You are a parent, and you own firearms. One day, you get a call from school & find that your 4th grader showed up at school with a loaded handgun, your loaded handgun.
What, if anything, should happen to the parents? Is it no harm, no foul? Is it criminal? Should it be tort actionable? Is there a slippery slope we want to avoid?
In California, I believe that’s a “wobbler” — can be charged either as a felony or a misdemeanor, prosecutor’s discretion.
From the California Bureau of Firearms website:
“You may be guilty of a misdemeanor or a felony if you keep a loaded firearm within any premises that are under your custody or control and a child under 18 years of age obtains and uses it, resulting in injury or death, or carries it to a public place, unless you stored the firearm in a locked container or locked the firearm with a locking device to temporarily keep it from functioning.”
California is a good example of exactly the wrong way to handle this.
And in Washington, where the action happened, the kid was expelled from school, and returned to his parents, and the gun was probably seized under civil forfeiture.
And now his parents, having failed to provide proper firearms training instruction, have to pay to put the ignorant little dumbass in a private school.
This kind of thing is part of my reasons for my rant on early gun safety training in public schools on my blog.
Here in Texas it’s a class C misdemeanor though I’m sure other charges would be filed and Child Protective Services would be calling. I also suspect the outcome of something like this would be very dependent on the community where you live. Fewer and fewer believe in the Class A Ass Whuppin. In my opinion (which is worth it’s weight in gold by the way) if you’re a parent with 2 or more brain cells to rub together, you won’t be leaving a firearm where ‘junior’ can get a hold of it period. Even if you do all the proper gun education and take all mystery out of firearms, young boys especially tend to make dumb decisions from time to time.
Being in that position myself (kids, gun owner), I’m torn. I know that basic safety training is Absolutely Necessary, and I’d like to see at least Eddy Eagle level stuff required in the schools K-6th grade, though I’d like to see more than that 3rd on up. Obviously parents should do what they can (I’ve done what I can in my own home), but I also know they can only do so much – kids can be inquisitive, smart, and insecure. I know my own son is fascinated by guns. Locking up, unloading, disabling, etc., all good, but it does make home defense problematic. I’m thankful that this was a more-or-less non-event (no shots fired, no-one hurt), but we have very little information as yet on whose gun it was, where it was, what condition it was in, why he took it to school, what other discipline issues the kid / family have had.
I’d hate to say “each case has a unique set of circumstances, let a judge decide,” because of the potential for abuse. A one-size fits all rule of “expelled for life,” seems harsh when it’s *possible* he’s never been told that it is forbidden, even though it should seem obvious. Clearly there should be a parent-funded required safety and storage training program for the whole family for those who have such an event occur (and also made available to any family who wants it – a new NRA course, maybe? “Whole Family Safety Class” WFSC). No Harm No Foul sends the wrong message, too. A parental felony for a child’s misdeed seems misdirected, too, especially considering the restrictions that are put on parents WRT child-rearing discipline these days.
I’m open to suggestions.
My ideal would of course be that the kid would have been taught better. RN’s “each case has its own circumstances” would have to apply in any situation with rational people however. Not enough information.
When I was a kind in school in the 1960s, guns were no big deal. Families with kids, including mine, routinely had guns lying about the house much like any other household objects.
I don’t recall anyone ever bringing one to school though. So what’s changed from then to now? I’ll call it the Freak-Out Factor– society’s and media hype over guns. Without the FOF would this have happened?
Chainsaws are potentially dangerous tools, but do kids bring them to school? No FOF to make it exciting. Do kids bring cans of gasoline or other flammable or dangerous household chemicals to school to show their friends? Who would care without the FOF?
Kids routinely brought knives to school in my day. In elementary school they were confiscated, to be returned at the end of the school year. In high school, we’d openly wear hunting knives, or the Buck or Old Timer folder, in leather sheaths on our belts without so much as a raised eye brow. In spite of some really hateful fight that broke out from time to tome, no one ever pulled a knife on another at school. We knew better. As far as I know it never even occurred to anyone.
And we did often have rifles in our vehicles, in the school parking lot, during hunting season.
In light of all that, my ideal for today would be that the gun be confiscated and skillfully unloaded by the teacher, followed by a call to the parents, who would then come to the school and pick it up. There would be a warning that if it should happen again there would be a suspension, and a suggestion that the kid be given some instruction on the proper place and the proper handling of a gun.
But we must freak out instead, I know. Because freaking out is what lends to the concentration of centralized power, it must be promoted at every opportunity.
My experience was much like Lyles, I even gave a speech and demonstrated the manufacture of black powder in a speech demonstration class!
The FOF has become ridiculous.
Should 4th graders bring guns to school? No, but it can happen fairly innocuously, and in todays society I cannot understand how bringing a gun to school and causing no damage is charged more forcefully than a DUI which causes injury and/or death.
WE are a nation of wimps.
Worse than wimps. We are a nation of cowards.
Can’t disagree with the wimps/cowards POV.