Student Brings Gun to ME School A Reminder For Safe Gun Ownership

According to the Richmond Police Department, a student at Marcia Buker Elementary School brought in a loaded handgun to school on Tuesday, April 6th.

It was determined there were no threats and the student who brought in the handgun notified staff themself. The investigation is open and charges may come against the child and their parents.

No other details have been released, however, this is a great reminder of the importance of safe gun ownership. It's entirely possible that the student's parents left the gun open and accessible and the child decided to bring it in for show and tell.

This situation could have had some incredibly grave consequences. Richmond PD commended the school and the students for responding the way they did.

Basic gun safety means to treat a firearm as if it's always loaded, never point it at something you're not intending on shooting, keep your finger off the trigger until you're ready to shoot and be aware of what is beyond your target.

Treating a firearm as if it's loaded is a huge responsibility and no child should have easy enough access to a firearm to be able to take it. In this case, it was in fact loaded.

The Well Armed Woman recommends that the safest storage option for a firearm for self-defense when there are children in the home, is to store the firearm on your person so you are aware of it at all times. Otherwise, keep in a biometric safe for quick access (for the adult) if needed. For firearms for recreational use or non-urgent use, they recommend being stored, unloaded, in a safe. A safe to which the kids do not have access.

Tampa Carry goes into more details and gives examples of storage devices to use.

Read the full statement from Richmond PD here.