When buying a gift for a baby shower, you want to make sure it’s perfect.
You know what I mean – it needs to be something the expecting parents need as they embark upon their new adventure as a family, but you also want it to be something they actually want.
What you don’t want it to be is dangerous, or something which can harm the baby in any way. You know, like a loaded semi-automatic rifle – which is exactly what one couple found in their unopened baby bouncer recently.
Veronica Alvarez-Rodriguez, from Florida, said she was heading to a baby shower on Sunday, December 1, when she stopped at the Goodwill store in Valparaiso for a gift.
The military wife thought she was getting a great bargain when she found an unopened Baby Einstein’s baby bouncer in the store, and paid just $9.99 for it. ‘It was like the perfect gift for the baby shower,’ Alvarez-Rodriguez told The Palm Beach Post.
Believing the item to be brand new, Alvarez-Rodriguez said she was surprised when they got to the baby shower in Crestview and the father-to-be opened the box and excitedly shouted: ‘You guys got me a gun!’
Instead of opening the box and finding a baby bouncer inside, the father-to-be found a Mossberg 715T semi-automatic rifle – which had live ammo in it. When guests at the party realised what had happened, they called the Crestview Police Department, after which an officer came to the baby shower to inspect the deadly weapon.
Alvarez-Rodriguez shared what had happened on her Facebook page, expressing how shocked she was when she realised what she had gifted the parents-to-be. She noted that the serial number ‘was clean’ and the police told her to ‘do what you want with it’.
After explaining what happened, she wrote:
The gun now belongs to Baby Jonathan who is due to enter this world any day now #wegiftedhimhisfirstgun
After checking their IDs to make sure they had the correct permits to be in possession of a gun, the police officer said they could keep it while the incident was under investigation.
However, according to Major Andrew Schneider – the public information officer for the Crestview Police Department – officers requested that they hand in the gun on Monday, December 2.
Schneider said the incident is still under investigation.
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A Broadcast Journalism Masters graduate who went on to achieve an NCTJ level 3 Diploma in Journalism, Lucy has done stints at ITV, BBC Inside Out and Key 103. While working as a journalist for UNILAD, Lucy has reported on breaking news stories while also writing features about mental health, cervical screening awareness, and Little Mix (who she is unapologetically obsessed with).