Louisiana Teacher Who Brandished Gun In Viral Video Fired

All law-abiding citizens have a right to keep and bear arms. I happen to think that everyone who can own and carry a gun should own and carry a gun. I want to put that out there here at the beginning.

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You see, I need to do that because there are also some people who show themselves to be the kind of people who probably shouldn’t have guns, even though they’ve been pretty law-abiding.

That includes a Louisiana teacher who famously wielded a bat and draw a gun at someone for driving through her flooded neighborhood kind of falls into that camp.

Now, though, calling her a “Louisiana teacher” isn’t particularly accurate.

The WBRZ Investigative Unit has confirmed the East Baton Rouge Parish School System has fired P.E. teacher Bridgette Digerolamo following a video that went viral this month.

The video shows a family driving home in Shenandoah, and Digerolamo brandishing a handgun and a baseball bat trying to get people not to drive down her flooded street.

Following the public outcry, neighbors told WBRZ the Digerolamos had just finished repairing their house from a flood last year. They did not condone her actions that were captured on video.

Demetra Turner-Louis and her family were making their way home when Digerolamo became irate and hit their vehicle with a baseball bat before going into her house to retrieve a handgun.

“You don’t play with guns and threaten people,” Turner-Louis said following the incident. “If we had a gun it could have been a different outcome. To witness my child screaming and seeing this, and I’m outside the car, I don’t know her state of mind. She could have shot me.”

Digerolamo is facing criminal charges for her actions, but now she’s also out of work.

Missing from the above-linked news reports is the context of the incident. As some of you may recall, the incident in question stems from when a Louisiana neighborhood flooded. Apparently, when people drove down the flooded street, the wake sent water into Digerolamo’s home.

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Now, I get being angry. However, that made it Digerolamo’s problem, not Turner-Louis’s. It was on her to take steps to protect her home, not threaten the lives of people who didn’t bend to her will.

At every level, what we’ve seen tells us that Digerolamo was completely and totally out of line. She needs to be called on it and the charges pending in her case are a prime example of being called on her actions. That’s a good thing and I’m damn glad to see it.

It’s also imperative that the gun community call people like this out. We need to make it very clear that we don’t approve of this.

We also need to call out people who talk crap about doing stuff like this. I’ve seen too many comments about doing similarly met with, at most, eye rolls. There are people who actually think stuff like this is acceptable. It’s not.

Threats to your property that don’t jeopardize human life aren’t grounds for pulling a gun on someone. Had Turner-Louis been trying to firebomb the house, then it would have been different. She wasn’t.

People need to get a damn grip.

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