Charge the Parents of Gun-Toting Kids

My friend Alice, the mother of two young children, was outraged by the tale of the Telfair Kid. You remember him. He’s the 7-year-old Pacoima boy who was very nearly booted out of the public school system last week after he took an unloaded 9-millimeter handgun to Telfair Avenue Elementary School.

“His parents ought to be strung up,” she declared.

Her reaction embodies anger people feel over the irresponsible adults who endanger everybody’s children. To Alice, the fact the kid had a gun is prima facie evidence of parental negligence. And why should children shoulder the blame when adults are also clearly at fault?

Since Jan. 1, 1992, the Children’s Firearm Accident Protection Act has required adults in California to store firearms in a manner to prevent unsupervised children from getting their little hands on them. It so happens that, since then, more than 450 students have been expelled from the L.A. schools, the vast majority for gun possession. In many cases, the children got the guns at home.

Now guess how many parents have been prosecuted for illegal storage of firearms?

The answer is zero.

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That, at least, is Earl Thomas’ best recollection. “And he should know,” adds Wesley Mitchell, chief of the Los Angeles Unified School District police force.

Thomas is the assistant chief of the criminal branch of the city attorney’s office, an agency that in recent years has filed thousands of misdemeanor complaints dealing with weapons.

These charges concern brandishing a weapon, unlawful discharge of a firearm or carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. Criminal storage, however, is an exceedingly rare charge. This stands as something as a mystery in an age when America has crusaded to protect children not just from deliberate harm, but from negligence as well.

Some readers may remember my softball teammate “Hank.” He was sentenced to a year in jail after his young son lost two front teeth in an auto accident. Hank was nailed for three misdemeanors related to the car crash--but the heaviest charge was child endangerment. Hank, you see, had failed to buckle his son’s seat belt.

Hank, who was released after serving more than four months, is lucky his son wasn’t hurt more severely. But compare his crime with that of the dad who fails to keep a firearm from the hands of a child. The dad may not only harm his own child. His negligence could lead to the death of yours.

Yet, despite hundreds of student expulsions for gun possession, Thomas can’t recall a single instance in which a parent was held accountable.

“These laws about parental responsibility are good laws,” he says. “But they are difficult to prosecute, because it’s difficult to get the evidence you need to be able to support the charges beyond the reasonable doubt.”

Divisions in jurisdictional responsibilities are one reason why. School officials have authority to investigate and discipline students. But concerns over a parent’s storage of guns are handled by Los Angeles police or the Sheriff’s Department, both agencies that have their hands full with street crime. Despite efforts to improve cooperation, “We don’t see a lot of reports coming down the pipeline,” Thomas says.

Chief Mitchell, whose 275 sworn officers patrol hundreds of LAUSD schools, says the firearms storage law itself is too weak.

The law, Mitchell emphasizes, pertains only to loaded firearms, even when ammunition may be easily accessible nearby. One reason the parents of the Telfair boy weren’t prosecuted is that the gun wasn’t loaded. Another weakness: The code applies only if the children involved are 13 or younger.

Look at the storage law this way: It is perfectly legal for adults to have a loaded Uzi lying just anywhere around the house where 14-year-olds are present, or an unloaded Uzi and ammo just lying around where younger children are present.

And beyond that, the law contains some wiggle words. The code applies, for example, when adults “reasonably should know” that children could obtain access to the firearm. Even if the Telfair Kid’s gun had been loaded, the parents might have walked. Prosecutors might not have pressed charges because the boy’s mother had made a sincere effort at hiding the weapon by placing it in a box on the floor of a closet beneath a stack of clothes. In court it could be argued her efforts demonstrated that she “reasonably” believed her boy wouldn’t find the gun.

Los Angeles has more than its share of sad stories. In 1994, none were sadder than the suicide of a sobbing 10-year-old boy who shot himself in the head outside 49th Street Elementary School with his dad’s .380 semiautomatic handgun. The gun-storage law, Mitchell says, didn’t apply because the gun apparently wasn’t loaded when the boy found it. He found the clip elsewhere, in the same room.

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It would be very cruel to punish parents who lose a child through such negligence. One assumes and hopes the grief and guilt would be punishment enough. But what about the adults who by their negligence endanger friends and strangers? Blow a .08 on a Breathalyzer, and you’ll spend a night in jail. Leave a gun where little Johnny can find it, and Johnny gets expelled.

Imprisoning parents for negligence, as opposed to abusive behavior, may not make people better parents. But jail isn’t the only punishment option. Derelict parents can be forced to pay fines and perform community service. Authorities are now trying to force the parents of graffiti vandals to pay for cleanup. So why not go after the parents of underage gunslingers?

Some gun advocates, no doubt, would find this threatening. To them there’s no such thing as a good gun law. But many laws have succeeded in encouraging responsible behavior, such as the toughening of drunk driving codes and the seat belt law. These laws have saved lives and money. Of course, these laws, unlike the storage law, are enforced, perhaps because they’re strong enough to be enforceable. So why not make the firearms storage law stronger? Why not enforce it?

“It’s fascinating that a parent would choose not to hide Christmas presents in the house because they know kids might find them, but they’ll keep a gun at home,” says Mitchell, who stores his own firearm at work. “If I stored a weapon at home, it would be stored under lock and key, and stored unloaded.”

Still, many gun owners are so fearful that they keep weapons loaded at bedside, in case of intruders. Mitchell points out there are many gun lockers and other locking systems on the market that can be activated by code in an instant. His point is you can have stronger gun laws and have your gun too. Not only do such lockers keep children safe, but they can also prevent burglars from obtaining the guns.

And, really, don’t the kids and criminals have enough guns as it is?

Scott Harris’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays.