School was warned of gun before Va. teacher shooting

Additional information has been released in the wake of the shooting that took place at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. As previously mentioned, on January 6th, a six-year-old student of the school is said to have taken a semi-automatic pistol to the school and intentionally shot teacher Abby Zwerner.

It had been previously reported that the student took the gun out of his backpack before walking up to Zwerner in the middle of a lesson and shooting her. If that was the case, the kid may just be a sleight of hand expert. It’s now being reported that the student’s backpack was searched before the shooting and no gun was found.

This may lead you to ask, why was the school searching the kid’s backpack in the first place? That’s because the school received a warning that the student may be showing up to school with a gun.

Ok, so the school knew the kid might have a gun but didn’t find one in his backpack and let him go to class anyway?

I know of at least one school shooting that happened after a student suspected of having a gun was taken to the principal’s office. The principal was killed, and two other administrators were wounded. That was a 15-year-old who was said to be strung out on pills. So, I understand that school shootings can be unpredictable, but the school wouldn’t at least want to separate him from other students just for safety purposes?

Typically, when a school receives a warning about a student coming to school with a gun, that warning comes from a parent who notices the gun is missing. I can’t say for certain that’s what happened here, but if that was the case, shouldn’t the school have called the parent in to help defuse the situation?

To make matters worse, police weren’t notified of the situation until after the shooting. Apparently, under Virginia law, schools are only required to contact police if a gun is found. While it may be required if a gun is found, don’t you think it would be an even better idea to contact police when a suspected gun isn’t found? Wouldn’t it have been better for police to be waiting at the school for the student so trained professionals could search for the weapon?

School shootings are often a confluence of negligence and coincidence. This shooting is a perfect example of that. So, it seems, for right now anyway, that both the gun owning parent and the school bear equal responsibility in allowing this shooting to happen.

That could change as more information becomes public, but I doubt it.

(Sources)

• Backpack of 6-year-old boy was searched prior to Virginia school shooting after tip about weapon
• Police say they weren’t told of report that 6-year-old had gun before Va. shooting