I spent about twenty years living in North Carolina, and I’ll be honest with you, I couldn’t point to Stokes County on a map if you spotted me a few guesses and a compass. That’s not a knock on the place; it just wasn’t exactly on my radar. Unfortunately, it is now, and not for a great reason.
At Mount Olive Elementary School, a parent decided that the morning car line was the perfect place to show off a firearm. During drop-off, a school resource officer noticed the weapon in the person’s waistband. When confronted, the individual ditched the gun back in the car and took off running, because that always makes things better. The school went into a shelter-in-place, nearby schools delayed their start, and parents were left trying to piece together what was happening from vague, anxiety-inducing phone calls.
Law enforcement eventually caught up with the suspect, who now faces a stack of charges that reads like a checklist of what not to do on school property, which includes possession of a firearm by a felon. Authorities say this person was a parent, which makes the whole thing worse. This wasn’t a random stranger wandering onto campus. It was someone who was supposed to be part of the school community casually bringing a gun into a line full of kids before turning the whole morning into a police situation.
If that sounds like enough for one week, don’t worry, there’s more. Up in Arlington Heights, Illinois, at Forest View Educational Center, classes were canceled after a school resource officer managed to lose their gun in the school bathroom. Not misplaced for a few seconds and then found under the sink. Gone. The kind of missing that requires searching the building, reviewing surveillance footage, and bringing in K-9 units trained to detect weapons.
The school had to shut down for the day while police tried to figure out where the gun went, which means students lost a day of learning so adults could retrace steps and hope someone didn’t walk off with a loaded weapon. Resources that could have gone toward, oh, I don’t know, education, were instead spent hunting for a gun that never should have been left unattended in the first place.
Again, why do guns keep getting left in school bathrooms? What is it about a restroom that makes people suddenly forget they’re carrying a deadly weapon? Are the mirrors that distracting? Is there something in the hand soap? Are the Charmin Bears trying to maul you? It’s hard to imagine another profession where “I left my gun in the bathroom” is treated as an unfortunate mistake instead of a career-ending lapse in judgment.
Between a parent bringing a gun into an elementary school drop-off line and a trained officer leaving one behind in a restroom, the common thread isn’t hard to spot. These aren’t complicated scenarios. They’re basic failures in responsibility.
How are we supposed to teach kids to treat guns with the seriousness they demand when the adults around them, including parents and police, can’t seem to manage the bare minimum?
(Sources)
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