"I bought a total of 21 magazines. So that equals 399 rounds loaded. Then one in the chamber = 400 rounds. Helps with my OCD." (courtesy xdtalk.com) An 8-year-old child was found to have a loaded 9mm magazine (not shown) at school earlier this week. The magazine was discovered when it fell out of his coat pocket during recess. The kid didn’t have a gun, just the magazine, and no one was hurt. But here’s where it gets weird. Somehow detectives obtained a search warrant for the child’s home, where they found “more ammunition as well as drug paraphernalia.” No arrests have been made and the investigation continues, but I’m really unclear how they managed to justify a search warrant of the home. . .

Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Canandaigua, New York. The local middle and high schools went on lockdown this morning after a call came in to 911 about 8 a.m. reporting a man with a shotgun near the school. Police notified the school and administrators enacted the lockdown, during which all outside access doors were locked and a person was assigned to each, while students and teachers continued their normal activities. Also, of course, a robo-call went out to every parent in the district. Within about an hour, police determined it was a false alarm and activities at the school returned to normal. Police Chief Jon Welch said a “reliable source” told police the man had a black umbrella in his hand, which the caller may have mistaken as a shotgun. According to Welch, police do know who the man is, and he walks the same route through town each day. But hey, the lockdown was only done as a precaution, so no harm, no foul. [h/t MC]

A student in Moore County, North Carolina was arrested on Tuesday after a gun was confiscated from his car on the campus of Pinecrest High School. According to a school spokesman, information was provided to school resource officers at the school, and they discovered the gun in the trunk. The gun was never removed from the vehicle prior to its discovery by police, and was a “sawed off shotgun.” The 18-year-old student was charged with having a gun on educational property and possessing a weapon of mass destruction. [What?] Officers continued to investigate while the teen was held at the Moore County jail under a $10,000 bond.

Some folks in Colorado are having trouble getting their firearms back from police, due to the new universal background check laws passed last year. The article over at the Reporter-Herald highlights the case of Sara Warren, whose personal handgun was turned over to Fort Collins Police when she was transported by ambulance to the local hospital. The problem is that the police were advised by the city attorney that in order to remain in compliance with the background check laws that went into effect on July 1st of last year, they should not return firearms without an FFL check, and the police department doesn’t have an FFL person in their office. So, Ms. Warren waits, and there are quite a few others like her. There are some law enforcement officers, though, who are treating the situation properly. Sheriff Justin Smith cited this as an example of the kind of things that he and other sheriffs predicted would be a problem, back when they were opposing passage of the law. He went on to say, “I’ll risk being in noncompliance with the law before I’m keeping somebody’s property we have no right to keep.”

This week, Hickok45 does a long-form review and shooting demonstration of the Smith & Wesson Bodyguard .380, which I’m not too fond of but seems quite popular with a bunch of other folks.

I may have to add one to the collection eventually, because even though I don’t enjoy shooting it, well… gotta catch ’em all, right?

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48 COMMENTS

  1. Wow….”weapon of mass destruction”… Really….just.. wow…

      • Pretty much. I’m waiting for some news peon to claim that a subject had a tactical nuclear dirty bomb anthrax AR-15

      • People that clueless likely never had any idea of what any term means to begin with. To progressives, understanding takes a very distant back seat to emotionally charged complimecated words and childish hysteria.

    • Whoever filed that charge needs to be taken out back at beat down like the punk he is. No one had a nuke here. What would they file if someone DID have a real WMD? Probably nothing because the case would be immediately taken out of their hands by the Feds.

    • I have a suspicion that this particular news outlet didn’t know “Destructive Device” was a legal term, and got creative with the their word play. Thats the only way it makes sense. Unless he had a shotgun AND a bomb.

  2. I’m thinking maybe an adult member of the kid’s household may have had a felony record or disqualifying misdemeanor. The kid having the loaded magazine would provide probable cause to suspect that the adult had a weapon under disability. Just conjecture, mind you…

    • That’s exactly what happened. The kid provided enough information for the cops to establish probable cause to and obtain a warrant.

      If it was my kid, when I got home, it would be “what did I say about talking to cops?? HUH? DON’T TALK TO COPS!!!!!” smack smack smack smack 😉

  3. I wanna be the very best
    Like no one ever was
    To own them all is my real test
    To shoot them is my cause

    I will travel across the land
    Searching far and wide
    Each firearm, to understand
    The power that’s inside

    • “gotta catch ‘em all” – I see what you two did there, very original Florida Matt and ever more creative Paladin.

      Now, how big does one’s gun Poké Ball have to be to “hold them all” and how many pages in the Pokédex that lists them?

  4. Rochester area, where umbrellas are commonly mistaken for guns (RIT a couple of years back).

    • Brick city…. I really miss Nick Tahou’s on Main St and having a Garbage Plate for beakfast.

  5. Is it possible that the kid squealed on his parents, thus a judge allowing the search warrant?

  7. Weapons of Mass Destruction is a term like assault weapon. It really does not have a good defined meaning. Using WMD in conjunction with a shotgun is true idiocy. How did they find the gun in his vehicle? I took my dads truck to school every so often with knives bullets and who knows what else in there. It was all hidden in pockets and compartments in the cab. The only way the school would have known is if a “friend” or a nosy school employee had a coat hanger to break into the truck.

      • Probably so, I wonder what the story is on it being a “sawed off” shotgun? Was it a true sawed off, or was it an 18.5″ “police style barrel”? /sarc

        He was a total idiot for bringing it to school anyway.

    • “Have Gun, Will Travel” says the card of a man. . .
      A knight without armor in a savage land . . .

  9. “I’m really unclear how they managed to justify a search warrant of the home. . .”

    Sometimes I think people forget that all it takes for a search is probable cause. There’s no additional level needed for a house, it’s still probable cause (plus a judge’s pen). It’s not a huge legal bar. An 8 year old has the loaded magazine for a gun and brings it to school, that’s probably good enough nowadays for reckless endangerment there (even if it wouldn’t reach the proof beyond a reasonable doubt). That plus whatever the child told the school officials \ police\ whomever about the guns and drugs in the house.

    • “and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized”

      but only if we’re going to return to being a nation of laws

    • Well, it is Champaign Illinois, location of UofI UC. I’m surprised they didn’t toss/find drugs in the entire neighborhood. They need to go back to busting speeders on the Interstate.

  10. ” The problem is that the police were advised by the city attorney that in order to remain in compliance with the background check laws that went into effect on July 1st of last year, they should not return firearms without an FFL check, and the police department doesn’t have an FFL person in their office. ”

    … reasonable gun control that I’m sure stops criminals everyday. SMH.

  11. North Carolina General Statute § 14-269.2 provides that it is a Class I Felony for any person to knowingly possess or carry, whether openly or concealed, any gun, rifle, pistol, or other firearm of any kind, on educational property or to a curricular or extra-curricular activity sponsored by a school.

    AND LATER:

    These prohibitions will apply in/on any school building or bus, school campus, grounds, recreational area, athletic field, or other property owned, used, or operated by any board of education or school board of trus
    tees, or directors for the administration of any school.

    BUT, there are exceptions, one of which is the following:

    A person who has a valid concealed handgun permit, or is exempt from obtaining a permit, who has a handgun in a closed compartment or container within the person’s locked vehicle or the handgun is in a locked container securely affixed to the person’s vehicle. This individual may unlock the vehicle to enter or exit the vehicle provided the firearm remains in the closed compartment at all times and the vehicle is locked immediately following the entrance or exit of the vehicle;

  12. I’ve shot a lot of firearms in my time…including a Gyro Pistol….once was enough…and bought a Bodyguard 380 about 9 months ago. The very first .380ACP I’ve ever owned…though I’ve shot dozens.

    Besides the terrible trigger I was impressed by it’s reliability and accuracy with a variety of ammo.

    So…the trigger….Galloway trigger bar and trigger….Frog Lubed it….by god we have a winner!

    So I indulged and put XS Bigdots on it……and now it’s not for sale.

    I don’t care about the laser, I LIKE THIS GUN!

    I don’t even want to know about the competition…..there ain’t any! 🙂

  13. You can get a search warrant for anything , as long as it’s in the name of public safety

  14. I’m mildly jealous of Mr. Hickocks steel plate collection.
    What a playground!

  15. What happens when you purchase a firearm with all of the exchanged information between the FFL you are getting it from and the ATF. I mean the FFL gives the ATF all of your information and all of the info about the gun. Surely in this day and time, they have a record of where every weapon sold and to who it was sold. They probably don’t just erase it when they hang up. Aren’t the suppose to have a record of who should not be allowed to buy firearms. I feel fairly confident the have a direct bat phone line directly to or through the NSA to all the other alphabet agencies, If they are able to pick out weapons by numbers that are either stolen or possible criminal processes. They always seem surprised when the find that an individual is in possession of a bunch of guns oh and ammo ( what good are guns without ammo). So to think they don’t already has a pretty good idea who has what seems Its all registered anyhow. I guess what pisses them off is over the years so many have been sold or traded the gubment doesn’t have a clue. And they are not there to serve and protect, they are there to investigate to solve crimes, but can’t even do that without some witness to testify. Well it won’t be that 93 year old woman that called them for help, now will it.

    • They cannot keep the records you assume because it is against the law. Anybody who believes that will stop them is dreaming, but we all should be ready at a moment’s notice to ask “what makes you think I have that gun?”, “Where did you get that information?”, etc. when you know damn well a registry is in use. And stop talking until you get an answer, in public.

  16. Some areas of the country have had such little rain, mistaking an umbrella for a shotty is entirely possible.

  19. Weapons of mass…huh? Is that what we spent all that time searching for in Iraq? Shotguns? It’s amazing that they didn’t find any. What a freakin’ loony world it’s become.

    • “Back in the day,” (early 80s, when I was in the US Army), WMD was a Soviet term that, for political purposes, conflated nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. This was an excuse for the Warsaw Pact to go nuclear if NATO used chemical. Unfortunately, the Soviet term WMD eventually replaced the more-objectively named NBC (Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical.) Maybe the TV network objected?

      Since then, WMD has been redefined to include just about anything that goes “BOOM.” Like a hand grenade, or even a pressure cooker full of firecrackers.

      (See http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2332a and http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/921 for the US federal definitions of WMD and Destructive Device.)

      So yes, Iraq did indeed have WMD, since their infantrymen had RPGs and hand grenades.

      Boy, do I ever miss the term “NBC.” It at least MEANT something and could not be endlessly redefined.

      • These days, NBC has been replaced by CBRNE. Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, high-yield Explosives. The world has gotten more complicated. But, bottom-line, no random sawed-off shotty fits into the WMD category.

  20. Weapons of mass destruction. Really. My hand is approaching my face after that with the force of a WMD. Give it a few years and it’ll be legally classified as such. The Lockdown of the Day wasn’t really bad as such, actually I’m not sue what the beef is.
    Hickock 45 is the luckiest ba***rd alive! A backyard that big? With that much shooting paraphernalia? Yes please!

  21. Hum we own farmland in Canamdaigua ,wife’s cousins own 3,000 plus acres. It’s been so wet nobody has been able to get out in the fields.

    Go out a couple miles from the school you’ll see more folks walking with guns then umbrellas…..( turkey season )

    The other day was re posting the road frontage with a Open carry Glock on my hip,( concealed carry only here) but I like to send a message to trespassers …..

    Had a number of commuters 1 jogger and 1 bike rider go by me nobody panicked .

  22. Can we ban the use of :”lockdown” and subsititute a suitable insulting pejorative? Perhaps as “the school had immediate “pantywet””. or “hissyfit”, or _______.

  23. as for the 8-year old with a magazine, i think the police did a basic background check on the parents, and discovered that they where unqualified (e.g. felons) to have a firearm. and, unless a close family member owns a gun shop or something like that, that counts as probable cause in my book.

    btw, i consider my self to be fairly conservative on probable cause. but for the average viewer HERE, i am likely moderate.

  24. re; lockdown; so we posted a person at each door, did we? Were they armed? If not, why post them there, so the gunshot that kills them will give everybody else time for a last prayer?

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