Sunday, November 11, 2012

No Charges for Negligent Georgia Gun Owner

Local news reports
No charges will be filed against the owner of a handgun that an 8-year-old boy brought to C.B. Greer Elementary School last week, said Rodney Ellis, chief of the Glynn County school system’s police force.

School police investigator Ricky Hilburn determined that the .25-caliber pistol belonged to a close friend of the child’s family and that the boy found the gun while visiting the elderly man, Ellis said.
The man was in another part of the house and was unaware the second-grade student was looking around, Ellis said.

The boy found the gun in a shoebox stored on the top shelf of the closet and removed it, likely standing on a chair or some other object, Ellis said.

Ammunition for the gun was stored away from it, and the owner didn’t know the gun was missing until police showed it to him, Ellis said. The child did not bring any ammunition with the gun. The owner also had never shown the gun to the child nor let him handle it, Ellis said.

“It does not appear from our perspective that the gun’s owner deviated from a reasonable standard of care,’’ Ellis said.

There is no probable cause to bring any charges, he said.
A shoebox in the bedroom closet is not my idea of safe storage. Of course, in Georgia it is considered adequate. That's the very definition of weak or non-existent gun laws.

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