Originally published at: Another 6-year-old boy brings a gun to school, but this time things go right | Boing Boing
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Sorry…nothing about this goes right. It is just the best possible outcome of a terrible, terrible preventable situation
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I’m with my friends above. We are not right. We are held hostage by a sick society that equates freedom with weapons of violence and murder. Every day brings another story of a mass shooting, often at schools but just as likely at a church, or a mosque, or a grocery store. We protest, we march, we pour money into movements aimed at curbing gun violence, and nothing changes.
Things are not going right. Things have gone terrible, horribly wrong. Only sheer dumb fucking luck prevented another child from getting slaughtered by our cult of weapon worship.
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“I would like to commend the children who notified school officials immediately, thus preventing another tragedy at a school,”
… and the school officials for actually taking action this time.
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But the kid just wanted to be like the cool kids his age posing with a gun for their Christmas card.
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The only thing that can stop a bad sibling with a gun, is a good sibling with a gun? 
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That’s like 50% of Classic Westerns, so maybe?
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And yet, no charges brought against the parents of the 6 yo kid who did shoot his teacher. I find this bizarre and have yet to find an explanation. Perhaps I am behind on the news but have yet to see anything about that.
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Welcome aboard!
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Yes, something went right, but charging the mother seems extra.
How on earth was a gun involved in another felony accessible to a six year old? Why wasn’t it seized as evidence or confiscated simply for being apparently sold illegally previously? This could have been headed off well in advance if it had been.
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I’m not sure where you are seeing that there was an opportunity to seize it.
Per the article:
Prosecutors said the handgun was bought last year in an illegal “straw purchase,” in which the actual buyer can’t pass the background check or doesn’t want to be associated with the transaction, and has another person step in to buy the weapon.
The man who bought the gun was arrested last year “and is awaiting trial on multiple felony charges relating to the illegal purchases and sales of four firearms, including the firearm in this incident,” prosecutors said.
So it sounds like the gun was “legally” purchased by someone who could pass the back ground check, but given to the other person who was already restricted. That person is awaiting trial on other related charges, but if there was no record of this guy actually buying it, then the cops wouldn’t know to look for it. They may even have searched his house, but if the gun was his GF’s house or where ever, then they wouldn’t have found it.
Straw purchases are a common work around criminals use, getting a SO or family member to buy a gun at a store for them.
ETA -I think I am wrong about who bought what. I corrected below.
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It’s unclear in the article what role the man facing felony charges played in the “straw purchase” arrangement, but my reading of it is that he was the “legitimate” buyer who illegally sold on the guns he “legally” purchased.
That makes it pretty surprising that he would both be charged for its purchase and sale without investigators knowing who he had sold it to - that seems pretty important to uncover if they’re going to charge him for it. I would expect it to be seized as part of that investigation, around the time of that man’s arrest.
Edited to add:
If it was his GF whose child brought it to school, then it’s even more surprising, since as you said that would be the obvious place to find the gun and very likely a search warrant would have been served to find it.
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OK, re-reading things, I think you’re right. They traced the gun back to Person A. Person A is in jail awaiting trial on making straw purchases.
But Person A sold the gun to Person B. Who Person B is is unclear. Is it he mom? The mom’s SO?
So either Person A didn’t give up the names of who he sold the guns to, or even more likely, he didn’t know the person. But since Person A no longer had possession of it, that is why it wasn’t entered into evidence as part of that guy’s charges.
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