Rarely is the danger of easy access to firearms portrayed more starkly than in the case of Deja Taylor and her 6-year-old son, who shot his teacher. In an interview with ABC, Ms. Taylor said her son has ADHD and that she thought his teacher was ignoring him in class, as reported in the May 11 Metro article “Boy who shot Va. teacher has ADHD, mother says.”
We can only speculate how many thousands of times a day such situations occur in classrooms in this country (and, in fact, throughout the world). Yet what made this a tragic situation was the handgun our laws allowed Ms. Taylor to purchase, not her son’s ADHD, his impatience or any action taken by his teacher. If Ms. Taylor thinks she is explaining her son’s act of violence by citing his diagnosis and state of mind, she’s wrong — and she’s doing a disservice to her son and other people with ADHD.
Though Ms. Taylor is correct in taking responsibility for the shooting, those who have made it easy for anyone to buy a firearm share responsibility for this and other senseless acts of gun violence.
Rachel Gorlin, Washington