Teen Arrested After Bringing Gun To School For Safety

A Skyview High student brought a gun to school, saying he did so for his own safety amid a growing fear being felt by students across the US.

By Jessica Marie Baumgartner | Published

Related:
Students Across Virginia Walk Out Of Schools To Protest Governor’s LGBTQ Policy

Skyview High

A student at Skyview High School was arrested for allegedly bringing a handgun to class. The boy admitted that he brought the gun for self-defense. It was a semi-automatic weapon with an empty chamber but rounds in the magazine. 

This occurred Tuesday after a school employee spotted the gun in the Skyview High student’s pocket. He has been charged with unlawful possession of a firearm and possession of a dangerous weapon on school grounds, and referred to a Designated Crisis Responder while being detained at a Juvenile Detention Center. This comes shortly after the deadly Uvalde, Texas shooting amid political debates over gun control and school security. 

While many parents, teachers, and lawmakers have varying opinions on how to secure school grounds, students, like the boy who brought a gun to Skyview High, are the ones who must return to class knowing that police forces may be ordered to stand down and allow an active shooter to murder dozens of children, as the country witnessed last week. Since the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act, school shootings have increased, leading many to question its effectiveness.

In addition, politicians pushing for more gun-control claim that more security is not the answer, and many parents are in agreement. Having witnessed how trained police officers left children to be slaughtered, many families would prefer other means of prevention, like training and arming teachers who are present in the classroom and have been killed shielding children from shooters without any means of defense. All of this has occurred during a time when children have a heightened fear to attend school and could be the key to why this Skyview High student felt he needed to bring a gun to school. 

Furthermore, lawmakers also claim that lawful gun owners cannot protect children because they are not properly trained, and will likely use the incident at Skyview High to continue campaigning for gun control, but just three days after the horrific school shooting in Texas, an armed woman in Charleston West Virginia killed an active shooter before the convicted felon was able to harm a group of graduation party-goers — despite opening fire with an AR-style weapon. In Uvalde, Texas during the school shooting, Angeli Rose Gomez witnessed police standing around while her children were trapped in Robb Elementary School with the shooter. She and others begged and screamed for them to take action. Instead of protecting and serving the victims, the police handcuffed her and placed her under arrest. She recognized some local law enforcement officers and convinced them to have the US Marshals detaining her to remove the cuffs. Gomez then snuck off and jumped a school fence, broke into the facility, found her children, and hurried them out.

This story is so remarkable that many parents are asking, if a mother has to break into a school — while law enforcement is alerted to an active shooter and on the premises — in order to save her children, what good is calling the police? This sentiment is being felt across the nation. Students everywhere are dealing with the knowledge that schools are not safe and the current administration will not consider aiding teachers in securing their classrooms. The Skyview High student in question is likely aware of the situation and the details. 

Skyview High

While students used to be able to bring guns to school and even take shooting classes on campus, now public schools are gun-free zones that make children sitting ducks. The Skyview High School student who brought a gun to class did not threaten anyone, or even reveal his weapon. No one was hurt, but because modern American society is led to believe that guns are the problem (and not the individuals who harm others with them) he broke the law. Students who feel helpless and frustrated at the situation are instructed to seek counseling, but they have another option, they can seek to overturn the 1990 Gun-Free Schools Act and petition teachers to gain firearms training and a weapon.