The First and Second Amendments lead to jail in Utah when you are not part of the local cults. The law in Utah is pretty clear – carrying guns, loaded or unloaded, onto school property is permissible. Any adult otherwise permitted to be on school property may carry a weapon. Indeed, the Legislature is hoping to extend the right to carry to private property as well. Currently, weapons are permitted in any public place. If a church does not want to hold services with armaments, then it must either post a notice at the door or get itself listed with the State as barring weapons. Next session, there may be an effort to deny employers and property owners of the ability to bar weapons from their premises. The Second Amendment has its defenders here. The First Amendment, however, is les loved in Utah. The combination makes for selective enforcement and incoherence, as the following illustrates.
Last week, Sandra Wariner was arrested on felony charges for making a joke. Ms. Wariner is a teacher in Bountiful, Utah. (In Bountiful, your child will be enrolled in kindergarten automatically if listed with the Ward House, i.e., local LDS church.) Ms. Wariner said within hearing of the principal that she had a shotgun and would bring it to school with her.
"She turned to him and basically [said], if she doesn't get what she wants, she has a shotgun, it's loaded and she would bring it to school." Williams said he didn't know "whether she made any threats regarding other people." As far as threats involving students, "we don't find any evidence of that at all."
It is not a crime to bring a gun, loaded or unloaded, to a public school in Utah. Doesn't matter if it is a pistol or a shotgun. That it is perfectly legal to do so is a point the Legislature has been adamant about the last several years. Ms. Wariner would have been within her rights to bring the shotgun to school. Her crime then lies entirely in saying she might do what she has a right to do under Utah law. I do not see how that can be a crime.
To give some benefit to the local authorities, Ms. Wariner may have made statements to others about bringing a gun to school and shooting people. Those statements, however, were not what got her arrested (and, to be frank, I doubt the other statements occurred - the local authorities like to make things up). What got her arrested was telling the principal that she might do what she has a right to do - bring the shotgun to school.
Mr. Wariner is neither LDS nor a Republican, which are matters which matter in Bountiful.
Update
An email from JA Quilter:
First of all what you printed is not what I said! I never said anything about bringing a gun to school! Second you are absolutely right I'm definitely not a Republican you are also absolutely wrong I am LDS
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