Nothing has been able to lift the mood around here. A pair of Yankee wins brought brief smiles to the Bronx, but reality wiped them away.They were gone as quickly as Ronney Vargas’s life. He was killed on Saturday – pistol whipped and shot in the chest – because he talked to the wrong person’s girlfriend outside a bodega in East Tremont.
Vargas was a hero in his Mott Haven neighborhood and all over the Bronx. He was a three-time Golden Gloves champion and was undefeated in his first year as a professional boxer.
His record will stand at 8-0 forever because someone got jealous and used a gun.
The highest court in this county recently reaffirmed an individual’s right to own a gun. That must seem like a reasonable decision in a nice, clean courtroom. But a person’s most basic right is not getting shot. Ronney Vargas was denied that right and now a father has to bury his 20-year-old son.
Vargas is not the first person to be shot around here and he won’t be last because there are too many guns in the Bronx. There are also too many guns in Brooklyn and Queens and Newark and Detroit and Miami and Memphis and Houston and Los Angeles.
This morning someone said, “Ronney woulda been a champion. He really coulda been somebody.”
Ronney Vargas was somebody and now he’s dead.
Maybe the Supreme Court should take a look at that.
5 comments:
The Supreme Court and the N.R.A. don’t get the problem because they don’t live here. It is easy for them to say… “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.”
Donna,
I agree. People with guns kill people. People without guns get into shoving matches and maybe throw a few punches, but when it’s all over they usually walk away. Street fights are always going to happen. Guns make them deadly.
It is terribly needless to die over a silly argument.
RIP-Ronney Vargas
That is such a sad story. Guns are nothing but bad.
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