Gun Brought to School on First Day of Class in St. Paul

Another ‘responsible gun owner™‘ must have let one slip past the goalie recently, as a student of Johnson High School in St. Paul, Minnesota, brought a gun to school on the first day of class.

Now, there’s something significant about St. Paul that I can’t seem to put my finger on. It’s right on the tip of my tongue. I know it’s one of the Twin Cities. So the other twin is…oh, right. It’s Minneapolis, where two kids were killed and close to two dozen injured in the Annunciation Catholic School shooting just last week.

School officials were quick to reassure families that everything worked “as intended.” A tip came in, staff searched the student, a gun was found, and police made an arrest. Protocols followed, boxes checked, day saved. That’s all well and good, but the reality is that a teenager still walked through the doors with a firearm in their possession before anyone noticed. The protocols aren’t prevention; they’re damage control, and this time the damage just happened to be zero.

The principal, in his letter, wanted parents to know the school remains “physically, socially, emotionally, and cognitively safe.” That’s a lot of safe. Safe on paper, maybe, but how much safer did parents feel picking their kids up after hearing about a gun in the building? How many students spent the rest of their “first day” quietly wondering if their classroom door could stop a bullet?

Families are being encouraged to use the district’s “Send a Tip” tool whenever they have a concern. Because in 2025, being a student doesn’t just mean turning in your homework on time; it also means becoming part of the frontline intelligence network against potential armed classmates. The system doesn’t keep guns out of schools, but at least it gives kids the option to file a report about them once they’re already inside.

And remember, this all unfolded less than a week after the Annunciation Catholic School shooting across the river in Minneapolis, where children were gunned down inside a church. St. Paul officials insist there’s no ongoing threat, and technically they’re right. But the threat has already been here, living rent-free in both cities, turning every “secure” mode lockdown into just another test of how well a community can keep pretending that it’s business as usual.

But hey, let’s not forget something. Somewhere out there, maybe right there in the Land of 10,000 Lakes and God knows how many guns, another ‘responsible gun owner™‘ is polishing their NRA sticker while swearing they’d never let their weapon fall into the wrong hands. Except, somehow, those wrong hands keep ending up in our schools, our churches, and our communities. Every incident is treated like an isolated ‘anomaly,’ when the only thing anomalous at this point is still pretending this is normal.

(Sources)