Mom packs gun for 7-year-old: A flare gun, .22-caliber pistol ‘school gun lunch’

When a mom packs a flare gun, a .22-caliber pistol, a loaded magazine, and 14 extra gun bullets for her second-grader, it is no longer a school lunch, it is a “school gun lunch.” When a seven-year-old came to Wave Preparatory Elementary School in Far Rockaway in Queens on Thursday morning, “that's exactly what a second-grader had inside his Batman backpack,” reported CNN on Jan. 20, 2013.

And what does a second-grade boy do with the school gun lunch that his mom packed for him? He does what he does with most school lunches; -- he shares or trades it with a friend or a classmate.

The second grader at Wave Preparatory Elementary School did share his school gun lunch with a classmate. But as kids usually do, they tend to give away something from their lunch that they don’t necessarily like.

So this seven-year old boy gave away the flare gun but kept the .22 caliber pistol, loaded magazine and 14 extra gun bullets. Most elementary schools do not check students’ backpacks or students’ school lunches for any potential “school gun lunches.”

Wave Preparatory Elementary School wasn’t aware of the seven-year-old boy’s school gun lunch until the mom told the school.

The second-grader’s mom, 53-year-old Deborah Farley, had dropped off her seven-year-old son at Wave Preparatory Elementary School on Thursday morning. Shortly after dropping him off, she realized that she had forgotten to take out the flare gun, the .22-caliber pistol, the loaded magazine, and the 14 more gun bullets from her son’s Batman backpack. Deborah Farley had used her son’s backpack the night before when she was “out walking the streets of Queens late Wednesday night."

When Deborah Farley rushed to her son’s school and asked him about the school lunch and found out that he had shared “some” of his “school gun lunch”, Deborah Farley had to let the school know.

After finding out about the unusual "school gun lunch" that the mom had packed for her son, Wave Preparatory Elementary School put the school on lockdown and called the police.

Fortunately, the seven-year-old boy’s school gun lunch did not cause any harm. However, the second-grader’s mom was arrested on Friday “on charges of endangering the welfare of a child and criminal possession of a firearm. The pistol was unlicensed.”

Police Deputy Commissioner Paul Browne said on Friday that when Deborah Farley’s home was searched, the police “found more ammunition and seven plastic bags of marijuana.”

Deborah Farley’s seven-year-old son and his 9-year-old brother were taken into custody by child protective workers.

Do kids need to learn not to share their school lunches with classmates or do school backpacks and other school lunch bags need a “no gun” sign to remind moms or dads not to inadvertently pack a school gun lunch instead of just a school lunch?

More articles by this author…

Money/Shopping: