Posted on 09/14/2005 2:34:24 PM PDT by 2Am4Sure
MACHIAS - A crowded playground and a loaded gun -- it could have been a deadly recipe.
There were 127 kids out on the playground, when 9-year-old Khoa Nguyen and 8-year-old Grayson Pope noticed a gun sitting in the wood chips by the swing set.
Suddenly, all those important lessons about guns we hope our kids pay attention to, paid off.
"Not to touch them and when you see one, go tell an adult and don't pick it up," recited Grayson.
What the two students from Machias Elementary didn't know yet -- they had found a 9mm handgun, loaded and missing the safety mechanism.
"It was actually pretty frightening. I told the teachers because I was afraid that if I didn't - the other class of second and third graders would come out and play with it," said Khoa.
One boy stood guard, the other ran and got a teacher who called 911.
"To see a real metal gun out there...the playground was jammed with kids," said teacher Terese Evans. "And then to see the kindergarteners coming right out for recess, I was thinking, 'Oh my goodness... what if those boys hadn't reported it?' Who knows what could have happened?"
The school called the boys' parents to let them how the children turned a dangerous situation into a positive ending.
"It was just overwhelming when the principal called," said Grayson's mother Alison. "She said, 'We had an event at school, no one is hurt, but your son found a gun.' I had to sit down."
Police will try and track down how the gun got on the playground, but more importantly, they credit and Khoa and Grayson for making sure it got off the playground.
The only thing that would have made this a better story would have been having a teacher that was enough of an adult to go out and get the gun, safely unload it, and secure it until the authorities arrived instead of calling 911 and standing around in dreadful fear of a couple of pounds of metal that can be easily controlled by someone who knows what he/she is doing.
I see no mention of the NRA or the Eddie the Eagle program
in this article.
Way to GO boys!!!!
VERY odd. Almost as if . . . .
"would have been having a teacher that was enough of an adult to go out and get the gun"
I'm assuming the reason they didn't is they didn't want to contaminate any fingerprints that may have been on the gun when somebody dropped it.
In defense of the teacher, if you find a weapon under circumstances such as this it might have been used in a crime. Calling 911 rather than picking up the gun and adding to the fingerprints on it might be a better thing to do.
Don't mean to sound Niggardly, but I think that's racist!
I would assume that the gun had been used by a criminal, and dumped there. I wouldn't want my fingerprints on it and I wouldn't want to disturb any fingerprints (or other forensic evidence) which might be on or around it.
You'd think, but any teacher who did that would be instantly fired and could be charged with a felony. The federal law that criminalized the possession of firearms on school grounds made no exemptions for people who simply found one and tried to move it.
Besides, the teacher probably did the right thing anyway. If the gun was evidence in a crime, picking it up might have smudged fingerprints or damaged its value in a court case. At the very least, it would have screwed up the chain of custody enough so that any reputable defense attorney could have had it tossed as evidence.
Generally speaking, if you find a gun under suspicious circumstances, you're better off not touching it if you don't have to.
Compromising any fingerprints, DNA or other forensic evidence that might have been on it.
SO9
Better yet, call me.
I'm calling the mods on you you racist pig. How could you possibly use two such inflammatory words, especially the one that sounds so much like a racist word?
I'm done with FR. I can't associate with those such as you.
sarcasm unless you didn't notice.
"...they had found a 9mm handgun, loaded and missing the safety mechanism."
They should look for a badge and uniform of NO's "finest" (cough cough)nearby. It bound to be near there... covered with mud.
A potential problem is that it probably was used in a crime, and that handling it could contaminate it as evidence. Except for the panicky reaction, I think they got it about right.
My first thought also. I hate to think that someone would stoop so low as to endanger kids for a political agenda, but the gun grabbers aren't about safety. They want a helpless society.
bump
I disagree. At least with the unloading part. Valuable forensic evidence could be destroyed by a teacher doing the obvious. Fingerprints on the firearm and on the shell casings come to mind...plus anything else in the vicinity of the weapon could be (or should have been) retrieved by the responding officers. Better to have the local constabulary respond and remove it.
What the hell does that mean? I'm guessing they probably found a Glock, which does not have a traditional 'on-off' safety.
Any other 9mm, 'missing' the safety mechanism would probably be an inert hunk.
More excellence in journalism.
Loaded? Okay. Does that mean full magazine and one in the chamber or just a full mag? Missing the safety mechanism? This raises new questions. Is is a Sig Sauer with no external safety except for the hammer drop? Speaking of the hammer is it cocked and locked? Safety missing? Missing or not engaged? Is it a Glock or an H&KP7 For that matter is it a 9mm revolver? No safety there.
Anyway, as I learned while becoming a certified instructor, the only real safety is the operator. All mechanical devices CAN fail.
Except one of the boys didn't leave it, he stayed to keep others away. Which made more sense given the situation. I wonder who tossed it into the playground.
Actually, I'm rather more intrigued by how a 9mm could be "missing" a safety mechanism. Knowing how dumb reporters are, did some officer tell him the safety was "off" and he assumed the "missing"? Or was the gun modified to fire without one? Dunno how that might be done, guess it depends on the gun ...
race and other competition guns often have safeties removed or disabled. most commonly its the grip safety on a 1911.
of course since we're talking about a teacher, it's probably a liberal, and the liberal idea of a "safety mechanism" is a trigger lock.
I wouldn't have touched it. Don't want my dna on it, and what if it's defective? I'd leave it to the p'fessionals.
Lot's of people made similar comments correcting me. I guess I would change my original statment to include "taking care not to contaminate the evidence by getting fingerprints on it or smudging prints that might already be on it". My point was that it appeared the teacher was as afraid of the gun as the children rightly were. In my opinion, allowing the gun to sit there, even with the children and the teacher standing guard still meant the situation was still potentially volatile until the police arrived.
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