Parent disarms son at school shooting
In Bountiful, Utah, a parent noticed some their guns missing and went to school to confront their son. he had squeezed off a shot, but no one injured and the parent was able to talk the son down;
According to [Bountiful City Police Chief Tom] Ross, the parents were concerned about their sons behavior and noticed two guns missing from their home. They rushed to the school where police say the student fired one shot inside of a classroom and ran into the hallway. He say the parents themselves disarmed their son.
“The parents of this individual, concerned about what might occur…had also come to the school and in looking for their child heard the gunshot and actually apprehended and disarmed this individual,” said Chief Ross.”
“Two weapons were recovered — a shotgun and a handgun — and as I mentioned the suspect was taken safely into custody without incident. There were no injuries to anyone at the school.”
[…]
Students allege the boy was upset about a bad grade on a science test and say he had even texted friends not to come to school today.
Category: Guns
Great action by the parents, but why weren’t these weapons locked up in the first place? If I had kids, even teenage ones (ESPECIALLY teenage ones), my guns would always be under lock and key.
The “lock and key” idea is a good one, until you need your guns in a hurry. Have you ever tried to unlock a gun cabinet in the dark? Speed is not involved. First, find the key, then find the lock, then find the right way to insert the key into the lock, then open the door and get the gun.
In the Graybeard family we do not lock up the weapons. Other than that one time, when I did have to find a gun in the dark, we have never locked them up. I don’t know many who lock up all their guns – leaving the quick-response weapons ready to roll.
When I was a teen, we were taught proper gun usage and respect. We taught our teens the same, and our kids are teaching the grandkids properly as well. Not that my kids teen years were free from situations that could have turned out disastrous, but risk mitigation has always been better than risk avoidance in my book.
It’s a case of “you pays your money and you takes your chances.”
In this case, the parents were alert and were able to avoid a tragedy. Hopefully they can get their son some help.
Do it in the dark????
Graybeard, if blind people can do that in a heartbeat, why can’t you? If I can find my way around my house with no lights on, why can’t you?
OK, Ex-PH2, here is what was going on:
I was going after the varmint gun (a .22) in the middle of the night. The gun cabinet is in the study – which includes a bookcase in the middle of the floor. The key was on a keyring with several other keys. There are various musical instruments and other clutter stashed near the gun cabinet.
Finding the right keyring, then finding the right key on the keyring, and making my way around the bookshelf and clutter to find the (newly installed) lock on the gun cabinet – all without turning on the light so the varmint wouldn’t get spooked away(possum, coon, or armadillo – I don’t remember which) – was an exercise in futility.
I can find my way around the house w/o the lights on well enough. When the gun cabinet is unlocked, I can even get to the guns easily enough to catch the varmint before they scoot. It was the step of finding the right keyring, then the right key, and getting it into the lock in the dark that stymied me that one time.
Now, to answer Old Dog – in the case where the varmint is two-legged, I have a .45ACP with HP loads at hand that I can get to very rapidly.
While I have had to go after the 4-legged varmints often, and the 2-legged seldom, I don’t feel the constraint to keep the .22 as accessible as the .45ACP.
The first time I shot a living thing – a varmint – it was with .45ACP. Mind you, I’m not saying you SHOULD have (the cost of ammo being what it is, especially) – it just brings back those memories.
All the teaching in the world doesn’t stop a mentally ill teenager from using whatever his obsession demands to hurt whoever he has decided to target. You lock guns up around those kids.
If one knows one’s kids/grandkids, one ought to be able to determine the need for locking up the guns.
Unless you mean “mentally ill” to be synonymous with “teenager” – an argument that could be made, I suppose. 😉
Our family culture has been, for the last 4 generations at least, to be highly involved in the lives of our children and know where they are in their struggles to grow up. Therefore, I will lock up my guns only when and where I feel the need.
YMMV
I’m going to chime in with this point. You don’t need to get your guns in the dark in case of a break-in.
You need to find A gun.
Keeping every gun you own easily accessable to anyone who can get in isn’t the answer.
I agree that the biggest safety is the respect and knowledge of the weapons by those in the household. That didn’t work this time
Dispersion and rehearsals. Especially in the dark. Operation is almost silent depending on access speed. Great for small expensive jewelry with Velcro key holders on inside of door. Keeps from reaching for a weapon and finding it gone because moved or stolen.
http://vlineind.com
Curiosity demands I ask “How old is this “kid”?
I believe reports are that he is 15.
From the first paragraph in the linked story: “A 15 year-old is in custody after police respond to Mueller Park Junior High School in Bountiful on reports of shots fired.”
I have no teens to worry about. That said, most of my firearms are locked away.
Most.
With neither kids nor a wife to worry about, every weapon in my house is never locked up, always loaded, with one in the chamber, with back up rounds near to the applicable weapon. I hope my dogs never go off their rockers. Can you picture a wacko 112 pound Great Pyrenees girl, or a 96 pound Southern Bulldog, with an attitude AND an AR-15?
I typically keep mine locked up except for whatever I’m packing at the time along with an extra mag or three. BUT if the SHTF while I’m at home I can access the safe in no time.
Very unusual for Utah. Bountiful is close to being the heart of Mormon country, most of the people up there are good and decent.
Let’s put it this way. It ain’t Shit-cago.
And kudos to the parents for being observant on the missing guns, and actually DOING something positive about it (as opposed to hand wringing and calling the police). And they were successful in disarming their son, which also says a lot.
15-year-old kid with a drive to excel at everything & doesn’t know how to handle failure yet.
We had a friends kid who, when he got a B, would go into the bathroom and pound the brick wall in anger at himself. He’s better now – a Marine, go figger.
I’m hoping this kid gets help, not thrown in the pokey and treated as if he were 21.
Many years ago, I had a very good friend of the family who was murdered by his 17 year old son, because he wouldn’t let the kid go to the county fair. The yute apparently had trouble handling failure. He just recently died in prison. He’d gotten life without parole, well-deserved.
They definitely saved his life, possibly multiple others as well.
“…the student fired one shot inside of a classroom and ran into the hallway.” He’s 15, not 5. He had time to think about, using that time to warn friends to stay away from school. He took the weapons w/o permission and had to sneak them into school where weapons are not to be carried by high schoolers.
Graybeard, I hope he gets good counseling while his ass is locked up until he is 21.
Well, 2/17, I’m looking at this from the perspective of 16 years of directly working with the 14-21 year old age group in the Exploring and Venturing programs of the BSA, a few years as youth minister in church, and a little bit of teaching experience at the high-school level.
Physiologically the brain of a 14-15 year old is significantly different from that of a 21 year old. The human brain does not complete it’s growth until the early 20’s – and the last part of the brain to develop is that which enables abstract thought.
Further, the male brain never develops the capacity to deal with emotions in the frontal cortex, as the female brain does. During the hormonally driven emotional surges which occur at this age, the male brain does not have the capacity to process the emotions. The female brain at this stage has only minimal capacity to process emotion – it becomes better developed in the female brain in the late teens.
If we accept that the Mormon Church doctrine is inclined to promote an achievement-oriented or success-oriented mindset, (not that they are alone in this!) then we can postulate that the boy in question is working in an environment which has the unspoken position that failure at an intellectual/scholastic task is a failure as a human being.
With the 15-year-old’s inability to process his emotions and think through the consequences, coupled with the natural push that mid-teens have to try to function apart from parental input (“be adults”), I can see the possibility that this is a boy who made a bad decision, one that needs punished to be sure, but also that he needs help to deal with the emotions and the struggles that are part and parcel of being a teenager.
I strongly disagree that he needs to be treated as a 21 year old, or even incarcerated for 6 years.
The nature of the punishment ought to consider not only this one action, but his actions and nature heretofore. Is this a one-off, or a pattern? Treat him accordingly.
The only reason I wrote lock his ass up until he’s 21 is that most juvenile systems require juveniles to be cut loose at that age. Otherwise, I would have opted for more time. Of course, he can get that if he is eligible to be waived to adult court. As for your take, based on your experience, how does your take allow for the 13 year-old rapist, the 15-year old killer, the 12 year-old gang banger? If there’s an isolated rape, shooting, or murder, then what? This kid could have killed someone easily. A fired round doesn’t give a shit what it hits or where it goes. He can contemplate that while he matures while locked up for the next six years.
Someone needs to get this kid to understand that shooting something (or someone) is not the solution to any problem, period.
“shooting something (or someone) is not the solution to any problem, period.” Wanna bet? Read the Morning Feel Good Stories for lots of instances where shooting someone was the solution to the problem.
If the problem is someone breaking into your home or hijacking your business, then yes, it is the solution.
If the problem is that you got a bad grade or not the grade you were expecting, then no, it is not the solution.
Bad grade on a science test?
Cocksucker.
There’s a lot more going on here than a bad grade. Behold the stigma of mental illness. We may not lock them in the attic anymore, but it’s not THAT much better.
Perhaps. So the teachers and parents missed the signs. It appears the parents knew something was going on with him, thankfully they acted upon it and were not too late.
That said, there was a lot of planning involved which leads me to believe he may not have a mental condition.
I am so sick of this shit coming from the snowflake brain dead yutes of this country. I graduated from Bountiful High School. None on my peers in those olden days would even consider something this stupid, especially over a grade in Jr. High. When I was 15 I was given a .22 pistol for Xmas, and I had a .22 rifle. Taking either of them to school never would have even occurred to me. It looks like a substantial portion of our yutes are mental cases. This kid is effing nuts; and he needs to spend a few years in reform school.
I point my guilt making fingers square at the national “news” media.
Ever since Columbine, the intellectually inbred, mouth-breeding, snot-gobbling thumb-suckers of both print and 24/7 cable news (all channels) have made school shooting coverage loud and proud.
They attempt to make everyone, no matter how distant, feel as if it happened right next door to themselves.
Every wacko is taught by that media coverage that shooting up a school is where it’s at in cool dood “gonna be famous” crazy.
Here’s the textbook example of good parents producing a bad kid.
Judge: Since you’re a minor, you’ll only serve 2 years on this offense.
Kid: Can’t I stay until I’m like, you know, 21 or something?
Judge: Why on earth would you want to stay in jail longer than you have to?!!?
Kid: My dad’s gonna whoop my ass when I get home. I’d like to put that off until forever, your honor.
Those crazy Mormon kids.