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GUNS IN SCHOOL

Utah Sixth Grader Brings Gun to School

The 11-year-old said it was to protect himself in case of a mass shooting

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by Lisa Fine

Staff Writer t

Image: AP

A Utah sixth-grader brought a gun to school Monday claiming it was to defend himself in case of an attack like last week's mass shooting that left 20 children dead at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

"He wanted to defend himself and his friends, based on what he's seen on the news," Granite School District spokesman Ben Horsley told the Los Angeles Times.

That was the boy's explanation to police, Horsley said. While at recess, the 11-year-old allegedly waved the .22-caliber handgun at three students. When officials at West Kearns Elementary School in Salt Lake City learned he had a gun, they called police. The unloaded handgun was found in the student's backpack, the article said.

The student was arrested on suspicion of possession of a deadly weapon on school property and aggravated assault, the article said.

Via the Los Angeles Times
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  • DogLady_1
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    Way to go media! Keep talking about this mass shooting so kids can be terrified and damaged by the time they get to be 20. Good going parents for thinking your kids don't hear you talking about it ad nauseum...
  • PNWest
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    And special kudos to the kid's parents for leaving the gun out where a kid could find it and bring it in to school.
  • Rightwing
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    Don't blame it on the media,all you rightwing NRA gun supporters prefer to arm the teachers,so when another six grader get their hands on a teacher weapon and pull the trigger what excuse will you have then ??Arm the janitor !
  • SavageMazx
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    @Rightwing spoken like a true reactionary anti-gun wacko. If the teacher is properly trained in practice of conceded carry, the kids wont know he/she is armed. You could stand next to my wife at the store and never know she carries a .45

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  • Keyjo
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    Quick thinking on the kid's part, coming up with that excuse so fast.
    But I don't buy it, since fortunately, the weapon was unloaded. If he actually feared for his life, the weapon would have been loaded.
  • jamie91
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    @Truant at 11 a child knows guns needs bullets. Higly unlikely he used an unloaded gun for protection, much more likely it was an excuse when he was caught trying to wow and intimidate classmates. Please, do you remember being 11? Because you seem to be comparing his mindset to that of a five year old.
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    CommonSense
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    @jamie91
    Maybe the kid didn't want to risk having to use it and only wanted to point it at a potential killer to get him to put his own gun down in the event of a shooting.

  • View all 9 replies >

  • Thunderchicken
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    @PoliticalSpice

    That would have been part of good teaching. Just as proper use should be. My kids were about that old when I started teaching them.
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    woodtick57
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    Seriously....think of the learning opportunities.

    .22 caliber vs. 9 millimeter...you got decimals and the metric system right there.

    Think of the story questions: If Johnny brings an assault wepon that can kill 32 classmates per second and he has ten clips of thiry each, how long till CNN is interviewing his neighbor...?

    This is totally win/win....
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    mom2giqm
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    @AceLuby Not at all because they do have guns in courthouses. I can't bring my side arm into the courthouse at least not through the front door (there are less secure ways into courthouses where guns could be brought in to do harm because it has happened and they didn't go thru security when they brought them in) but courthouses have armed police/deputies in them and give permission to certain others to carry inside too like federal agents. And it is still debatable whether or not law-abiding citizens should be allowed to carry in a courthouse.

    Few schools if any have armed SROs. Students and teachers are sitting ducks with a false sense of security because they have been mislead and misinformed. Laws do not keep people from doing the wrong thing. Laws do not prevent crime. Determent prevents crime. Criminals are like water, they allow the path of least resistance. They aren't going to attempt a crime where it's possibly more than a security guard or other light security might be armed. Criminals don't want to get shot. That's why gun-free zones are the most dangerous place around.They advertise that no one's armed and are a prime target for criminals.

    In the CT school case, you have a gun-free zone, a false sense of security that the laws protect from & prevent crime, & a mentally unstable individual. Even if you outlawed guns for law-abiding citizens, people like him will either find a gun somehow (outlawing them doesn't make them go away even in Canada and the UK) or they will find another way, create another plan to harm people. As bad as it was, would you have preferred him to murder people in a different way, a even more devastating way? It is completely plausible for him or anyone to have taken or the whole school without a gun. And you can't outlaw everything. Murder is illegal and many of the methods to go do so are too or at least licensed or restricted in some way. Laws, rules, regulations, restrictions, security, measures, etc create a false sense of public security & are useless to prevent bad guys from doing bad things. And public safety gains nothing and actually loses by penalizing and oppressing the freedom of law-abiding gun owners who conceal for personal protection, shoot competitively, hunt, or just like guns. Aside from criminals, the only other winners in a gun-free world are tyrants. Gun-haters in America enjoy the freedom to voice their opposition to guns, but if you champion legislating disarming the public you will be paving the way to disarm your own rights. A well-armed public keeps tyranny at bay. Disarm the people & you open the floodgates of tyranny. Of course understanding that requires an understanding of our enemies & their jealousy of us. They will spoon feed you whatever it takes to get you to do their bidding, but they don't value you or your input or opinions.

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    hertz_doughnut
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    No one believes in Evil anymore. The Nunns Believe. The Nunns slapped my wrist with a ruler. Right was right wrong was wrong and I was just a child. Lord continue my child like grace. I will not give custody of my child unless they are willing to use deadly force to protect my child. Bruce's amendment. Certain citizens by reason of positions of moral authority will be provided with many weapons of deadly force in order to protect my children. Hey little house on the prarie girl you must protect the children. New gun law should be a requirement to deputize. If they have my children they should be enabled to use deadly force as I would to protect them.
    Bruce ecurb Amendment
    Obama should say, "We are going Home, we are going west my Son.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    @hertz_doughnut

    it hasn't helped yet. The idea that more guns will solve the problem of regular mass public shootings is ludicrous.
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    hertz_doughnut
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    @hertz_doughnut In any mass of potential victims there should ba at least three armed civilians per one thousand. The right to bare arms was amended to require the deputizing of 3 per one thousand.

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    RobertJHarsh
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    Smart kid. Even he realizes we need a school with armed people to defend it. The only gun control we need is gun distribution and shooting education to those in schools ready to gun down crazy scum like Lanza.
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    RobertJHarsh
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    @woodtick57 No. The opposite will happen. Suppose Mr. Psycho shoots out the glass on the door. A special noise alarm goes off (glass break or shot alarm) and the squad of trained teachers and staff members go to the location of the shooter and KILL HIM (or her...equal opportunity). So when these nutjob aspie autistic loser basement dwellers realize they're not going to get their 15 mins/blaze of glory, they'll stop school shootings.
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    woodtick57
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    @RobertJHarsh your whole premise that the problem of our culture having multiple, regular mass shootings can be solved by more people having guns in public is beyond the pale, and as stated, just perpetuates the entire problem that creates these shootings in the first place; the misguided belief that guns can solve your problems.

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  • Thegrif
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    Well I know it was wrong for the kid to bring a gun to school, but I guess if no one else there is goin to be able to protect the kid, he figures he better protect himself.
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    bambi33
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    That's exactly what I was thinking. Any normal, healthy, self-respecting, human will feel compelled to protect himself when placed as a target in a shooting-gallery.
  • u
    CommonSense
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    There's an idea that could be applied to all guns. If all guns required a finger print scanner to get it to work that would only respond to the owner's fingerprint then responsible people could have guns and we could keep guns away from everybody else.
  • Dan_Tien
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    @woodtick57 The gun safe for my handgun has a programmable code, input by a touch pad that is hand contoured so that it can be found and the code entered easily, even in the dark. It takes just a few seconds to open.
  • Dan_Tien
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    @woodtick57 You think that I'm going to tell YOU where it is? You can choose how you want to live. I don't want want someone else to choose how I will die.
  • o
    woodtick57
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    @Dan_Tien if you feel you need it, to each tehir own, I guess. I've never even locked my front door..maybe I'm lucky in where I've lived...

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    bigdaddy2448
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    cant really blam the boy u know i dont care what anyone say u had one boy and what 10-15 teachers and one them teachers could sneek around the corner and hit him in the back of the head and knock him out or anything
  • Denizen_Kate
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    Frightened child, bad parenting. I can't blame the boy for being scared after such an unimaginably horrible event, but I can blame his parents for two things: 1) Letting him get ahold of the gun in the first place, and 2) not properly or completely dealing with his fear over the course of these last few days. The parents or parent should drop whatever else they have going on in their lives and focus on their most important job: parenting.
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    bambi33
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    Right - "Don't worry son, just keep going to school. Keep all our fingers (and toes) crossed, close your eyes really really tight, and keep saying to yourself 'I hope nobody uses this shooting gallery today'. Who knows? You might get lucky and survive another day? Is that what you call "good parenting"?
  • Denizen_Kate
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    @bambi33 - Is that how you would handle it? Or is this an attempt to put words in my mouth? Would you send him to school with a pistol in his backpack? Is that what you call "good parenting?"
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    bambi33
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    @Denizen_Kate,
    No, of course not. As parents and/or responsible members of the community, it is our duty to protect and defend these children to the extent that they feel safe, and they don't feel compelled to protect themselves from homicidal maniacs. It seems that school massacres have only become a significant issue fairly recently - about the time that our elected public servants transformed all schools into "gun-free" zones. The apparent (horrific) consequence of that transformation, was to eliminate all conceivable opposition to the lunatics and criminals who routinely disobey all such laws. Yes, I know there was the Texas clock-tower incident in the mid 60's, but that was the only one over the span of a hundred years. Now that the schools are "gun-free", they're occurring virtually every year. I believe "good parenting" includes recognizing the fatal flaws in the system, and working to correct them. In this case, that would be working to repeal all the misguided "gun-free zone" laws. Our children's lives depend on our success. I guess what upset me about your comment, was your focus on the peripheral aspects - without addressing the essential fatal flaw. I apologize for being abrasive.
  • Denizen_Kate
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    @bambi33 - Thank you for clarifying. There were armed guards on the premises at both Columbine and Virginia Tech. Just sayin'. And by good parenting, I was not refering to our role in the community, only our role regarding our own children and how we help them through confusion and fear. Effecting public policy is not what I was talking about.
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    bambi33
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    @Denizen_Kate ,
    Good point. The flaws with the "armed guards" were demonstrated in both places. At Columbine, the guards initially engaged the murderers, but then withdrew out of fear for their own safety. They had no stake in the children, and were only clocking hours on a minimum-wage job. At Va-Tech, the guards were preoccupied elsewhere - allowing the murderer unfettered access to his targets. It's important to understand that colleges and universities are on a whole different level - compared to primary schools - and should be addressed separately.
  • o
    bambi33
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    I'm quite confident they have done exactly that. He will not likely EVER set foot in a public school again - anywhere. There is absolutely NO place there for ANYONE who EVER feels the need for self-defense - much less ARMED defense. What do they think this is... America?
  • mudpike
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    Plenty of American kids have been taught by that age to respect & see firearms as only a tool - for hunting & protection purposes only. Like a hammer or a saw - it has it's uses. Only the city dwellers & gun-confiscating liberals & fools believe meat just magically appears on their super-market shelves. Some prefer to feed themselves & don't need the socialist Gov't.'s cradle to grave dependant entitlements to support themselves. It's scary to them - free thinking , self sufficient citizens in 2012.
  • jessejaymes
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    This isn't the kids fault. In fact it's not surprising at all. The fault lies with a parent who would leave this gun accessible to the little one.
  • Drake_Burrwood
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    The fact that the boy was able to bring a sidearm to school; bad parenting.

    The fact that the boy was required to realize that no one in his school was allowed to be equipped to defend him; bad governance.
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    bambi33
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    "Bad governance" would seem to be a gallactically gross understatement. What kind of government deliberately sets their children up as prime targets in guaranteed opposition-free shooting-galleries?
  • u
    KyleMFb
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    Another kid brought a gun to school no biggie happens all the time it happens every single day it's a very common occurrence you only hear about it after things like sandy hook it's just the media trying to spread fear like after 9/11 chill the fudge out
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    bambi33
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    Absolutely! anyone who would (could) EVER think that self-defense is EVER justified under ANY circumstances WHATSOEVER - is just really really silly - to believe they could ever rely on liberal progressives to consider them worthy of protecting.
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