Pretty Shotguns, c Nick Leghorn

Honestly, it’s starting to look like leaving a shotgun in your car might be a good way to get into college. The North Carolina teen we had previously reported about, who left an unloaded shotgun in his car at school and was arranging to have it picked up when the police arrived and slapped a felony gun charge on him, will not only be allowed to graduate (just not at THAT school) but has received a couple scholarship offers from universities for after he makes that walk. SFGate has the story . . .

School board attorney Jimmy Lawrence said Thursday that Withrow has not been expelled and will be allowed to graduate if he meets graduation requirements.

A spokeswoman for Johnston County Schools said she could not speak about discipline against Withrow but said that usually students who bring weapons to school are suspended for 10 days with a recommendation to be suspended for a full calendar year, a mandate under state law.

County Superintendent Ed Croom reviewed the case and agreed to forgo the recommended yearlong suspension. Croom also agreed to allow Withrow to finish at an alternate school, beginning May 13.

The family is not happy that Withrow must finish at an alternate school, rather than with his classmates at Princeton.

Withrow has received a scholarship offer from Liberty University in Lynchburg Va., and from Harding University in Searcy, Ark.

If only I knew how easy it was to get a scholarship back when I was graduating high school, I might have left a shotgun in my trunk as well.

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33 COMMENTS

  1. I guess i should have called my mom all those times i left my .22 and 12gauge in my truck…….

  2. But we didnt have a school parking lot we had to park on the town roads so it wouldnt have worked….if only…

    • You say that as if the truth has anything to do with this.

      Kids have been charged and expelled for having shotguns in vehicles off campus while in class, so they could hunt after school.

      • School administrators (unsuccessfully) tried to have my cousins and some of their friends suspended shortly after Columbine because they moved the guns they kept, up to that point, in their trucks on Fridays for weekend hunting to a friend’s house that was about a block from the school. The school lots were too small to park in, so parking was in a nearby field and on the public roads. The field wasn’t owned by the school. If memory serves, it was owned by a local farmer who let them use it for school parking and gatherings.

        The school reported them to the local sheriff for “stockpiling weapons within striking distance of the school.” The sheriff just laughed at the admin guys and told them that everyone in the neighborhood each had enough of a “stockpile of weapons in striking distance” to arm a small army and that if any shooting happened at the school, the locals would probably be there, kill the shooter, and be turning the school into a fortress before the cops would even get word.

  3. So the double standard at that school is still ok? Remember the administrator who left her gun in her car sent it to the auto shop, some kids pull the loaded gun out of the car, no problem. He had the shottie within the truck in the parking lot no student got to it, he gets kicked out of the SAME school. Makes you think of the double standard by the AG in Washington DC with the high cap mag, newsguy no jail, anybody else…….as usual all laws apply to SOME. So much for the blind equal treatment within the scales of justice………….

  5. Whether common sense prevailed, or whether the administration is running scared before public opinion, I’m glad it worked out. It’s a shame he won’t graduate with his class that he’s been with for however many years, but by this stage in the year, he’s almost done, the yearbook’s already been printed, and he’ll be going to all the same parties, so I guess it’s not the end of the world.

    • Kid is probably gonna get sooo much badboy tail at those parties… Chicks dig badboys.

      • I’m not sure this case carries much “bad boy” mystique with it. Dude’s an honor student and an Eagle Scout, and this all started because he was calling his Mommy to come get his gun…

        At best, that probably rates a handjob from a band nerd…

  6. What about the “fellony’ charge? , i am sur a lawyer can beat that, seeing that it was NOT INTENTINAL…

  7. that student had a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT to have that gun (the right of the PEOPLE to keep and bear arms shall NOT BE INFRINGED)!

    The administrators should be SUED for violation of these rights and possible treason for trying to overthrow the US Constitution!

    EVERY PARENT should have shown up at the school the next day with their guns and dare the liberal gestapo to try to arrest them all!!

  8. Not only my home state, but my home county too. So glad NC is a free state.

  9. The school buckled because of all the publicity it got. Sites like TTAGs pushed this until it was picked up by Fox News. 20 years ago this guy would have been screwed, although the ignorant bias against guns wasn’t quite as pervasive back then.

    Hopefully the next I hear about this will be that all criminal charges have been dropped. Although it would be interesting seeing if a jury of his North Carolina peers would convict him of a felony for this.

    • it would be interesting seeing if a jury of his North Carolina peers would convict him of a felony for this.

      To paraphrase Jay Gould, one can always hire one-half of the working class to kill the other half.

  10. There is some school sanity after all, just not at “that” school. Best of luck to this young man, Randy

  11. I seem to have a knack for posting comments which get trapped in the moderation filter — but only when the TTAG crew is traveling. Excellent.

    To paraphrase my MIA comment: How convenient that the administrator sees fit to allow this fine young man to graduate now that Sauron’s Eye (aka the free press smelling human-interest outrage story potential) has been turned upon his little school district in NC.

  12. The school administrators and police should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. This defies common sense, good police work, and general morality. I think the people of NC need to take back their governments and throw these government bums out on the street, then investigate every aspect of their lives, and throw them in jail for any infraction of any law they have violated in any way whether on accident or on purpose.

  14. Hell, where I grew up, it was odd if someone did NOT have a gun in their vehicle parked on school grounds.

    I’m glad it turned out better than it could have been for this, obviously, good kid!

    • where I grew up, it was odd if someone did NOT have a gun in their vehicle parked on school grounds.

      Me, too. Unfortunately, I grew up in The Bronx.

      • hymmmn, being a gun enthusiast, hunter, Athlete, i hunted before school, many legal hunting days!…Out hunting by 6am., in school, by 7:15?… classes started by 8am!… Single barrel shotgun, broken down, dead rabbit, pheasant, ect., in my locker!….[to the dismay, of my locker-mate!… After school, i played 4 different Sports, my high school years, [School was dismissed, @ 2pm], always returning for my things, after showering from practice, games, ect. this was in Rhode Island, back in the late 1960’s!… Wow!…. I never thought twice about it, than?… [I wasn’t a terrorist?… many knew me, and my different quirks!..].

  15. Shhh.. don’t tell anybody but when I was in HS in the early 80s, not only did I (and a fair number of others) occasionally have a shotgun in my truck, there was always a Ruger .357 Magnum between the seats. Yet my HS years (and beyond) remained remarkably insignificant for gun violence.

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