Kindergartner brings gun to school

News came out of Houston, Texas yesterday that a six year old brought a loaded handgun to a Houston elementary school yesterday. The result of this frightening occurrence was three students being injured with non-life-threating injuries. Witnesses state the weapon fired once after falling out of the student's pocket, Independent School District spokesman Jason Spencer said the injured students may have been struck by bullet fragments. He also said that the injured children were taken to a hospital and their parents were notified, while not knowing there specific conditions he was quoted as saying "the prognosis is good for these kids."

 What's really going on when a child is able to walk out of the house with a loaded handgun? What's worse is that according to the numbers this isn't uncommon in Houston. Within the last school year this is the third occasion of a student bring a gun to school, all at the elementary level. Other than learning the core beginning elements a child should be learning in school, they are dealing with guns being brought to class by their peers. If our kids aren't safe at school, then where are they safe? It seems like the safe havens we can send our children have grown few and far between.

 As cliché as it may sound this starts with the parents. Unfortunately this happens to be a reflection of their skills of doing what their title implies, parenting. I'm not going to turn this into second amendment pros vs. cons article, because that would be calling a spade a club. What I am going to say is that, as a grown responsible adult there should be no reason for a handgun to be anywhere within the range of a child no matter the age. For a six year old to be able to bring a gun to school like a packed lunch it had to be lazily kept by the parent. Not even that, more than likely also made visible to the child for them to know it was in the house. If you feel the need to share a house with a weapon and a child it seems only logical to have the weapon kept as far and unreachable for them as possible.

 A little bit of logic can save a lot of lives.


Check out the full story here.


Photo courtesy of: Arvind Balaraman