Free Republic

Tampa police are taking action to prevent gun accidents. This comes after the death of four-year-old Jovan Mitchell who died over the weekend. Investigators believe he found a gun inside a closet and accidentally shot himself. Because of that tragic incident, the Project Safe Child Organization is providing free gunlocks in Hillsborough County. The gunlocks can be picked up at any Hillsborough sheriff's district office. It's all part of a nationwide program to help ensure safe and responsible firearms ownership and storage.

A 5-year-old Queens boy arrived home from kindergarten with a little something extra in his backpack - a loaded handgun, police said yesterday. Another kindergartner had given the .45-caliber semiautomatic to little Christian Park at Public School 16 in Corona on Wednesday. "He said, 'Give it back to me tomorrow,'" Christian told the Daily News. "I put it in the bag." Christian's mother, 29-year-old Eloisa Marquez, assumed the silver gun was a toy when she spotted it in her youngest son's black backpack. "When I touched it, I realized it was real," she said. Marquez immediately called the school and...

Ten-year-old Michael Cantafio of Milford never handled a real firearm until Saturday. Shannon Anderson, 9, of Fairfield had, but was interested in learning more about firearm safety. The two got what they were looking for and more during the first free children's firearms safety course at the Bridgeport Shooting Range, 1918 Stratford Ave. "Our role is to educate as many people as possible on the safety of firearms," said Jamie Keever, the range manager. "I always say it's not the gun that hurts people, it's the people behind the gun." So on Saturday morning, Keever and Jeff DiStasio, a firearms...

Districts could set weapons rules Lee schools to keep zero-tolerance policy By Dara Kam, The News-Press Tallahassee Bureau & Sharon Turco, sturco@news-press.com Tallahassee -- School students could be allowed to bring guns to school, locked in their cars, under the rewrite of the rules governing Florida's schools. Lee school board members, however, said they have no plans to change the district's zero-tolerance policy banning weapons on campuses. The rewrite cements a loophole that gives school districts the ability to override state and federal zero-tolerance policies barring weapons from school campuses. State Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, voted to allow school boards...