Stupid is as stupid does, but ‘stupid’ does not begin to describe the two yoots who brought a family member’s handgun to San Francisco’s Balboa High School. And then posted a selfie with it from the boy’s bathroom . . .
Their selfie was of course spotted by another student, because that’s why you post things on Facebook.
The other student promptly dropped a dime on the Dysfunctional Duo, and I (for once) kind of understand why they got ratted out. Snitches may get stitches, after all, but the classmates of Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris got killed. Luckily these two weren’t Klebold and Harris. They were just Dumb And Dumber.
From the San Francisco Appeal:
The 16-year-old boys posed for the photograph last Wednesday around noon at a boys’ bathroom at the school, located at 1000 Cayuga Ave. near the Balboa Park BART station, police spokesman Officer Albie Esparza said.
The next day, a student saw the picture posted on Facebook and told an administrator, according to district spokeswoman Gentle Blythe.
School officials called San Francisco police and the students’ families.
The students were detained and searched, but no weapons were found on them, Blythe said.
The pair admitted to committing the incident the day before and they were arrested, Blythe said.
The boys have been “cooperative and forthcoming” in the investigation, Esparza said. They were cited and released to their families.
According to Blythe, it was determined the gun belonged to a family member of one of the students and that it does not appear the students were planning on using the weapon for any purpose other than for the photograph.
Esparza said police searched the home of one of the boys and found a rifle, pellet gun and the handgun used in the photo. All three weapons were taken into custody.
The family did not know the boy had taken the weapon and no family members were arrested in connection with the incident, Esparza said.
The two students are facing mandatory expulsion following the incident and arrests, according to Blythe.
I think the real answer to this problem is right there in front of us. And I mean ‘right in front of your faces at this very instant’: TTAG. If more teenagers read The Truth About Guns, they’ll know not to do stupid shit like this.
We need to get TTAG into every public school in the country, now. For the children.
I’m actually very surprised no family members have been arrested. Yet, anyway.
I also wonder if the homeowners agreed to the search, and / or if a warrant was issued.
My parents would have been arrested for beating my A$$ black and blue….. and for good reason.
In the day our parents would not have been arrested. The law was okay with them beating our ass’s. My folks took full advantage of the law.
This stupid site said I was posting too quickly…funny my first post.
Try to recreate my post. Arrest the parents for what? Most storage laws only apply if many conditions are met including the gun being loaded. The one that applies to unloaded guns has many conditions that need to be met
It is a misdemeanor is ALL of the following is true
1. The person keeps a gun in premises he controls or owns
2. He “knows or reasonably should know that a child is likely to gain access to the firearm without the permission of the child’s parent or legal guardian” (note the w/o permission part)
3. The child actually gains access and takes it to a school or school event
And NONe of the follow is true
1. “child obtains the firearm as a result of an illegal entry into any premises by any person”
2. “firearm is kept in a locked container or in a location that a reasonable person would believe to be secure.”
3. It has a trigger lock
4. The firearm was carried on person or kept close enough so that the person could retrieve it as if on his person
5. If the owner is a cop, military, National Guard (but not sure if California Militia) and the child obtains it during the course of the performance of their duites
6. The child obtained it and used it in self-defense
7. “person who keeps a firearm has no reasonable expectation, based on objective facts and circumstances, that a child is likely to be present on the premises.”
There are other mitigating factors where the prosecutor is directed to consider not prosecuting a parent whose child was killed or injured, or if the parent had taken a safety class…
In any case, hard to make a case of a crime with the parents here. cf. PC 25200-25225)
It’s a hard habit to form – believe me, I know – but you can/should copy your text before hitting “Post Comment”. Here, I’m going to try it!
Broke the stupid rule. Don’t do stupid shit in stupid places with stupid people.
How ’bout TTADAT? The Truth about dumbass teens? LOL from an old guy who did all kinds of stupid crap but never FILMED it. (or at least nothing to get me arrested!)
Wait.. They seized all the guns in the house? Makes me wonder if the parents had the guns well secured? Probably not..
Cue OC fanatics to rush to the defense of the two lads.
Thank you, now I have that ridiculous theme stuck in my head…
How does open carry relate to two dipshits who shouldn’t have had a firearm in the first place?
I’m thoroughly confuzzled.
Oh just wait long enough…part of going full retard involves defending the two kids “rights”
Open carry has nothing to do with this. Stop being a fucking troll.
This.
I thought he meant Orange County at first, but that’s the other end of the state.
I thought it meant obsessive compulsive. Such is the problem with laziness and acronyms.
Yikes. Now I know who doesn’t put the “sunshine” in the Sunshine State.
Wow…. Take two chill pills and call me in the morning.
Cue Paul T. Mcain going full bigot and full “retard”.
From an “OC fanatic.”
Hey now, I was an “OC fanatic” right up until they killed off Marissa….
I see what you did there and I approve.
Seriously, I didn’t understand the reference to OC. I kept thinking, what does a teen drama show or Orange County in CA have to do with this story? Didn’t occur to me at first it was a swipe at Open Carry, but than again your comment really didn’t make sense in the first place.
While this was (these days and esp in SF) a patently stupid thing to do, what people should be up in arms about is school officials having any access to, or involvement with some kid’s FB nonsense.
This is no different than breaking into kids’ home flipping through those naughty Polaroids we did when we were that age. What kids do off-campus is precisely none of the school’s goddamn business, and if the school isn’t hosting FB’s servers on that campus they have no business knowing anything kids do there. That’s for the parents to snoop, if they are so inclined.
If you post an image to the public domain it’s out there for everyone to see…
Besides another kid saw it, not snooping school officials.
Did you miss the part where it said that another student saw the fb picture and reported to the school that they had guns on campus?
It’s also possible that their fb page is public so that yes, the school, along with everyone else, has access to it. Hence the multiple reference to “stupid” throughout the article and comments.
I’m not really sure what you are insinuating is going on here…that the school hacked their fb page or something?
Yes, I read the article completely, I’m afraid you’ve both been so brainwashed by the popular culture you don’t understand how this is thoroughly wrong.
I don’t care that some other student directed the school officials to FB, that is not the point. The point is that the school is using something that exists off-campus against someone who already did what they did and were never caught while doing it. “Publicly posted’ means sweet FA in this context.
This is not robbing a liquor store, this is a school. The only thing they have any dominion over is what happens on campus, and more specifically that which they catch in the act. Just because the media has changed, this is no different than some student narcing some other kid out for smoking pot on a field trip pre-FB. The school didn’t catch it at the time, but somebody got polaroids and the rat saw them passed around at a party off-campus. School officials would have never touched that or hunted down those photos back then, they knew their place. Now? This sort of sanction for invasive action is exactly what empowers them.
Hello, it did happen on Campus, so the school officials had every right to act. You’re way off base.
Brainwashed? Haha. People that know me would find that quite funny.
Your nonsense about this being “off campus” is just ridiculous. I cannot “discuss” with ridiculous today. Sorry.
The had the weapons at school, not in their own home. That makes it the school’s business. If they’d posed at HOME with guns and the school got involved you’d be right. But that ain’t what happened
16V: Digital photos may be used in court if verified by a witness. Both boys verified the photo for authenticity, therefore they may be charged. I’m not sure how many criminals are caught red-handed, but I’m guess it’s nowhere near as many as are prosecuted on circumstantial evidence. Nothing in the court system would justify your “caught red-handed” requirement.
At any point in time, facebook aside, if school officials were shown photographs of kids breaking the law on school property they would take action…
It’s no different than if the kids put up Polaroids on a bulletin board for everyone to see when they walk by. If you put images of you breaking the law in public you should expect reasonable consequences.
You don’t know what you’re talking about.
There will be no violent resistance, they will go enthusiastically and willingly…
I’m well aware of the rules of evidence, which is one of the reasons I take issue with all of this. So, what you are saying is that now schools are somehow a law-enforcement entity? That they can utilize “evidence” that is completely outside the boundaries of the school to “convict” some kids for something that they weren’t caught doing by school officials?
Once again, go back to the analogy of passing around pictures at a party, because this is exactly the same thing, the media format is irrelevant.
Johnny smokes pot, sneaks a gun, whatever in the school john. He then takes a polaroid to prove he did it and this gets passed around a party. Susie busybody sees it and tells the principal. The principal then goes to the off-campus party and grabs the pictures, taking them back to the school and using them against Johnny.
You’re all seriously asserting that this is somehow acceptable? That school administrators should have anywhere near this kind of insane level of access, let alone any power to use it? Because that’s exactly what happened.
See? Did not take long.
So you are saying that under the same circumstance but with a picture of Lil Johnny and Joey raping Lil Susie in the bathroom the school would have no grounds to call the cops because they were not caught in the act?
Or, if the two dipwits had trashed the cafeteria and posted photos of them in the act, the school shouldn’t prosecute? Evidence is evidence. I think the current state of academic bias against guns is ridiculous (lockdown a school for hours because a kid had an empty .22 casing in his pocket? Really?), but they were perfectly within the bounds of legality on this one.
“All three weapons were taken into custody.”
err, this implies anthropomorphism. It shoul read “All three weapons were confiscated.”
Custody can simply mean taking charge of or taking care of something. Although it is most commonly used in regard to other people, it doesn’t have to be.
Agreed. Confiscated also has the connotation of not going to give them back. Custody could just be temporary
The police might confiscate the actual gun brought to school as a nuisance item (cf PC 25200 (d) ) They couldn’t confiscate the other gun or the pellet gun under that rationale.
Still, the parents will probably have to file a LEGR form and probably be made to pay $35 to get the rifle back…
True, but the common usage of “taken into custody” interestingly goes right along with everything implied by the antis about guns being so inherently dangerous that mere possession poses a threat. It suggests that the ideology of guns being the a priori cause of violence is taking/has taken root in the minds of journalists.
We need to get TTAG into every public school in the country, now. “For the children”.
I’ve read this phrase too many times in the past year, but this time it actually makes sense.
“If more teenagers read The Truth About Guns, they’ll know not to do stupid shit like this.”
Oh, yes, because nobody who reads this site could possibly think that taking a photo of themselves holding a gun is acceptable.
How many of those pictures are of people holding guns in a school, or otherwise in any way, shape or form depicting evidence of the commission of a crime?
I have no idea where any of them were taken, but none of them are evidence of a crime under this law:
“A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”
I’m sorry, I thought you were drawng a parallel between the Stand Strong pictures with what the boys in the school bathroom did…that letting kids see TTAG with adults taking “selfies” holding guns was somehow hypocritical in terms of criticizing the teens in this story.
Did I misunderstand?
Either way…one is “selfie committing a crime” and the others are just “selfies.” Big difference.
You’re right, it’s completely hypocritical. The people criticizing the teens are demonstrating a Diane Feinstein attitude: “guns are fine for me and people I approve of, but people I disapprove of shouldn’t be allowed near them.”
I don’t personally see a big difference between “selfie committing a phony ‘crime’ by violating an un-Constitutional law” and “selfies encouraging other people to to commit a phony ‘crime’ by violating an un-Constitutional law.”
An underage student carrying a firearm in school is a violation of a present law. Those boys broke the law as it is written.
What “phony” crime? Are you suggesting it was NOT illegal for those boys to do what they did? Good grief…
The Stand Strong pictures depict no violation of any law.
Trying to equate them is pure nonsense.
To 16V: A fellow student showed the picture to school admins and they called the police.
“School officials called San Francisco police and the students’ families.”
The school admins didn’t kidnap these boys and lock them in the basement to torture them. They followed the standard procedure. Your “red-handed requirement” argument has no legal grounds.
Unfortunately for your argument physical photos have been used against students, and digital photos are admissible in court. On top of that the two confessed everything to the authorities. The same would, and has in the past, happened without any photo evidence. When I was in high school someone I knew was busted for pot they had at their house based on a rumor that got to the administration. At no level do you have an argument.
Christ, what kinda of statist garbage are you supporting? “Legal” has sweet FA to do with “school”.
Until schools become courts of law or agents of the court, they have no effen business dealing outside of their sphere.
Gun owners need to lock up their shit.
How many people have been busted thanks to their need to film and post their adventures? Bunches(it’s a scientific term, look it up). Love it when people are to stupid to not get caught.
Snitches get stiches. What are we, a bunch of inner city yoots listening to rap?
Bunches(it’s a scientific term, look it up).
We talking metric or imperial?
I’ve lost my conversion chart.
There’s an app for that.
When I was young (maybe 8 or 10) I found a pair of rifles and some ammo in my parents’ attic. One was (I now know) a lever action in .22LR, the other took a large centerfire cartridge, maybe a .30-06. (Mom no longer remembers.)
I figured out how to load them, and how to cycle rounds through so as to unload them. Then I put everything back and went downstairs after managing to not fire them.
I told my folks about this, oh, 30 years later. It’s just not that hard to understand that some stuff, you shouldn’t broadcast to the world.
You want the kids, so they can donate more money.
Maybe its just me, but what good will expulsion do? If these kids are already doing dumb stuff will keeping them out of school help? Seems like a better punishment would be to keep them in school but keep them away from school activities, force parents to bring them and pick them up.
Its just like are crappy prison system, it helps nobody
These two young men broke a lot of laws and will pay dearly for there immature acts. They could not legally possess this weapon under any circumstances due to their age. This means they stole it from the relative and that relative did not have it secured either in a safe or with a trigger lock. In San Francisco that is a felony. If the pistol had a standard capacity magazine; that would also qualify for further charges since San Francisco has a 10 round mag capacity law in place. In fact to even possess a standard capacity magazine is a crime. The family is at risk, as well.
All schools are responsible for the safety of the students (public and private) while on school grounds, school sponsored sporting events on campus and field trips. And yes they will and commonly do expel students for behavior that involves criminal activity both on campus and off. Once these two are released from custody, and that might be awhile, they will have a difficult time getting an education since no other schools are likely to want them. Maybe a trade school, I think one still exists in SF?
My 2 cents…
I pity the poor Teachers who have those two jack wagons for students. Dumber than a bag of hammers, to quote Ulysses Everett McGill.
Dumb kids…..claim you photoshopped yourselves into the background from the school!!
Wait a minute!
The school is a gun free zone! how is this possible? I thought that’s supposed to prevent students from bringing guns into the building???
If school security is so great and the Gun Free Zone concept really works, how did they get the guns from outside to inside the bathroom in the first place?
Shouldn’t the Gun Free Zone signs have started beeping or something, or just the school building itself just freaked out? After all, the magic safety bubble over the school was violated…
The only thing that slightly bothers me about this is that all the guns were taken. I’m wondering what the purpose of that was. Who did they belong to? Just using common sense, I would think it would make sense if the police politely requested the owner of the guns to keep them locked up but confiscating them seems a bit extreme.