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Edited by Frnksnbns:
2/10/2014 9:12:06 PM
5
gun control activist arrested for gun at elementary school
[i]BUFFALO, N.Y.(WIVB)- More than a dozen cop cars, the SWAT team, K9 units and the Erie County Sheriff’s Air One helicopter swarmed Harvey Austin Elementary School in Buffalo on Thursday after reports of a man with a gun near the school or on the grounds. Dwayne Ferguson, head of the Buffalo chapter of MAD DADS, was taken into custody. He will be arraigned Friday.
An anonymous call came into 911 around 4:15 p.m. that a man with a gun was seen inside the Sycamore Street school. The building was placed in lockdown and around 60 students who were in the building for after school programs were herded into the cafeteria as officers from every district in the city went room-to-room in twos and threes looking for a possible gunman. A portion of Sycamore Street and Walden Avenue were closed and parents were kept from the scene until a preliminary sweep of the school was complete.
Meanwhile, the SWAT team conducted a more thorough secondary search of the school. It was during the secondary search that police found Ferguson with a gun.
News 4 interviewed Ferguson in March of 2013 [b]at a rally in support of the NY SAFE Act. At the time, Ferguson stated the law did not go far enough.[/b]
[b]“Our kids are not buying assault weapons, they’re buying pistols and they’re buying them right out of community stores and back here in the school. So this is serious. It needs to go further than what it is,” he said.[/b][/i]
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1 Reply[i]He was among local activists who stood with Assemblywoman Crystal Peoples-Stokes last year lobbying for a law that would make possessing a gun on school property a felony. Prior to New York State’s adoption of the SAFE Act last year, in response to the Sandy Hook school massacre in Connecticut, it was a long-established state law that guns could not be brought onto school property. The only difference was that the crime carried less punishment as a misdemeanor. In an ironic turn of events, Ferguson was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a weapon under that law for Thursday’s incident. The law carries a maximum sentence of up to four years in state prison. Some gun advocates opposed to the SAFE Act have argued that the law actually makes schools less safe since law-abiding handgun owners cannot possess their weapons on school grounds, while mass murderers have never heeded laws making schools gun-free zones. Ferguson held a New York State licensed pistol permit, but that makes no difference under the law. “The more they make these gun-free zones, the more they make people vulnerable to mass killers like at Columbine and Sandy Hook,” said Stephen J. Aldstadt, a Colden resident who serves as president of the state Shooters Committee on Political Education.[/i]
