"I'm just glad they got it before he could take it out and play with it," said Ralph McNeill Sr., whose 10-year-old son attends Randallstown Elementary. "I think Ms. Hall did a good job of getting the word out to parents that everything was under control. She didn't scare anybody or anything."
Sylvester Graham, whose 6-year-old son and 9-year-old stepdaughter attend Randallstown Elementary, said he was shocked when he received the principal's phone message Monday night.
"I was surprised that a first-grader would do something like that," he said. "It makes it even more dangerous."
Like other parents interviewed outside the school yesterday afternoon, Graham said he was most interested in how the boy got access to two handguns - and what might happen to the adults whose lax supervision resulted in him bringing the weapons to school.
"You should always check your kids' book bags," he said.
Another parent, Tarik Dickens, whose son also attends first grade at Randallstown, said that such incidents are practically unavoidable.
"I don't know what you can do about it. I don't know how you stop it," he said. "No matter where you put your kid in school, it seems like it's bound to happen."
Kenneth S. Trump, who owns a school safety consulting firm in Cleveland that does work with school systems across the country, said there have been more nonfatal gun incidents at schools this year.
"There seems to be an uptick this year generally in firearms- related incidents, especially in large urban districts, that I haven't seen in recent years," he said.
Instances of elementary school children bringing guns to school remain the most unusual and their reasons for bringing the weapons to school are usually the most benign, Trump said.
"I don't want to say it's show-and-tell, because I don't want to downplay it. But it's usually a situation where they want to show it to someone, not that they plan to hurt someone or shoot someone," he said. "Obviously, that doesn't minimize the seriousness. To the contrary, that can be equally or more dangerous - 7-year-olds showing it, handling it, passing it off to other kids."
In October 2006, an 8-year-old in Baltimore brought a loaded revolver to his third-grade classroom, where another 8-year-old fired it. The gun went off inside a desk and the bullet did not hit anyone.
Baltimore County police said they had decided by yesterday afternoon not to charge the Randallstown youngster with a crime.
