Loaded gun found atop baby changing table at Utah aquarium

SALT LAKE CITY — Utah police want to find the owner of a loaded gun found on a baby changing table in a women’s restroom at a Salt Lake City aquarium, but said they don’t plan to file charges.

Rather, they want to return the .380-calibre pistol found on Tuesday.

“I believe it was somebody that just forgot their gun. But, you know, it’s not an uncommon occurrence,” Draper Police Lt. Chad Carpenter told the Deseret News.

Parents at the Living Planet Aquarium were angry that no one would be held accountable.

Crystal Mundt told the Salt Lake Tribune that she rushed out of the bathroom with her two children when she saw the gun and another woman on the phone calling 911.

“You don’t expect to have to do a weapons sweep before entering a bathroom adjacent to a child’s play area,” Mundt told the newspaper. She called it “unbelievable” that a loaded gun could be unattended without even a citation.

The aquarium posts signs forbidding weapons, but it’s unclear whether the policy is legally enforceable, Carpenter said. Concealed weapons are allowed in places such as public schools in Utah.