A child is seen from the waist down playing hopscotch.

Only In America: Elementary School Superintendent Accidentally Left His Gun in School Bathroom

Picture this: You’re a school superintendent. What is your job description? No one knows. You’re not entirely sure yourself. All you know is that you get paid a lot of money while the teachers working directly under you make pennies, which they then spend on school supplies for their classrooms because you cut their budget. And that’s just how school works in America, the way God intended.

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And here in Texas, God also intended every man to wear a gun on his hip, which you’re doing right now. Who are you to challenge God?

So you’re wandering the halls, just poking your head into the classrooms. Asking if anyone needs anything. Anything but school supplies that is. Suddenly, nature calls. You duck into the nearest bathroom, unholster your gun, and leave it on the tank of the toilet. You don’t want it falling out and going off while you’re fiddling with your britches, that would be a big ol’ headache now wouldn’t it? You do your business, zip yourself up, and walk back out into the world a couple pounds lighter.

You decide you’ve done enough work for today and step into the teacher’s lounge for a coffee break. You’re not a teacher, but you help yourself to a cup anyway. You feel easy, comfortable … too comfortable. A couple pounds lighter? More like a couple pounds too light.

You realize you left your gun in the bathroom stall. I don’t think God intended you to do that.

Sounds Like A Joke Right? Nope. This Really Happened.

Texas school superintendent Robby Stuteville is reportedly under police investigation for leaving his loaded gun in a bathroom stall. He likes to accessorize his outfit of the day with an open-carried gun. The principal of the school does as well. Omg twinsies! He reportedly “forgot” that the gun was still in the bathroom stall where he left it. It lay there for 15 minutes before it was found by a third grader. Obviously, this 8-year-old had more common sense than the superintendent of their school, because the child left the gun untouched and told a teacher about it.

Stuteville claims to be “proud” of how the student handled the situation. He also attempted to downplay his mistake, saying “there was never a danger except for the obvious.” Honestly, I have never heard a finer piece of doublespeak in my life. Aside from the immediate danger of exposing children to a loaded gun without supervision, no one was in danger at all. Checks out.

The school board is now holding a “series of meetings” to discuss the matter, though I’m unsure why they need a series of meetings. Couldn’t this all be settled with a single email headlined “DON’T BRING A F*CKING GUN TO SCHOOL”? After all, that’s the solution that Stuteville chose to employ. He has since stopped bringing a gun to school, saying “this is one of those examples of guns in schools … regardless of who takes responsibility, they are a considerable danger.” Uh, yeah, Robby. I can think of a couple of other examples where guns caused considerable danger in schools. In fact, I feel like we get a couple of those kinds of examples every few months, don’t we? And in these particular examples where someone brought a gun to school things were a lot worse, so count yourself lucky.

Stuteville went on to say that parents “should school their child to be on the lookout for any unusual placement of a weapon or anything out of place,” because in America we need to teach our children to expect to find a gun laying around when they show up for arts and crafts. Again, checks out.

Police say that they were notified of the incident last Wednesday, even though it happened back in January. Apparently, incidents with guns in schools are so commonplace now that cops don’t even know about them until a month or so after they happen. That’s especially surprising considering that it’s illegal to carry a firearm on school grounds without written authorization from the school, which presumably means Stuteville could just write himself that permission slip.

Well hopefully now Texas lawmakers will finally pass some more gun control laws for the safety of— what’s that? Oh, they’re focusing on passing more bans on drag shows? Right, because if there’s anything we need to protect children from it’s drag queen story time and not the loaded .45 in the corner.

(via WKRC, featured image: Photo by Shopify Partners from Burst)


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Jack Doyle
Jack Doyle (they/them) is actually nine choirs of biblically accurate angels crammed into one pair of $10 overalls. They have been writing articles for nerds on the internet for less than a year now. They really like anime. Like... REALLY like it. Like you know those annoying little kids that will only eat hotdogs and chicken fingers? They're like that... but with anime. It's starting to get sad.