By Timothy Page // Gun Violence // EEW Magazine Online

What is the world coming to when a 6-year-old first-grader opens fire in a school? Help us Jesus.

A boy at an elementary school in Newport News, Va., shot a teacher on Friday afternoon during an altercation in a classroom, the authorities said, leaving her with “life-threatening” injuries and renewing calls for greater gun restrictions.

The young shooter at Richneck Elementary School struck the teacher once with a handgun at about 2 p.m. and was in police custody on Friday evening, Steve Drew, the chief of the Newport News Police Department, said at a news conference. He added that the teacher, a woman in her 30s, was taken to a local hospital and that her condition had slightly improved by late Friday afternoon.

Many are left questioning what went wrong; what possessed a child to resort to such violence?

The superintendent of Newport News Public Schools, Dr. George Parker, said at the news conference that “we need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people.”

Photos and video taken immediately after the shooting showed a chaotic scene as officers swarmed the school’s brick building. Children looked scared and confused, parents stood beside crime scene tape, while dozens of officers patrolled the area.

Reports say that as gunshots rang out, some children made frightening phone calls to their parents and sheltered on the floor of their classroom with friends. Concerned parents are demanding answers.

“I cannot control access to weapons,” Dr. Parker said. “My teachers cannot control access to weapons.” He added, “Today our students got a lesson in gun violence and what guns can do to disrupt not only an educational environment, but also a family, a community.”

Dr. Parker said school would be closed Monday “as we work on the mental health of our staff and our students.”

Newport News, a city of more than 180,000 people, was rocked by news of what happened inside the school.

“I’m in shock, and I’m in awe, and I’m disheartened,” Dr. Parker said.

The mayor of Newport News, Phillip Jones, said at a news conference that while the shooting was “still raw,” the city was taking steps to ensure that something similar did not happen again.

Curtis Bethany, a councilman for the city, said Newport News was dealing with “unchartered” territory. “I’ve never heard of a 6-year-old going to school with a loaded gun.”

Incidents at schools involving a shooter so young are exceptionally rare, according to a New York Times report. David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, has compiled data on every school shooting — anytime a firearm has been discharged on school property — dating back to 1970. He found 16 cases involving shooters under the age of 10 with three of them involving 6-year-old children.

According to Mr. Riedman’s research, there has been only one shooting at a school that involved someone under 6 years old: a kindergartner, aged 5, shot a gun in the cafeteria of his school in Memphis, Tenn., in 2013. No one was injured.