JEFFERSON COUNTY, Ala. (WIAT) — Jefferson County school leaders and local law enforcement are speaking out on the importance of gun safety after a student brought a gun to Clay Elementary School on Wednesday.
Lieutenant Joni Money with the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said school officials were able to seize the weapon before it even made it onto school property.
Lt. Money says children should never have possession of a weapon, especially at school. She says communication between trusted adults and children is crucial.
“For schools, you know, they do everything they can, and the biggest thing is to encourage your students to speak to you,” Lt. Money said. “To reach out and tell you when something is going on. If they see something, say something.”
Superintendent Dr. Walter Gonsoulin says Jefferson County schools are always prepared with safety measures in place, but that there must be a collective effort to ensure guns do not land in the wrong hands.
“It is so important that we work together as a community and a school system to ensure safe practices when it comes to having children having accessibility to weapons so that we can prevent them from even being in the campus, “ Dr. Gonsoulin said.
CBS 42 spoke with gun safety instructors at the Double Tap Training Grounds who say the key is eliminating a child’s curiosity.
Keith Jerald serves as president of the Iron City Gun Club and State Director for the National African American Gun Association. He says that parents need to have open conversations with their children for them to be aware of the dangers of handling a gun.
“They really have to know the consequences — whether they touch it or not or anything like that and making sure, again, that you’re not trying to keep this huge secret from kids because if they know that it’s there they’re going to find it, whatever it is, so the curiosity is really going to take over,” Keith Jerald who serves
Clinton Babers, who serves as the State Director of Training Protocol, says parents can also eliminate access to guns with gun safety locks or by locking them in a safe.
“If you teach what a thing is and the respect of what a thing is, what it does, what it doesn’t do, what your actions will make it do, then I think there’s a different respect level there,” said Babers.
