This Utah schoolteacher.....well, you read the story. But at least she didn't claim to have been cleaning it when it went off.

There is a punchline in this somewhere.....

Teacher takes plea after gun discharges at school :: WRAL.com

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

Wait....I got it....

'That ain't what "plus-P" ammo means, Marge."

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

Maybe we should invest in the company that supplies toilets to Utah school systems.

The seem to be shattered frequently.

I've heard of people being upset that a toilet wasn't flushed but she didn't have to kill it. Bada bing.

Glad to see we have a few teachers that are conservative enough to carry.

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John

Teacher takes plea after gun discharges at Stool.

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Back to back World War Champs.

So it 'went off' after she placed it on the tp dispenser. Add yet another to the list of folks who should never be allowed to carry a gun.

Be safe.

Heck, I like the idea of some teachers going armed ! Active shooters in schools seem to be in style these days !

yes there is....I can think of several.....but the the one that that's just hanging there is that if her gun was on top of the TP dispenser......then in fact it would be considered a "cleaning" accident

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witty signature goes here

It seems like it would have been easier to just light a match.

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paws for friendship

Joking aside, it seems harsh that she ‘resigned’. Assuming she was a good teacher after 14yrs, having to leave your career for a stupid mistake unrelated to teaching is sad. It’s getting harder and harder to find good teachers for our kids.

Truth is, lots of people have AD/ND/UDs….Most just go unreported, happen at the range, etc…with no injuries. If we all lost our jobs there’d be a lot of unemployed people in this world.

It also seems asinine to me that no one is allowed to know/ask if teachers are armed or not in her area. At the very least the Principle and/or VP should know. If there was an active shooter, that would be important information to know as a responding LEO. Otherwise, you have bad guy(s), teachers, and LEOs all running around with guns…not a good scenario.

And if you ever have any problems, you too should be banished from carrying a gun.

This is not a perfect world, people make mistakes.

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John

Agreed. She didn't break any Utah laws by carrying and the discharge was obviously unintentional, not an intentional 'crime'. I'd suggest that the law be amended that if people don't have to disclose that they carry, if they are involved in any incident involving a gun, they should be able to prove that they have had a certain level of training.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

The article doesn't elaborate on her resignation, so we don't know if she decided on her own to quit, or was given a "quit or be fired" ultimatum. Given that the incident occurred in the faculty restroom, I can see that either of the resignation scenarios is likely.

I'm thinking that if I am a school staff member, and one of my colleagues had been carrying a weapon negligently, and it had gone off in an area where an innocent person could easily have been hit and injured or killed, I would not want to continue working with that person unless I knew absolutely that she was no longer allowed to carry a weapon. I hope that the teacher was being respectful of her colleagues and opted to resign so that there would be no doubt in their minds about whether she posed a risk to them.

As to whether anyone should have known she was carrying, it seems that we talk out of both sides of our mouths, as CCW proponents, when we suggest that someone else should know that an individual is lawfully carrying concealed. As has often been said on here, "it's nobody's business" and "concealed means concealed."

Yes, one could make the argument that a principal for instance should know, so that LEO could be informed in case of an active shooter incident, but that's not a good argument. There always will be the possibility of a lawfully carrying citizen being mistaken for a bad guy in such a situation; it's just not a situation that is easy to remedy ahead of time by "making a rule."

None of the above even touches on the issue of the danger posed to the kids by this teacher's negligence. I have a feeling that this is also one of the reasons the teacher resigned, and probably at her own initiative. Yes, it is a shame to lose a good teacher, and I hope the time will come when she can find another teaching job. But in the meantime, I'm sure that this scared her badly and, out of a sense of protection for her students, she bravely decided to leave. I think most good teachers I know would do the same thing in that situation; they are that devoted to their kids.

She was trying to protect herself and them by carrying in the first place. Having placed them at risk, as things happened, would not be something she could easily live with, I think.

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

What I call a real **** shoot!

9mm. Hmmm. Probably, then, a semi-auto. I've seen a 70-Series Colt GM dropped, cocked but not locked, on its slide, and it did not discharge. I saw another drop-kicked after the shooter made the common mistake of trying to grab it after it slipped from his grasp; no discharge. I saw a guy trip after being startled, land on his face and inadvertently fling his Hi-Power, cocked but not locked, across the floor and against a wall, without it discharging. The armorer of a former employer would torture Sigs, hammer cocked, and experienced no discharges.

The only AD I witnessed where the shooter did not have his finger on the trigger, was a Colt GM Series-70 that first suffered a FTFire followed by a FTExtract. The cartridge apparently jammed in the chamber and the slide jammed slightly out of battery. The shooter forced the slide backward and it slipped from his grasp. The breach face hit the out-of-battery primer, the firing pin then detonating it. The bullet exited the barrel, plopping on the floor about two meters away. Noisy, frightening, but nobody hurt. We then took him outside and beat him to death. Just kidding . . .. But we WANTED to.

Our youngest son is a LEO, and took to Glocks like a fish to water and has been issued them by the departments, as well as buying his own. He has not tried to make one fire by dropping it (which he would have done with it unloaded), but he says it isn't possible if the trigger is not held back.

Another son is professional military and relates disgraceful gun handling he witnessed in the desert, where M9 Berettas fell out of holsters onto hard surfaces without discharging.

I don't remember for sure, but I believe that all the guns submitted for US military consideration to replace the M1911 were dropped on the muzzle from four feet, and flung across a concrete floor to bounce off a concrete wall, some distance of six (or more?) feet. I recall some early failures, but all final submissions met that standard.

Just as I believe most "cleaning" accidents were actually the result of "practicing" quick draw with a loaded gun, I wonder if the lady had her finger on the trigger as she moved it, perhaps "practicing" with it behind the closed door. To me, a modern semi-auto in good condition firing solely from being dropped is unlikely. I feel confident that I could pound any of my semi-autos on the muzzle, hammer, or anywhere else and they would not discharge.

Regardless, I feel as several others who posted, that something happened that could not be ignored. I doubt anyone involved could have defended keeping her employed, there.

It was. Flushed.....the first time,

Latest on this story is that her husband had the maintenance contract for the school.

Vig, Vig, Vig...go to your room.

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Oh well, what the hell.

That's what cherry bombs are for.

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"He was kinda funny lookin'"

OK, OK! I'll put the seat down. I promise.

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I need ammo, not a ride.

The "Utah double-tap": one to the p-trap, the next one to the bowl. End of story.

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

Glad everyone is ok.

I wish the news would state what type of firearm it was in instances like this. I'm betting it was a older .380 (9mm short) PPK carried off safe since they are not drop safe.

Apparently it was a 9mm, and was not dropped; it was fired negligently by the teacher. Here is an article I found that contains interesting additional information about the incident.

Utah teacher who shot toilet charged with misdemeanor | The Salt Lake Tribune

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

Thanks for the update Vigil617.

How is it the weapon went off exactly? I'm seeing an "it fell" explanation, but unless these people are carrying old single-actions, this shouldn't cause a discharge.

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Just the opinion of a kid

It appears that what actually happened is that she placed the pistol on top of the toilet-paper dispenser while she was otherwise engaged, and when she was finished, she stood up, picked up the pistol, and must have inadvertently pulled the trigger while preparing to re-holster, firing downward and to the left into the bowl. It shattered, and pieces injured one of her legs rather severely.

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Ukraine -- now more than ever

Started to say something but I need to check the "infraction list" to see if I can. Y'all have a nice evening. Joe

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Wisdom chases me; I'm faster

I have to disagree with those who say she should be fired and that they would never work with her again. She needs to spend some quality time with a good instructor, reconsider her carry gun and methods and I'd bet she would be the last person in Utah to have another incident like this.

Embarrassing, but no harm--no foul.

Well, other than the shattered toilet.

If she had a holster with a retention device, a pistol with an engaged safety, or a revolver with DA pull this probably would never have happened. Training could also fix it, but personally, even after training I still feel safest carrying a revolver.