10-Year-Old Shot

The opening paragraph is an amazing bit of fiction in itself. We laughed out loud at it:

• On Marie Naylor’s street in the Austin neighborhood, front doors are often left unlocked — in case gunfire erupts and parents need to quickly pull their children inside.

Yeah, that's it. For the children! Bwahahahaha. Man, it beings a tear to the eye.

In reality, the door is left unlocked so the dope boys can run in when the police show up. What a naive piece of writing that was. We wonder who told him that and did they laugh after he left?

• That’s what happened Wednesday evening, when two men began tussling over a handgun while a dozen or so kids were out tossing a football, enjoying the summer-like weather in the 900 block of North Waller.

Well, that happens sometimes in neighborhoods where human life doesn't mean a thing and the dope boys run wild. Wrestling over a loaded gun doesn't appear in any safety manuals we've run across, so of course, the gun is completely to blame.

The article closes with this:

• That’s why she is especially attuned to the crackle of gunfire and angry at its increasing regularity in her neighborhood. She remembers getting the phone call about her son’s death.

"increasing regularity"? That can't be right. Crime is down, so obviously, this witness is lying, right Garry?