No expulsion for a 16 year old Columbia Falls honors student after she was kicked out of school for accidentally leaving her unloaded hunting rifle in the back of her car following a Thanksgiving hunt. That’s the word out of the Flathead.
KAJ-TV’s Dax Van Fossen has this:
The Columbia Falls School Board voted unanimously Monday evening to allow the teen to school without being expelled, but not before lengthy discussion and an emotional explanation took place.
But could the damage have already been done? While Demari DeReu won’t be expelled, she has been kicked out of school for several days already. Here’s more from Van Fossen’s report:
“It’s not fair to hear that this isn’t going to affect my college education, when I already have two F’s,” DeReu stated.
As one caller to our statewide radio talk show posed the question: why did the school feel the need to enforce a federal gun law? Remember when Arizona attempted to enforce federal immigration laws? The feds said it was not up to the states. So, if the Obama Administration doesn’t want a state to enforce federal law, why would they want a local high school to enforce federal law?
Here’s what Montana Shooting Sports Association President Gary Marbut told the school board Monday night:
However, the larger problem are your employees who fueled this incident, employees who overreacted needlessly and chose to make a mountain out of a
molehill. Your employees have claimed that in this type of incident their “hands are tied” by the federal Gun Free Schools Act. In offering this excuse for their misconduct, your employees are either incompetent or they are trying to dodge personal responsibility.The Gun Free Schools Act says, “Nothing in this section shall apply to a firearm that is lawfully stored inside a locked vehicle on school property, .”
What Demari did was activity protected by federal law, not prohibited by it. Your employees were wrong.