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First Graders Picked Up Gun Intended to Protect Ohio School

Kids found weapon in an unlocked box left unattended by district official who was part of concealed-carry program to prevent gun violence.

Two first graders found and removed a gun from an unlocked case that was brought to an Ohio school as part of a concealed-carry program to protect the school from gun violence, The Columbus Dispatch reports. The students at Highland Elementary, near the town of Sparta, reportedly picked up the weapon when a school official authorized by the district to carry it went to use a restroom. The school didn’t report the incident, which occurred in March—it only became public after the county sheriff found out about it through a resident’s Facebook post, which inspired community debates about whether school staff should be armed. The school official, who also was grandmother to one of the students who was found holding the gun, was suspended without pay for three days and removed from the district's concealed-carry program. Guns “don’t belong in schools,” Wayne Hinkle, board president of Highland Local Schools, told the Dispatch, which reported he was the lone board member to oppose the district’s concealed-carry program when it began last year.