Nobody will get in trouble.

Why? Because that is the law in South Carolina.

State Rep. Greg Delleney, R-Chester, an attorney and a member of the House Judiciary Committee for years, who has opposed any attempts for stronger laws and penalties for improper storage of guns and "always will," said, "the long and short of this is personal responsibility."

I, a father of three kids in school who owns no gun asks this question of anybody who defends the ability to have a gun in a car that a child grabs and points: Who is responsible?

The answer is nobody.

Because so many of us say guns are great, wonderful, protected by the Constitution. Because the gun culture pervades our society, our laws, like a plague. We love our guns, oh yes, and now 9-year-olds take them to school just like show and tell.

Except the Scott family, which has to live forever with a son who had a loaded pistol pointed at him.

A quick recap of what happened, according to Rock Hill Police Lt. Jerry Waldrop, York County prosecutor Kevin Brackett and Stacey Coleman, the public defender for the 9-year-old boy:

State law requires that a defendant of any age be able to comprehend the potential charges against him, that a person is able to assist a defense lawyer, that a person know right from wrong.

This boy did not meet those standards, a state psychologist told a court. So, a Family Court judge ruled Monday the 9-year-old could not be charged with a crime. The judge ordered counseling.

Police, prosecutors and the defense lawyer said the night before the boy brought the gun to school, a friend of the boy's brother, in his late teens, a legal adult able to possess a gun in this state, had the gun with him in one of the family cars.

The car was parked at the family home. Private property. The mother of the children was out of the country. The grandmother was staying with the 9-year-old and his two older siblings, both of whom are adults.

Legal guns on private property -- the car was on private property -- can be legally possessed, said Delleney and Brackett. Tucked in your underwear waistband, legal. Wear them in holsters, legal. Brackett, Waldrop, Delleney all said that is the law.

The friend told police he was taking the gun to his father, the legal owner, and didn't take the gun into the house for the night because there were children inside.

The 9-year-old boy's sister used that car the next morning to take the fourth-grader to school instead of the car she normally drove, Brackett said.

It just so happened that car was the one with a loaded gun in it.

The 9-year-old found the gun in the door compartment and put it in his schoolbag. None of the adults knew that he had the gun, police and prosecutors said.

I'll tell you who knew the 9-year-old had the gun. Westyn Scott, 9, when he looked at it being pointed at him in the bathroom at school.

The friend who left the gun in the car broke no laws, authorities said. Police and prosecutors even looked at laws of neglect, where custodians or guardians can be charged for putting children at risk. The friend who possessed the gun was not the guardian or custodian, said Brackett and Waldrop.

There was no intent to provide the child with the weapon, said Brackett and Delleney.

Brackett and Waldrop said all applicable laws were looked at to see if anyone should face charges.

The anti-gun lobby will take this opportunity to make possessing a gun more difficult, Delleney said. I hope he is right. I hope the anti-gun crowd gets that loaded pistol and shows it in every school in York County.

Gun lobbyists often crow about how the best safe gun practices can avoid gun incidents. Tell that to the Scott family.

It seems clear the cops, prosecutors, lawyers and the courts did what the law requires them to do in this case. Gun owners on private property who aren't guardians of children apparently don't have to lock up their guns, take out the bullets, nothing.

Maybe the law is the problem. Delleney is a good guy, one of the legislators who make the laws of this state. He took time to explain the laws to me for this story, but I can never agree that it is wrong to have stricter laws about storing guns.

Coleman said, "Maybe this will be a wake-up call," for gun safety and storage.

Wake up? Gun advocates sleep like logs, their legal, loaded pistols in their dresser drawers or cars in case a rotten scoundrel tries to tread on them.

Will a loaded gun left legally in a car save you from a robber, a villain in the night? It's in the car. It's in a closet. Maybe the criminal will let you go get it first. We all know robbers love a fair fight.

That loaded gun at York Road school became a ticking bomb.

Tick through the front door that day. Tick down the hallway where hundreds walked to learn. Tick in the bathroom.

The bomb did not go off. Nobody got killed.

This time.