Yesterday a 13 year old Gifford Middle school student brought a loaded metal air gun on the bus. The bus driver thought it was a real gun, and called 9-1-1. The teenager surrendered the gun to deputies.
He could be facing criminal charges. Prosecutors will be meeting with his family.
Air guns are popular toys for children and teenagers, but there are dozens of cases where young kids with the air guns end up getting shot by police.
A national database by the Washington Post shows encounters with kids with fake or toy guns have led police to shoot and kill at least 86 people over the past two years.
“Police recovered a wide variety of the weapons in the fatal shootings, but almost all had one thing in common: They were highly realistic copies of firearms. Of those, 53 were pneumatic BB or pellet guns that fire small-caliber metal balls or pellets. An additional 16 were Airsoft guns, which use compressed air cartridges to fire plastic BBs. Thirteen were replicas, two were toys, one was a starter pistol and one was a lighter.”
