LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Another gun was found inside a Jefferson County Public Schools high school Wednesday morning as parents continue to demand more safety measures and the school board weighs its options.
A letter sent home home to parents about the incident at Marion C. Moore High School told families a bullet was found on the floor of a classroom, and a gun was found and confiscated. A student was later taken into custody.
At the JCPS Board of Education's upcoming meeting on Tuesday, Moms Demand Action — a group fighting for public safety measures that protect people from gun violence — will present measures people can take to safely secure guns.
“If the kid doesn't have access to bring a gun to school, then all of the rest of that is moot," said Cathy Mekus, a leader at the Kentucky chapter of Moms Demand Action.
Mekus said the program emphasizes locking up guns, and storing them unloaded, with ammunition separate.
"This is starting with just basic safety precautions in your home, and knowing about the safety situation in homes that your children might visit," she said.
JCPS board member James Craig said he has been working with Moms Demand Action to present at the meeting.
"My understanding of the program going forward is that there would be opportunity for schools that want to get involved to distribute safe gun storage literature to families, then there would be an opportunity, theoretically, for this group to meet directly with parents throughout the district to educate them on best practices," Craig said.
The board will vote on a resolution to include information about secure firearm storage in the JCPS Student Support and Behavior Intervention Handbook. Also included in the resolution is an agreement to continue work with law enforcement, health agencies, and nonprofits to collaborate and increase efforts to inform district parents about secure storage.
"If guns are on the street and local, they're going to find their way into JCPS schools," Craig said. "Now we can do our part to train our staff on how to deal with them, but a better solution would be to keep them from getting into the building in the first place and ensuring that they're safely stored is one of the things that we can do as responsible members of this community.”
While JCPS parents like Destiny Brown like the idea of promoting safe gun storage, she hopes it is not the only effort. Her two daughters, one in middle school and one in high school, were inside Moore as the school was under heightened security on Wednesday as police searched for a weapon.
“I didn’t think it would happen at the school she was at," Brown said. "I think all schools should have metal detectors, every school, elementary, middle school, parents should have to go through metal detectors, everybody, so at this point that’s what’s needed. Guns are here, knives are here, we need metal detectors."
Craig said the board discussed the possibility of metal detectors at its December meeting, but said the board was told it's not practical or feasible, funneling hundreds of kids through four to eight metal detectors at the same time. However, Craig said they continue to evaluate that and other gun detection technologies
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