“A Plant High School student faces charges for bringing a firearm on campus after police — investigating an unrelated ‘vague’ threat — found hunting weapons in his vehicle,” foxnews13.com reports. That lead doesn’t quite make the grade (so to speak), in terms of telling readers that the young man in question had nothing to do with this “vague” threat. In fact . . .
The South Tampa school was put into a modified lockdown Wednesday morning while police investigated a possible threat.
During that time, a student arrived for school, but could not get inside because of the lockdown. Officers approached the student, who was waiting in his vehicle, and discovered a shotgun, ammunition and a knife.
Stupid kid probably consented to a search. Don’t they teach them anything in high school civics class?
The school was later taken off lockdown after nothing else suspicious was found.
Stratton Patterson, though, was charged with two counts of possession of a firearm on school property. His attorney admitted the 18-year-old made a mistake.
“He is, in fact, a hunter and it was an honest mistake. He simply forgot to remove the weapon after returning from a prior hunting excursion,” a statement from Barry Taracks said. “He is a great kid with no prior criminal history and is shocked to find himself in such a predicament.”
Forgot to remove his shotgun — with ammunition! — eh? If Mr. Patterson is like any other teenager, I’m thinking he simply couldn’t be bothered to take it out, figuring he’d done it a bazillion times before without incident, and it sure as hell beat schlepping back to the house all the time. Besides, cool!
Only now Mr. Patterson’s looking at a serious talking to from his parents (who will shell out thousands in his defense) and a judge, who will impose some kind of sentence that could well eliminate his gun rights for the rest of his life (no hunting for you boyo). This despite the fact that there is no evidence that Mr. Patterson intended to do anything criminal with his firearm.
Zero tolerance sucks. Gun control sucks. It’s time to reclaim our gun culture and with it, our American values.