When thieves started targeting vehicles in the parking lot of the apartment complex where Shanae Davis lives, she decided it would be best if she began storing her handgun inside her home. That was the right call to make, but the West Palm Beach, Florida resident is now facing criminal charges after she inexplicably left her pistol in her son's lunch box... and then forgot about it.

According to police documents, a teacher at Jackson’s Daycare Center was opening up her two-year-old son's lunchbox when they saw a gun in it. The teacher screamed “Gun,” and another teacher came to help and check if it was real.

When officers arrived, they determined it was a 9mm Glock 43 handgun. Noone was injured in the incident, but parents said they are stunned by what happened.

“It's scary," Stephenne Warembourg said. "I mean, you know, when I'm sending my kid to school thinking that he's going to be safe. I mean, are they? I don't know."

If it makes Warembourg feel better, this is the first time in two decades of covering gun-related news that I've run across a story featuring a parent who decided to keep their firearm in their kid's lunchbox for safekeeping. 

The 39-year-old told police that she doesn't own a purse, but that doesn't explain why she chose her son's lunchbox as a storage container for her gun. Regardless of her rationale, Davis is now facing charges of child neglect and allowing a minor to obtain a firearm. Those are serious offenses that could not only put Davis in prison, but lead to her losing custody of her child. 

Even if Florida didn't have a gun storage law on the books this would still have been an idiotic mistake that could have come with fatal consequences for her child or others. I get how chaotic and crazy life can be with a toddler (thankfully, those days are long behind me), but for the life of me I can't figure out why Davis thought it would be a good idea to put her gun where she did. I'm assuming that Davis doesn't own a safe, but she could have tucked the pistol away out of reach of her toddler instead of storing it in her kid's lunchbox. 

And how did she not discover the pistol before she left the home? You'd think when she opened up the lunchbox to put her son's food inside she would have realized the issue, but for whatever reason she failed to remove the gun before she left the house. 

I have no idea if Shanae Davis is a good mom who just had a very bad day or if her gun storage decision is a sign of other problems with her parenting skills, but I do know that irresponsible acts like this hurt every gun owner... not to mention putting kids at risk. 

Based on her original decision to bring her gun inside rather than leaving it in her car for thieves to steal, I'll assume that her secondary storage location was the result of a momentary lapse in judgment. She had the good sense not to leave her pistol unsecured in a parking lot where several vehicles had been burgled, which is something. But if you're the parent of a young child, you don't just have to worry about criminals getting ahold of your gun, and Davis is incredibly lucky that her forgetfulness didn't come with fatal consequences for her son, his schoolmates, or the daycare workers who discovered her Glock when they were expecting to see a sandwich and cookies.