There’s a Brady Bunch episode where Bobby brings a toy gun to school. I remember this thinking it would be one of those moments, kind of like the instructional video in Dodgeball, when you realize how gullable/innocent our society was at one point.
So here’s a kindergarten student who was suspended for 10 days after bringing a gun to school. The story was forwarded to me with two discussion topics:
- Parenting-responsibility-guns in the home?
- 10 days?!?!
Kindergarten student brings gun to school
FIRCREST, Wash. –A kindergarten student was expelled for 10 days after he brought a .22-caliber gun to school, officials said.
The 5-year-old boy climbed from a chair onto a washer-dryer and got an unloaded pistol out of a cupboard at home, police said. He showed a friend the gun on the Whittier Elementary School playground, then put it into a friend’s backpack, Police Chief John Cheesman said.
The boy never made any threat and told the principal what he had done Monday but was expelled immediately, said Patti Holmgren, a spokeswoman for the Tacoma school system. Police confiscated the gun.
School officials were investigating, classmates have been reminded not to bring guns to school and a letter on the incident has been sent to parents of Whittier students, Holmgren said.
The boy’s parents tried to keep the gun out of his reach and did not store ammunition with it, so no criminal charges are likely, the police chief said.
“The boy now realizes he should not have brought the pistol to school,” Cheesman added. “There was an understanding there that he shouldn’t have done it and that what he did was wrong.”
Yeah, I don’t know what the point of a 10 day suspension for a toddler. It’s probably more of a punishment for the parents, they have to hire a sitter or take vacation time from work. You gotta have the guns locked up when not used for protection.
I think 10 days should have been the bare minimum. Let the parents feel the pain of carelessness with a deadly weapon. My two year old can get into just about anything these days.
This would have been a much different story if the gun had been loaded and had killed a kindergarten student.
I also think that the parents should be required to call the parents of every student in the class and personally apologize.
If my kid got into my clothing drawers or closet and took my firearm to school, I would beat him or her with a belt.
Wisenheimer, that’ll do more harm than good in my opinion.
This is a topic I’ve probably spent a hundred pages debating on use.net over the years. The most staunch NRA type will look at a story like this and admonish the parents, but any talk of a law that would punish them is over the line.
I happen to think that the problem with stolen firearms in this country (whether legitimately stolen or an organized effort to unload them) is big enough to finally get some laws on the books that punnishes the gun owner for irresponsibility.
The worst case scenario is this story right here. I’ve got a baseball bat in my house…remembering how I was as a kid, unless the thing was in a safe, my brother and I would have gotten our hands on it eventually. A bedside table drawer…w/ kids in the house, that gun needs to come out of that drawer in the morning and into a locked place that nobody can access.
Bring this story up in a staunch 2nd ammendment crowd and you’ll see something interesting take place. The ‘values’ and ‘personal responsibility’ points taken on other issues combine with a story like this and the result is a ‘perfect storm’ situation. The streams become crossed.
I’m in hardcore NRA country up here.
Read this for a glimpse… Big Lake pastor kills 2 men robbing chapel, troopers say
Big Lake is just a couple of miles down the road from me. You don’t want to mess around with this pastor.
The full story is that he shot them as they were leaving. I think one man died just outside the church, while the other was able to make it a good distance away before expiring. The pastor was found not guilty of whatever charge he faced.
I don’t have any weapon at all in my house. I’ve got a couple of rifles stored at the folks house. I have been thinking about buying some bear mace just in case. But all and all I don’t really worry about break-ins too much.
I don’t have a little boy around the house (maybe someday). I wonder if little girls get curious about guns? I don’t have any sisters, but it seems like playing with guns is more of a boy thing.
Wisenheimer, I really hope your just throwing that out there to fuel the discussion. Beating a child because of your mismanagement of a firearm, guess your the same person who drinks their problems away, guess what, in both cases your problems still exist the next day whether you have a battered child or a hngover. If you have a five year old and leave a handgun in a drawer or a closet you should be the one sentenced to some sort of punishment. How about 40 hours community service at a rehab center for people who have a lifetime impairment due to gunshot wound. A handgun stored in the home should one have a trigger lock and two be kept in a safe no matter what your living situation is child or not.
I agree on the parental discipline take that Helsing has. The fact that kids get into everything isn’t their problem, it’s the parents’ problem…IF that’s even a problem at all, since it’s human nature to be curious.
Too much frustration from parents along these lines stems from not being able to do things exactally like they’d like to, and the 2nd ammendment works it’s way into peoples’ heads to where their “right” under the law should mean something to a ten year old. Or, “I teach my kids about guns and why they shouldn’t handle them without daddy around” – which works until it doesn’t.
More effort is aimed at pointing out how deadly and addictive cigarettes are than guns, yet one kills you over a number of years and the other can do it in a millisecond.
Now if this same kindergarten girl instead brought her parents’ syringe and stash of skag in for show and tell instead of the gun, THEN the parents would have been in trouble.
I support allowing weapons in schools- I took a starter pistol and a 8-inch stiletto in to school from 2nd grade to my freshman year of high school to defend myself from bullies and carried a machete until I graduated, and if anyone dies from a kid bringing a firearm or sharp instrument to school, that will be another idiot removed from the gene pool.