South African Student Who Accidentally Shot Himself Allegedly Used School Guard’s Gun

A 13-year-old student in Durban, South Africa accidentally shot himself in the leg at school this week – reportedly using a school security guard’s gun. Guards are not armed at the school, but this guard had allegedly brought his personal gun from home. IOL reports:

A security guard was on duty at an oThongathi (Tongaat) primary school when the teen allegedly removed the guard’s private gun from his unsecured bag.

The Grade 7 pupil at Hambanathi Primary, sustained a single gunshot wound to his thigh and is reported to be in a stable condition at Osindisweni Hospital, in Verulam.

According to the school principal, he had allegedly removed the gun from the guard’s bag and was attempting to shove it into the waist of his pants, when a shot accidentally went off, said the school principal, Mrs S Mahlinza.

The guard, who was meant to be unarmed, is contracted by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Education.

He has been arrested and charged for failing to secure his firearm.

The incident has prompted calls for “urgent” action to ban guns in schools, with officials citing the recent Newton, Ct. tragedy. In the United States, meanwhile, the National Rifle Association has urged more armed school guards as a solution to preventing future school shootings, and several states are now considering legislative proposals, in spite of scientific and historical evidence that armed school guards don’t prevent these sorts of incidents. Many states are even implementing programs to arm teachers and add gun courses for students.

The physical danger of armed guards highlighted by this incident is not the only threat posed by the NRA’s plan. Placing more officers in schools has also been correlated with drastic and racially disproportionate upticks in student arrests – often as an alternative means of school discipline. The criminalizing of minor student infractions known as the “school-to-prison pipeline” is already an epidemic in some states, and has the potential to dramatically alter a child’s future by funneling them out of school and into the criminal justice system.

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The Dangers Of Putting More Armed Guards In Schools

The National Rifle Association outraged many when CEO Wayne LaPierre blamed the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre on violent video games, natural disasters, and corporate media. Deflecting calls for tighter gun regulations, LaPierre also attacked school security and demanded more armed guards in schools. Since LaPierre’s incendiary press conference, the NRA’s approval rating has plummeted.

Though the NRA’s image has suffered, the gun lobby’s proposal to put more armed guards in schools has become one of the most popular ideas in the gun violence debate. According to a new NYT/CBS poll, 74 percent of Americans believe more security guards would help prevent mass shootings in public places like schools, movie theaters or malls. President Obama’s comprehensive plan to prevent gun violence also called for hiring as many as 1,000 more “school resource officers,” or law enforcement officers with the power to arrest students.

About a third of all public schools already have armed security guards, and the demand for school policing has made it the fastest growing area of law enforcement. But studies have been unable to show that armed guards make schools any safer. Two of the most deadly shootings in US history, at Columbine High School and Virginia Tech, occurred on campuses with security guards.

While no discernible link between safer schools and armed guards has been established, there is one clear impact. Student arrests shot up when school resource officers became more prevalent in schools after the Columbine shooting. Even controlling for poverty level, schools with armed officers have nearly five times the rate of arrests for disorderly conduct. As states beef up their security after Sandy Hook, more students are at risk for being treated like criminals. One Pennsylvania county immediately hired armed guards who are reportedly searching childrens’ lunch boxes. Local governments in Utah, Florida, Tennessee and Texas also started hiring armed guards after the NRA speech.

A new influx of SROs into schools prompted by Sandy Hook will only worsen the nation’s already robust school-to-prison pipeline. Shortly after Mississippi Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves announced a $7.5 million plan to hire law enforcement officers to patrol schools, several civil rights groups released a harrowing new report detailing Mississippi students’ abuse at the hands of these types of officers:

The report, which is to be released Thursday, found that in one Mississippi school district, 33 of every 1,000 children were arrested or referred to juvenile detention centers; that in another, such referrals included second and third graders; and that in yet another, only 4 percent of the law enforcement referrals were for felony-level behavior, the most often cited offense being “disorderly conduct.”[...] In addition to statistics, the report described episodes in which a child was taken home by the police for wearing shoes that violated the dress code, and a school where misbehaving students were handcuffed for infractions as minor as not wearing a belt.

Black students were far more likely to be punished by these officers, even in racially mixed schools. The Justice Department is currently pursuing a lawsuit against Mississippi over the abuse of these armed guards, and the state’s House of Representatives held a hearing on the report on Thursday morning. Still, Obama and state lawmakers are rushing to send in more armed guards who will likely make the problem even worse.

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