Update on 6 year old gunman teacher shooting.

[GreenWave]

First, the bullet went through her hand, exited and then into the upper chest, as originally reported, not abdomen as reported later.
The boy was immediately restrained by a school worker which prevented further shooting. The boy was restrained until the police got there.
The gun was purchased by the boy's mother. Legally purchased was the emphasis.
Parents currently do not have custody of him and the boy is undergoing treatments at a medical facility (Sounds like they missed a portion here)

There are 96 more hours to determine the next steps when the boy will appear before a judge.
The parents have yet to be charged, although that could change if the gun was insecure at the home.

[GreenWave]

1. Oops. There is talk of installing metal detectors at the school.

Here that GOP Congress? Metal detectors!

[unweird]

2. if the gun was insecure at the home

If? IF?

I don’t understand this English language anymore.

[Bluethroughu]

10. This.

[Duppers]

43. Exactly!

[Bettie]

3. If a 6 year old got hold of the gun and took it to school

seems that it was insecure in the home.

Also, seems like the kid was taught that violence is the best way to handle problems.

[intheflow]

18. Not necessarily taught that violence is the way to handle problems.

At six-years-old, he could have been watching Bugs Bunny and thought that when people are shot they can just shake it off. See: every Elmer Fudd episode. It seems obvious that the gun was unsecured, but that doesn't necessarily mean violence is glorified in the home.

[FSogol]

20. Choo-choo! Here comes the excuse train! Bugs Bunny is responsible! Moar gunz!

[intheflow]

23. WTF, I am not a gun humper or making excuses for the mother.

I don't have guns, I don't want guns, yet I can acknowledge that there are legit reasons people have guns. Maybe they live in a high crime area. Maybe the child was born out of rape and the mother keeps a gun because she's terrified of being raped again. YOU DON'T KNOW. I'm not making excuses, I'm noting that 6-year-olds aren't cognitively mature enough to understand the difference between real and fake guns and gun violence, AND that there could be legit reasons for having a handgun. IOW, I'm not making assumptions about people without knowing anything about them.

[FSogol]

24. No matter what the circumstance is, the gun owner (the kid's Mom) left a gun where a 6 year had

easy access to it.

The Mother should have been arrested. The Mother enabled this shooting.

[Bettie]

31. Exactly, how did the six year old know where the gun was

and how to get at it.

How many times do we hear about kids shooting people because they found a gun, unsecured in a house or a purse, or whatever?

That is negligence, pure and simple. It is our job to keep kids safe and keeping firearms secured where they can not get hold of them is a piece of that.

[albacore]

34. How did the kid know??.... I taught for 30 years. NOTHING is secure in a classroom...

... or in a home. Kids are smart and observant, and they will figure work-arounds with any barrier.
6 year olds know a helluva lot more now than when I was 6.
When I was 6, I knew dirt....that's about it.

[Bettie]

36. So, there's no point in locking a gun up

rather than leaving it on the coffee table because all children inherently know how to open a lockbox or gun safe?

[albacore]

37. Now I know why Duers get snarky. This kind of thing.

There's a logical solution to the problem you missed in your jump to a conclusion. An obvious one.
How about Don't have a fucking gun in the house!
Don't keep cobras or Black Mambas in the house... and the kids won't die from snakebite.
Seems simple to me.
Guns are a danger to their owners and everybody in the house...family or visitors.

"People living with handgun owners died by homicide at twice the rate of their neighbors in gun-free homes.
https://time.com/6183881/gun-ownership-risks-at-home/
&
"Unintentional shootings happen to children of all ages. In homes with guns, the likelihood of accidental death by shooting is four times higher.
Between 2015 and 2020, there were at least 2,070 unintentional shootings by children that resulted in 765 deaths and 1,366 nonfatal gun injuries. In 2020 alone, at least 125 toddlers and children ages 5 and under shot themself or someone else. Cdc The COVID-19 pandemic hasn't helped either. From March to December 2020, unintended shooting deaths by kids went up more than 30% compared to the same time period in 2019.
Kids and adolescents are at an increased risk for suicide when there is a gun in the home too. Suicide rates in this population are four times higher than for kids who live in homes without guns. In the past decade, 40% of the suicides committed by kids and teens involved guns. Nine out of 10 of these suicides were with guns that the victims accessed at their own homes or from a relative's home.
The risk of homicide is three times higher when there are guns in the home. Not only that, but 58% of shooting deaths in children and teens are homicides."
https://www.healthychildren.org/English/safety-prevention/at-home/Pages/Handguns-in-the-Home.aspx

[gratuitous]

26. Violence as the best way to handle problems

The kid could have literally picked up that notion anywhere in these here United States and America.

[Bettie]

32. Well, he picked up the gun from his mother

so, maybe she should have had it somewhere the kid couldn't get at it.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. This child needs a great deal of help

The gun was unsecured if a six year old can get the gun and the amno

[padah513]

5. Absolutely

[littlewolf]

7. agreed it maybe that it was kept "hot"

loaded.. but still needed to be secure..

[treestar]

22. res ipsa loquitur

[fightforfreedom]

6. How does a 6 year old know how to load a pistol? I believe it was 9mm.

How does a 6 year old know how to cock that pistol? How does a 6 year old know how to operate the safety on that pistol. That pistol must have been laying around, locked and loaded, safety off, ready to go.

It's a miracle he didn't shoot himself before he got to school. The parents better lawyer up. They are fucked.

[GreenWave]

14. I believe they said it was 9MM

I was watching two tv channels at the same time and forgot to put that in.

[Paladin]

17. All available information indicates those parents DESERVE to be fucked. (nt)

[iscooterliberally]

19. I knew how to do all that when I was six. It's really not that hard.

I was around guns a lot when I was a child, but that was a long long time ago. Now I have cats and guitars. Guitars are way more fun and if one of your children takes your guitar to school, they can't shoot their teacher with it. Parents need to find better hobbies.

[Jedi Guy]

21. I'm not a gun expert and don't own any, but my dad does.

To the best of my knowledge, most modern semiautomatic handguns don't need to be manually cocked. Pulling the trigger is all that's required for it to fire. Additionally, a safety is not standard on all handguns. My dad has a 9mm with no safety. If a round is in the chamber and the trigger is pulled, it'll go bang.

Regardless of the mechanics of the exact gun in question, the fact that a 6-year-old was able to lay hands on it automatically means the parents have some serious 'splainin to do.

[EX500rider]

25. They all need the slide pulled back to load the 1st round..

...and it take more strength & dexterity then most 6yo's have, I'd guess it was left with a round in the chamber, also some semi-autos like Glocks don't have a separate safety, it is built into the trigger, pull the trigger and it is realeased.

[Jedi Guy]

27. "I'd guess it was left with a round in the chamber."

That would also be my guess, but kids can figure out the damnedest things given enough time. If this kid futzed around with the gun to figure out how it worked before he took it to school, he's damn lucky he didn't shoot himself while doing so.

[EX500rider]

35. Well it wouldn't be a matter of figuring it out...

...So much as upper body strength, I don't think a 6-year-old could pull the slide back, the spring has quite the tension on it, when I was teaching my 20 year old girlfriend to shoot at the range on my glock back in the '80s she couldn't get the slide all the way back.

[underpants]

8. Thanks for the update. Went through her hand ok that makes sense

I was thinking that it may be been obstructed before it hit her in the chest.

[LonePirate]

9. Did he live with both parents or with just his mother?

Last edited Tue Jan 10, 2023, 10:50 AM - Edit history (1)

It’s a little odd if both parents were at home and the mother bought the gun instead of the father. Might be something to that if true. If she was a single mother, she likely bought it for protection, maybe from a threatening person in her life which the kid may have picked up on.

I’m not excusing the negligence of leaving the gun unsecured. I’m just spitballing as to why the kid thought a gun would solve his problems at school and it likely stems to reasons for the gun’s existence and easy access at home.

[GreenWave]

15. Agreed.

Seems like his motive for shooting her was he didn't like his Art class??? Not confirmed.

[Emile]

11. I heard the mother was the owner of the gun.

[halfulglas]

12. I can't help wondering why he thought the teacher was an enemy.

Was there talk in the home that they didn't like something that was being taught? They didn't like the school? What put the idea in the boy's head that he should shoot the teacher? This wasn't an accidental shooting. It is so sad for everyone involved.

[OneGrassRoot]

16. I know...

I'm always searching for any reported motive with killings, even if they're irrational. I still haven't heard of any motive for the 15-year-old who went on a shooting spree in Raleigh, NC back in November.

[meadowlander]

30. He's six. His brain is barely developed to understand cause and effect.

When I was in school in the 80s in a very liberal part of the country, kids would sing a modified version of the Battle Hymn of the Republic as a joke:

"Glory, glory Hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
Hid behind the door with a loaded 44
That's why that teacher don't teach no more."

Lots of kids hate specific teachers and lots of kids fantasize about violence in a culture that doesn't really do anything to teach them alternative methods of conflict resolution. Youth culture can also be extremely persistent and retrograde passed from older siblings to younger and then circulated around peer groups. For example, "Ring around the rosey" is a song full of gallows humor about the bubonic plague which kids still sing today and don't get me started on "Eenie meenie miney moe".

Just saying we don't know enough of the facts here to assume that it must be the mother's (or any other adult's fault) that the kid got it into his head to shoot someone. Lots of kids' culture includes violent fantasies against authority figures which could flip the wrong switch in the wrong kid's underdeveloped brain.

[Wicked Blue]

40. In the '60s we sang

Glory, glory Hallelujah,
Teacher hit me with a ruler.
I bopped her on the bean with a rotten tangerine
and we all went marching home

... rotten tangerines apparently being the weapon of choice in those days

[OneGrassRoot]

13. I've been thinking about this a lot...

Our bias is to assume the parents (2) are in the home and irresponsible gun humpers.

What if he only lives with his mom who is a victim of domestic violence and is terrified all the time and isn't a lifelong gun owner and thus keeps it loaded because she's terrified? Absolutely, positively the gun should have been secured better but I have a 4-year-old grandson who gets into ANYTHING in the blink of an eye.

Regardless, I was reading a legal blog which explained that, given the laws and circumstance, the most the parent could be charged with is a misdemeanor, I think child endangerment. They would have to change the law to make it a harsher penalty.

If this is a child of color and the same for the mom as the owner, they may indeed change the law.

I live in Raleigh. Remember the 15-year-old who went on a shooting spree here on a greenway back in November, after first stabbing and shooting his brother. I keep searching for updates and nothing. The parents in that case haven't been charged with anything either and I can't find any details of motive or the guns or anything else which surprises me given social media rumors. When it comes to underage shooters, details can really get locked down.

[maxsolomon]

28. Oh well, if it was legally purchased, NBD.

Let's just move on; the parent has suffered enough. Not like the teacher with a hole in her chest, but enough to have learned a valuable lesson.

The important thing is that the gun is OK.

[WarGamer]

29. If a 6 year old got his hands on a gun....

It certainly wasn't secure.

I actually sold my rather large collection of guns the week after our baby boy came home... 30 years later, never had the desire to buy any more.

[ecstatic]

33. The boy will appear before a judge?

Wow this story is nuts all the way around!

Also, to anyone reading this: if you have a gun, unless you've put some serious thought into safety, it's guaranteed that your child or grandchild knows where it is and how to access it.

[Skittles]

38. would they really make a 6yr old "appear before a judge"?

the boy needs a good lawyer who can get the child the help he desperately needs....

[Vinca]

39. I don't know how you can hold a 6 year old, much less arrest him. Mom and dad or whatever

adult has custody of him should be charged to the max, though. There's no question about whether the gun was secured. Obviously, it wasn't.

[debm55]

42. We had a terrible story in the small town I taught in. Child of 5 years, was home with his dad, a

policemen, and the child's siblings. Mother was at work.Cop father had the gun loaded in the bedroom closet on top shelf.
Child went in, got a chair, took the gun and shot himself in the head. Funeral was right before Christmas. Mother brought all the boy's presents to funeral home. As the siblings, attended our school, we attended. It was absolutely the worst thing I have every seen. No charges brought against father. In fact, he remained on the police force.

[Wicked Blue]

41. I don't understand why we haven't heard anything about the kid's family

Is there some kind of coverup?