Teacher Convicted of Bringing Gun

F

FRIZ

Inactive
The New York Times

October 31, 2000

Teacher Convicted of Bringing Gun

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

MANASSAS, Va. (AP) -- A former elementary school art teacher was convicted Tuesday of bringing a loaded handgun to school.

Deena Esteban, 43, said she brought the gun to school in her canvas bag by accident.

She testified that she had hidden her .38-caliber revolver in the bag while her parents were visiting in March and had forgotten to remove the weapon before going to Marumsco Hills Elementary School in Woodbridge on March 6.

Another teacher found the bag on the floor a few feet from children's desks. Esteban was placed on administrative leave the next day and her contract was not renewed.

A jury recommended Esteban serve one year in jail and pay a $2,500 fine for possessing a firearm on school property. She faces sentencing Jan. 4 and could get up to five years in prison.
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-BRF-Teacher-Gun.html
 
I have to disagree with your assesment. No victim, no intent, but no BRAINS either. How do you, as an elementary school teacher for crying out loud, leave the house with a loaded .38 and not know it ?!? I carry a bag with me every day to work, if it had a gun in it I would certainly know it. In 'hiding' it from her parents (I don't even know what that's all about) she proceeded to almost allow children access. In my state, the child-access laws are stricter than posession.

Reminds me of the person who got in trouble after she turned in a gun to a cop that she found in her luggage, while in the airport terminal. She did the right thing turning it in (if the story was true) but how in the world do you pack a bag for a trip and not realize the previous user left a gun in it ???

These are not issues of freedom as much as personal responsibility.

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Act as free men, and do not use your freedom as a covering for evil, but use it as bondslaves of God.
1 Peter 2:16.
 
It is a continuation of the same thinking that will someday allow the authorities to imprison you because they think you might someday become a criminal. I agree that the teacher may be guilty of being "stupid" but not "felony stupid". The fact remains that nothing actually happened. No person was harmed or endangered, although certainly the potential existed. The law that makes it illegal for someone to simply be in posession of a gun at certain locations is useless and potentially dangerous to our rights as Americans. It is already a crime to cause harm or threaten or kill. Why should the mere posession of an object constitute a crime? What prevents the government from just expanding the list of prohibited places, perhaps to include our homes (like in England) until they are only allowed at shooting clubs.

I have a real problem with victimless felonies. The lifetime loss of rights for a felony conviction on charges that involved no victim seems to be very cruel and unusual to me. Had a student actually gained access to the gun that would be a different story. And perhaps a reckless misdemeanor would be in order - but not a felony.

Laws that are written to try to prevent some other crime that might likely happen are dangerous precedents. A person arrested for DUI may not have actually been involved in an accident but the preemptive DUI crime is supposed to "prevent" the actual crime that might happen. It is a crime to not wear your seatbelt. Now who, exactly, is that law supposed to protect? Me, because I'm stupid enough to not wear one? So now "stupid" is a crime?

These types of laws leave the door wide open to governmental abuse. Laws should try to protect me from you and you from me but not me from me or to prevent the possesion of an otherwise legal object. Unless the current climate changes we may live to see Americans jailed because some test result showed that they were more than 50% likely to commit a crime in the future or their social standing was likely to produce criminal activity. You may be jailed someday because you carry large sums of cash (a sign of criminal activity) or because you drive the car most preferred by criminals.

Just an opinion

Mikey
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by FRIZ:

A jury recommended Esteban serve one year in jail and pay a $2,500 fine for possessing a firearm on school property. She faces sentencing Jan. 4 and could get up to five years in prison. [/quote]

Here in Kalifornia a person would get LESS time than that for manslaughter.
And this lady faces up to 5 years when there was no intent and no one was harmed? WTF...over.


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"Lead, follow or get the HELL out of the way."
 
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>Originally posted by RH:
Reminds me of the person who got in trouble after she turned in a gun to a cop that she found in her luggage, while in the airport terminal. She did the right thing turning it in (if the story was true) but how in the world do you pack a bag for a trip and not realize the previous user left a gun in it ???
[/quote]

RH, this happened in Atlanta. The gal had her mom pack her bag. Since it was her mom's bag (who forgot about the .22 revolver that was in there) she had no idea that it was in there. Better yet, the left Arkansas with the revolver in the bag and made it into Atlanta. It wasn't until inbetween flights they had discovered the revolver and brought it to the attention of airport security. Airport security phoned the Atlanta PD and the nearest officer showed up. When asked, the officer was told by his CO that he was to arrest the gal. He refused. They sent a second man over there who eventually arrested the gal. The gal spent the night in an Atlanta jail on what was to be her honeymoon night. After a few Atlanta do-gooders made a big stink out of it, they received a public apology from the city and a free flight, nights stay and dinner at a nice restaurant for an apology.

Many people can make the arguement "How can they forget that they have a gun on them?!" Well, this is pretty simple. Some of us, myself included, have a horrible short term memory (due to a bad bike accident) and forget all sorts of things. If I put my keys in my right pocket.. and later in the day reach into my left pocket to retrieve them.. I'll think that I had lost them because they weren't where I normally keep them. If I set down the TV remote, I'm screwed. It could be a week before I find it again. If I have a gun in a very secure and comfortable holster.. I can be undressing for bed later in the evening only to discover it all over again and say.. "I thought I took that off when I got home" only to never have removed it.

I suspect she was hiding her gun from her bed-wetting liberal parents and forgot that she had placed it in her bag. She is human, she can forget. However, had harm have occured from this accident, it would have been terrible none the less. Carryin' a concealed firearm is a big responsability (duh). I'm not trying to downplay what happened here, I'm just saying that it could happen to many of us.

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I really didn't pay much attention to the sentence, which was probably harsh, but I'm sticking to my asessment.

I would have no problem with the teacher carrying a loaded gun on his/her person. As someone in another thread about checking a gun at the Glendale AZ library said, "The safest place for this weapon is right here, holstered on my hip". I agree. But you need to understand, carrying concealed is not the same as leaving it in a bag that is not under your immediate control. (in this case she didn't even know it was there !). The huge responsibility that comes with CCW is that you must be in control of the weapon at ALL times. If you cannot be in total control of it on your person, it ought to be made SAFE, so that no unauthorized users can gain access. Pretty simple. I don't think that's asking too much, if you want to carry around a deadly weapon. For the record, I think CCW (or open carry) should be universal, but not without accountability & responsibility.

And Mike, if you think arresting someone for DUI before he has killed someone is an unreasonable infringement on his civil rights, then maybe I'm wasting my breath anyway.
:confused:
 
If they charged/convicted her of a lesser charge and no jail time it would be a just sentence. This teacher will lose her teaching certificate and will never be able to teach again. Add a fine and community service to loss of job/profession and I'd call that justice...
 
I would call it a total miscarrage of justice and a stain upon the honor of all Virginians who let it knowingly pass uncorrected.
 
RH,

The DUI was just an example (and probably not a good one) of an act being called a crime in order to allow an arrest BEFORE an actual crime is committed against a person or property. Laws are not very good crime "prevention" tools. By the way, I don't drive while under the influence but the federal government DID just pass a law to blackmail states into lowering their legal blood alcohol level to .8 by threatening to withhold federal highway matching funds. Federal control of the states is supposed to be a no-no.

And for the record, as stupid and dangerous as DUI is, it is just a misdemeanor. And your point about arresting people BEFORE they kill somebody sounds great - it just leaves the door open for legal abuse if applied to the wrong set of circumstances. Like the law that caused the hoopla with Emerson. If divorce proceedings trigger and automatic restraining order, and that triggers a loss of firearms rights (even though nothing has actually happened) then a well intentioned set of laws can have an irrational result. I have a problem with making things illegal so we can prevent future crime by arresting today based on the probability of what someone might do or something that could (but didn't) happen.

That was my point, albeit the example may have been flawed.

Mikey
 
Having once lived in Prince William County Virginia I can understand why the lady should want to have a gun handy while teaching at Marumsco Hills Elementary School in Woodbridge. In that part of the county even the elementary school kids are scary!
 
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