LINCOLN, Maine — Police believe that a car burglar who has been working town parking lots for weeks stole a hunting rifle from a Mattanawcook Academy student’s car before returning it to the school parking lot on Monday, Police Chief William Lawrence said Wednesday.
Students getting out of school reported finding the .30-06 rifle, which had a hunting scope, in the school lot at about 2:30 p.m., Lawrence said.
The student who owned the car told police that he had been target-shooting last weekend and forgot to remove the rifle from his vehicle before coming to school on Monday. He concealed the rifle in his car before going in to the school, Lawrence said.
However, several witnesses reported seeing a man burglarizing vehicles in the school parking lot several hours later. Police believe that the burglar stole the rifle from the student’s car and proceeded to drive his own vehicle into the Main Street area toward Lee, Lawrence said.
There, witnesses reported that the burglar turned away from police in that area because his vehicle’s inspection sticker had lapsed, returning to the school to dump the rifle in the parking lot, Lawrence said.
Investigators, Lawrence said, can find no link between the student and the burglar.
“All we know is that the student is a good student, there’s no record there. We are not seeing a connection between them at all,” Lawrence said Wednesday.
Police have the burglar’s license plate and vehicle description and continue to investigate, Lawrence said. Theft from a motor vehicle is a Class B felony.
I hope they catch the thief!!
It is also illegal for the student to have a gun on school grounds, period! There is no excuse!
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/20-A/title20-Asec6552.html
You might want to check state and federal laws also.
Thank you for checking! It’s refreshing to see someone actually fact check their own statement instead of continuing to argue an incorrect point. I commend you.
My bad, I did some research and I stand corrected.
http://www.mainelegislature.org/legis/statutes/20-A/title20-Asec6552.html
You are right. There is no excuse for such a bad law in the first place.
I’m wondering if the student was charged with having a firearm on school grounds.
Forgetting where a gun is is negligent, pure and simple. It’s fortunate no one was hurt or killed due to the student’s irresponsible behavior.
That student failed the test and should not be allowed near a firearm.
Well that is a little extreme, especially for someone we know nothing about. Seems like it’d be a vast over-reaction, which I suppose would be par for the course.
That’s just B.S.
I disagree, his car was locked and someone broke into it. He had a memory lapse, happens to EVERYONE. An automobile is a weapon in some’s hands, but you would not blame the owner if someone stole the car and killed someone. You are obviously against guns and you are trying to further your case with this, shame.
The car wasn’t locked, believe it or not
It really wasn’t a big deal. I’d rather hear about him target shooting and learning responsibility with a firearm than selling drugs or stealing stuff. Gun laws only create safety zones for would be violators anyway.
if you conducted a search of the cars and trucks at the highschool on any given day… even off hunting season, i bet youd find 25 to 30 guns. lots of smokes and some drug paraphernalia. we live in a small red neck type town where almost everyone hunts. its a lame excuse just the same and i agree. the child must have the right last name in order to just get a “Meh. hes got no record. no harm no foul.” my kid would lose his gun privelage for a little bit, but thats just me.
oh no! a student target practicing hang him quick.
Ya.
Show him what bath salts can do for him.
Oh how times have changed. When I was a kid in high school most of the guys had guns in our cars or trucks especially during hunting season. Many were in plain sight. Give the kid credit. It was an oversight and he hid it out of sight and in a safe place. The gun doesn’t kill, poeple do. He was responsible enough to take care of it once he realized it was still in the vehicle. Seems like a level headed kid. Too bad more adults weren’t.
Guns don’t kill people… Nuclear bombs don’t vaporize cities…
It appears to me that you are not in favor of fire arms. That’s fine you have a right to your belief. Try to look at it from another point of view. Guns, Knives, Bow and Arrows, Bombs, ETC… Do not do the killing. They are a tool used to do the the event. The person behind the tool is the killer. Please consider the fact that anything can be used as a weapon.
Heroin is a tool also. It doesn’t shoot itself into a person’s vein. Yet, most gun owners I know think heroin should be illegal. Isn’t that hypocritical to their own flawed logic?
Guns are not a highly addictive chemically altered substance. Your comparing apples to elephants. The syringe would actually be the tool your trying to create a metaphor for.
However, I will throw this @ you. I am almost certain I know more gun owners/uses/enthusiasts than you and many of us embrace a very libertarian view point of live and let live. If people want to throw their lives away on drugs like heroin that is their choice. We believe that legalizing narcotics or seriously decriminalizing them will ease many of the negative ramifications of the drug distribution trade. However nothing can negate the effects of a substance like black tar heroin on the user. In the end it all comes down to choice. Guns and needles full of junk don’t make a choice they are just objects. A person chooses to get high or to kill someone. People will always find a way to make bad choices. Remove a steady supply of heroin and cocaine then you get people cooking meth to fill the void. Take away guns people will use cars or knives to kill their adversaries.
And guns are highly deadly weapons, capable of the most heinous crimes with barely any effort or human energy expended to kill dozens or more rapidly. Not so with other weapons.
Heroin doesn’t shoot up the addicts, people do. See how your argument is so flawed.
I happen to be against prohibition.
Most of our big cities are being destroyed from within, by the urban criminal element that has taken root there. Most have very restrictive gun laws, but that just stops law abiding people from protecting themselves. I hope you never need a gun and can keep a big thug from hurting you with some snarky quips.
your right Nuclear bombs dont vaporize cities the government (i.e. the people) who authorize the use of the bomb, who vaporize cities.
When I was a kid many of the guys brought their hunting rifiles on the bus with them! Leave it up front with the driver. Stored in the school office during the day, they’d take a bus home with a friend in order to go hunting in the friend’s backwoods. Many deer went on the tables. And wonder of wonders …we had none of the stuff going on back then like now. Shootings and violence etc. Times have certainly changed, but not neccessarily for the better.
We need more Guns in this Country.
It’s 8AM. Do you know where your rifle is?
If I am a typical gun owner, no, I am not sure where my kids left it.
What do you know about typical gun owners?
They are typically paranoid and statistically far more likely to die by a gun by virtue of owning one.
1. Prohibition. A person may not possess a firearm on public school property or the property of an approved private school or discharge a firearm within 500 feet of public school property or the property of an approved private school.
[ 2009, c. 614, §2 (AMD) .]
2. Exceptions. The provisions under subsection 1 do not apply to the following.
A. The prohibition on the possession and discharge of a firearm does not apply to law enforcement officials. [2009, c. 614, §3 (RPR).]
B. The prohibition on the possession of a firearm does not apply to the following persons, if the possession is authorized by a written policy adopted by the school board:
(1) A person who possesses an unloaded firearm for use in a supervised educational program approved and authorized by the school board and for which the school board has adopted appropriate safeguards to ensure student safety; and
(2) A person who possesses an unloaded firearm that is stored inside a locked vehicle in a closed container, a zipped case or a locked firearms rack while the person is attending a hunter’s breakfast or similar event that:
(a) Is held during an open firearm season established under Title 12, Part 13 for any species of wild bird or wild animal;
(b) Takes place outside of regular school hours; and
(c) Is authorized by the school board. [2009, c. 614, §3 (RPR).]
C. The prohibition on possession and discharge of a firearm does not apply to a person possessing a firearm at a school-operated gun range or a person discharging a firearm as part of a school-sanctioned program at a school-operated gun range if the gun range and the program are authorized by a written policy adopted by the school’s governing body. [2009, c. 614, §3 (NEW).]
I lived 20 miles from my high school and every fall I had a firearm in my truck. It was concealed and locked. I wasn’t the only person. I would bet one third of the senior and junior class did the same. We would all go hunting before and after school. Heck we sould where our hunters orange to school. Anyhow, no one got hurt. We also had a gun shop between our two main entrances and adjacent to our high school. But yup times sure have changed.
I notice that the know it all crow is condemning a high school student for possession of a firearm when it was locked in his auto. . While I don’t see is any reference to the lack of security or even observation that the school failed to notice a burglar breaking into autos within its own parking lot during school hours.
Something else that is strange is “Why would a burglar return a rifle after stealing it? That doesn’t make any sense. A firearm is one of the easiest things to sell or pawn that there is. Maybe one of this students “friends” is trying to cause him some trouble. It wouldn’t be the first time that something like that has happened.
The article said the thief turned around and took the rifle back because, there were police in the area. He turned his car around and left the rifle in the parking lot because he already had an expired inspection sticker and did not want to get caught with the rifle.
My guess is that he was afraid of being caught with it. Breaking into cars is a small crime. Being in possession of a stolen firearm can go federal.
But going back t the scene is what doesn’t make sense. Just ditch it in that case and vacate the area. Could be wrong but something doesn’t smell right.
Something I recently wrote:
As a Livermore Falls High School freshman in 1949, a very tragic event happened that I can never forget. For those who are reading this story many years after this tragic event happened, and are unfamiliar with the hunting laws and seasons during this era, please understand the following:
First: Many youths of the day hunted without parental supervision or upbringing.
Secondly: State sponsored hunter safety training courses did not exist.
Thirdly: October 1st was the traditional first day of the open season for hunting ducks and other migratory birds.
Fourth: It was a common and ordinary practice for teenagers to take their hunting firearms to school and to store them in a student locker or a locked vehicle.
The same in my high school in 1971. In my fathers day the guns were brought to school and stored openly in the classroom. NEVER AN ACCIDENT OR INCIDENT. A friend of mine (now deceased) told me a story about himself during the Great Depression when he attended high school. He walked to school every day with his 22. His duty was to provide whatever he could to the family larder and on one particular day he told of shooting a rabbit through the schoolhouse window during class (rural school, window was open). Things were rough and times were hard then as well. My how times have changed.
Years ago, children had daily chores and responsibilities to the home and family that helped to expend any pent up energy; communities (yes, it took a village) were responsible TO the children (yes, responsible TO not FOR) people would speak up if a child did wrong and the parent would be responsible to the child when confronted with a wrong-doing and correct them, not make excuses for their behavior and give them a sort of spiritual meaning (even if it wasn’t a church upbrining). In today’s technological world, parents are working longer, children are raising themselves and most children (especially boys) are no longer required to chop and stack firewood, tend the animals, take care of the farm and yard or work to help the family; so there is no productive outlet for the pent-up energy…and no responsiblity…is this what we now term as ADD, ADHD, Troubled Teens or any other Dr. Spock related diagnosis that is given to a child that has no outlet for the energy? A ‘diagnosis’ in a child is a manifestation of a disease. We need to take responsibility to our children back. We need to give our children meaning, spirituality, accountability and responsibility within the home and community. We are not raising children, per sae – we are ultimately raising adults and in order to feel and be complete we all have to have meaning, responsibility, accountability and spirituality. Those are what manifests a conscience, which without one there is no meaning.
Times certainly have changed…when I was a junior in high school(1992) I brought a 30-06 inside the school to do a demonstration on gun safety and how to clean a fire arm. It was all pre-approved and was brought into the school with permission from the Principal and the police department. Now you can not even have it on the site. What people need to remember is…GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE….PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE!
GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE….PEOPLE KILL PEOPLE! (As long as they have a gun they do.)
Illegal intravenous opiates don’t kill people. People injecting them kill people. Therefore we should mass produce these drugs and decriminalize them.
That is, if I am following NRA supporters’ logic correctly.
“Illegal intraveous drugs” are just that, illegal. Guns are not illegal, and in fact gun ownership (yes, personal ownership) is protected by the Constitution.
We The People, could make an AMENDMENT to the Constitution to make heroin legal if wanted hypothetically, just as the right to bear arms was added LATER in the the form of the 2nd AMENDMENT
Learn your history. The Bill of
Rights (aka the first 10 amendments to the constitution) were written contemporaneously
with the constitution. Ratification of the constitution was premised upon
passage of the Bill of Rights the
contents of which were considered fundamental human rights.
Your point is completely moot. There was no “right” to bear arms until the Bill of Rights which came several years later.
There’s no way around that fact. Nothing is in effect until it is ratified.
I used the word correctly. I mean at best, your point is moot. I wouldn’t doubt if it was wrong. Nothing changes the fact of my point, which you clearly avoid. The Second Amendment is the SECOND AMENDMENT. An amendment is an addition or change. The Right to Bear Arms was not in the original constitution in any way shape or form.
And my point stands that you have an utter lack of understanding of the context in which the Constitution and Bill of Rights were negotiated, drafted, and finally ratified.
You are so far off of my original point it’s astounding… and please look up the definition of the word amendment. There was no right to bear arms in the Constitution until the Bill of Rights, which was ratified later. It doesn’t matter. My point had nothing at all to do with the Constitution. It had to do with logic: Illegal intravenous opiates don’t kill people by themselves. People injecting them kill people. It’s the same flawed logic that gun advocates use. Legality is totally irrelevant.
Do you mean “moot” or do you mean “wrong”? You have not used “moot” correctly here, and in fact, you are wrong. Read some history.
I seriously hope you are not a lawyer. Because that would be pretty sad arguing with a college freshman during business hours. I hope Downeast law is not an actual firm of some sort.
Thanks for your concern. You are a VERY judgemental person. Luckily, with the money I have I can work when I want to.
Let’s hope for society’s sake, that’s very seldom.
Gun violence in Maine is virtually non-existent. Maine has the lowest violent crime rate in the country (http://www.census.gov/statab/ranks/rank21.html) and ranks 43rd out of 50 states in gun deaths per capita(http://www.statemaster.com/graph/cri_mur_wit_fir-death-rate-per-100-000 ) all while maintaining one of the highest rates of gun ownership nationally.
The same can’t be said for other “gun states”. Look at Texas.