Two 10-year-old students were arrested in connection with a gun sold at their elementary school in Florida, county officials confirmed.

A deputy’s son “agreed to exchange a handgun, (later found to belong to his deceased father), for a sum of $300” back in February, the Hendry County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.

The Country Oaks Elementary School was placed under lockdown Wednesday morning after the sheriff’s office received a call about “a suspicious incident” on campus. Authorities discovered ammunition in the backpack of the boy who purchased the gun.

The gun was later found in his backyard under a shed, hidden with a 74-gram bag of marijuana, according to investigators.

  • shalafi@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    10-year-old students were arrested

    Fuck me. We didn’t used to arrest tiny children.

    And when shit like this comes up, I’m screaming, “How did a 10-yo have access to a GUN!?” Arrest whoever fucked that up please.

    There is no excuse. My kids are that age, and they won’t touch a gun. Period. (Partly because I’ve taught them, but mostly because they have brains.)

    I have a shitload of guns, and they’re all in safes except a couple of black powder arms (which they couldn’t arm and fire if their lives depended on it).

    Everyone wants “common sense” gun laws? Most ideas are silly, ineffective or run afoul of the 2A (which the courts uphold, like it or not). I see nothing stopping us from draconian storage laws.

    Make the laws, it’s on the owners to abide. Make an exception for one gun out for home defense, which some caveats. Hell, owners don’t even have to pay attention! But if a child lays hands on your gun, concrete and steel box for you.

    • MagicShel@programming.dev
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      6 months ago

      Mostly because they have brains.

      I’m fucking jealous. Don’t get me wrong, my kids are bright, but my ten year old got expelled for taking a steak knife to school - something I’d never in a million years have suspected she’d do. But one of her friends thought it would be funny, and you know how you or I might joke about telling our boss to go fuck himself, but we’d never actually do it? My daughter knew better, but in that moment all she thought about was clowning around.

      She is already the most independent, hardest working kid I’ve known. I raised her to be that way and I’m damn proud of her. Some day she’s going to be a force to be reckoned with. It’s just like most children she’s a fucking idiot sometimes. It’s not her fault. I was a fucking idiot when I was a kid too. And based on stories I’ve heard, so was my dad. And then you look at the science and it turns out nearly every kid is a fucking idiot because a child’s brain isn’t an adult brain. And for some reason us parents tend to be the last to know.

      You and I feel similarly about what sane gun laws should be and I don’t really look to argue about that, but damn as one parent to another every time I hear someone say their child would never do some stupid thing or another because they are smart or raised right, I just think to myself that person either hit the jackpot or they are naive about how kids’ brains work. I’ve raised five kids. Every damn one of them has done at least one idiotic thing I never in a million years believed they would do.

      So don’t ever rely solely on your kids’ intelligence or adherence to rules to keep them safe. You don’t ever want their moment of idiocy to involve a firearm. Best of fortunes my friend - to you and your kids.

      • prole@sh.itjust.works
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        6 months ago

        but damn as one parent to another every time I hear someone say their child would never do some stupid thing or another because they are smart or raised right, I just think to myself that person either hit the jackpot or they are naive about how kids’ brains work.

        It is simply an extension of their narcissism. They see their child as an extension of themselves (at least for now, the child will inevitably leave them when they see how toxic they are), and in their mind it isn’t possible for them to do wrong.

    • SaintWacko@midwest.social
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      6 months ago

      Even my home defense gun is in a biometric safe in my nightstand… Two of the others have trigger locks, and the other two are flintlocks

      • Flying Squid@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        Most gun owners, despite all the talk of “responsible gun owners” are nowhere near as responsible as you. I wish more were. Good for you for understanding gun safety.

      • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I grew up in a neighborhood like that. By 9 the older kids had us bringing “sunflowers” that my friend’s dad smoked for whatever reason, and we’d trade a pocket full of buds for snacks and pocket change. By 11 one of the older kids decided to make a coke can pipe and show us why the sunflowers were so great. We sold pills and weed for some older people not long after that, that is until we all inevitably ended up trying those pills and becoming addicted.

        I remember one time, a walk that should have taken about 10 minutes ended up taking two hours or more because I couldn’t get my brother and our friend to move. They mixed Xanax and alcohol, I didn’t have the alcohol so I was able to drag them slowly up the road. Older folks were sitting on the porch shaking their heads at us. It was terribly obvious we were into something. I was about 12 when that happened.

        Those two slept for more than a day. My dad said, “I’m telling you, they’re on drugs!” And my mom said, “how could they be on drugs? They’re just babies!”

        I ended up getting arrested for pills in the 9th grade and put on probation. That turned me around for a while. It took a whole lot of bad shit before I finally got my life together, but I’m clean now. My brain developed on weed, alcohol, Xanax, and opiates.

        What a world.