David Codrea: School FOIA response points to law violation by anti-gun filmmaker

The producer of an anti-gun “public service announcement” video appears to have violated California law regarding either real or imitation firearms on school premises, a Freedom of Information Act response by the North Oakland Community Charter School implies by default. Documents provided to Gun Rights Examiner in response to a Public Records Act request partially corroborate the school executive director’s earlier claim that “NOCCS does not allow, condone, or support bringing weapons of any kind (real or replicas) to school.”

The “PSA” in question, produced by independent filmmaker Rejina Sincic, showed a high school student stealing his mother’s handgun, bringing it to school in a backpack, and handing it to his teacher at the end of class. The video resulted in ridicule and condemnation from many in the gun rights advocacy community, critical of its hysterical anti-gun message as well as the blatant violations of both true “common sense gun safety” rules and multiple unwittingly-scripted violations of existing laws. That probably explained why comments and “Like/Dislike” counters were disabled on YouTube.

That actual laws may have been broken in the production of the video was a question raised in this column when the claim that “real or replica” weapons were not “condoned.” It does not appear that Sincic’s production qualified under California Penal Code to have an exception to possess an actual firearm, and the corroborated NOCCS claim that an imitation firearm was not “authorized” raises a separate code infraction.

In addition to the legal implications, the irony of a supposed “gun safety” advocate bringing a firearm -- real or replica -- onto school premises without authorization raises profound safety concerns. That the school was not apprised of the firearm “prop” means any personnel not informed of Sincic’s plan could have called the police, whose response might have ended in tragedy.

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