Let’s just be blunt. Good kids in rough areas avoid trouble and crime. They also avoid bonafide hoodlums as much as possible. It’s when they go down perilous rabbit holes that “good kids” wind up shot or dead.

In fact, one of my former wrestlers was unarmed when ghouls shot him four times in a backstreet weed deal. What he has done since surviving his crime helps demonstrate why I have always thought highly of him.

At 19 years old, he thought slinging weed could hustle up easy money in a depressed area. He ended up getting “robbed” and nearly killed. When he refused to give up his stash without a fight, one of the goons pulled a gun and opened fire. My wrestler was hit four times by 9mm hollow-point bullets. Two of the rounds struck him in the chest as he turned to escape. The stray bullets sparked off the street and lit up the night as he ran for his life. One bullet remains buried near his heart.

Before the shooting, my wrestler earned an excellent reputation by earning good grades, leading teammates, and treating others respectfully. All his teachers would vouch to that. Everyone who knows him was disappointed by the drug-related details surrounding his shooting. More than anything, however, we were just thankful that he survived his stupid hoodlum behavior.

When I spoke to him a few days after the shooting, I told him the obvious—crime leads to death or prison; that’s it. He assured me that he realized that as he was lying on the ground, bleeding and desperately praying for the police to arrive. He said that he kept praying for God to let him live. He also prayed for his mom and dad. He wished they would somehow not have to learn of his shooting or weed dealing.

Only liberals pretend not to see that this young man would not have been shot had he not behaved like a hoodlum himself. While his actions did not match the admirable young man that I know, his story reveals how seemingly minor crimes can lead to death.

Today, this young man is in college pursuing his goal to become a veterinarian. He is also accomplishing another goal of playing college football. Best of all, he speaks to younger children at local schools about the lessons he learned from surviving his dumb decision to sell dope.

His inspiring story of survival made the local media, but the fact he was selling weed was excluded. He was portrayed as an innocent victim of gun violence.

Of course, anti-gun liberals blame guns and racial grievances for the chaos. Dealing with the reality of self-destructive values and behaviors is too much trouble, and it doesn’t produce votes for Democrats. Peddling make-believe stories about social injustice and guns killing innocent teenagers does.