weekend in Orlando, according to Lynne Shearer, managing partner of the Woodlands Elite cheer program, but obviously the high school senior will not be able to compete.

“The realization of the fact that she’s not going to be competing this weekend – it was starting to set in,” Shearer told CNN.

This random violence threatens everyone, everywhere, and it’s not because of no-cash bail or even too many homeless people. It’s the damn guns.

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[WFLA / CNN]

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