Continuing on the subject of out-of-control grade school paranoia about gun-related toys, actions and speech in our grade schools, I’ve been asked if I made up any of the news items in my last column. Sadly, no. In fact, I didn’t have room last week for even more examples of ridiculous acts of overzealous administrators and fear mongers. Like these additional recent news items:
Two seven-year old boys were recently suspended from school in Suffolk County, VA for pointing pencils at each other while making shooting sounds. According to news reports, one of the boys was pretending to be a U.S. Marine – like his father – and the other a “bad guy” (which is no doubt is media speak for a white, Christian conservative male).
Elsewhere in the land of the not-so-free (Mount Carmel, PA, to be exact), a five-year old girl was suspended after she made what school officials called a “terrorist threat” with ... wait for it ... a small, Hello Kitty automatic bubble blower. Well, duh. We should rise up and demand that politicians enact an immediate ban on automatic bubble blowers, for crying out loud. I mean, a single-action bubble blower should be more than enough firepower.
Moving on with this parade of paranoia; even a teacher’s permission doesn’t seem to matter to the enlightened chuckleheads running far too many of our schools today. Just this month, several grade-school students in Edmonds, WA were kicked out of school for shooting Nerf gun darts before class. Just imagine the carnage. To add insult to injury, their teacher had specifically requested that bring Nerf guns to class to use in a probability study. But in our elite education system, the god of zero tolerance must be worshiped at the cost of common sense.
Finally, I can’t finish this skewering of child-minded adults without mentioning one of the most idiotic and useless exercises yet. Last month in Hayward, CA, the Strobridge Elementary School hosted a toy gun buyback program for kids. You read that right; a toy gun buyback.
Does anyone wonder why charter and home school movements are thriving all across this once great country?
What’s next? All of this foolishness makes me wonder if school kids will soon be expelled for playing “Rock, Paper, Scissors” with each other. Wouldn’t want the others traumatized by such dangerously lethal play now, would we? Boys with the nickname of “Boomer” will no doubt be asked to stay home until they are given a less explosive handle. And woe unto anyone who calls a rambunctious kid a “pistol,” or says a teacher has a “hair trigger” temper. Yep, those poor innocent people will surely find themselves “under the gun” to use more politically correct language sanitized for everyone’s protection.
Remember the boy named “Hunter” I wrote about last week – whose parents were told by his school for the deaf administrators that he had to change his given name because the sign for that name went against their school “no weapons” policy? What about the poor kid whose parents were evil enough to name him Gunnar? And can school districts even set a “target” for test results or fundraising without recklessly creating an atmosphere of violence? Wait, what about all the ink “cartridges” they order for photocopiers? Should high school quarterbacks no longer be allowed to “rifle” a football downfield? I mean, if we’re gonna have zero tolerance, let’s go all the way.
As a kid I played pretend shoot ‘em up around my neighborhood on a regular basis. One of my all-time-favorite Christmas gifts ever was a “Man from U.N.C.L.E.” gun with a pretend scope, pretend removable magazine, pretend bipod, pretend silencer – the whole horrible, loathsome lot. Back then, the barrels of toy guns didn’t even have neon orange safety bands on them.
And yet somehow I didn’t become a soulless mass murderer. Today, I would have been suspended before the first recess at kindergarten.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
I’ll begin by stating unequivocally that I don’t for one minute think students should be allowed to bring guns or any other actual weapon to school. Period. No exceptions. Should teachers and administrators be armed? Possibly; under very strict circumstances and with considerable training and supervision (like airline pilots). But the likelihood of this ever happening is nil, so it’s not worth discussion here.
That said, we as a people who value our precious children must do something about the rampant psychological violence being inflicted upon them in school districts across the nation. By that I mean the ridiculous, inane, foolish, immature, over-reactive actions taken against youngsters and perpetrated by so many of those charged with protecting these very same students in our public schools.
To wit, news item one from earlier this year (February) when an eight-year old boy in Virginia was suspended for having “pointed a finger like a gun” in the hallway after a friend pretended to shoot him with a pretend bow and arrow. The children’s class had been studying Native American culture and had just learned a song about deer-hunting, according to news reports. The hapless kid served an in-school suspension for the day and was charged with “threatening to harm self or others” on par with bringing an actual weapon to school. Really?
News item two: in March an elementary school in Baltimore suspended a seven-year old boy for chewing a breakfast pasty into the shape school officials said resembled a gun. Seriously; a pop-gun Pop Tart? I wonder if, because the pastry had a filling, the asinine administrators considered it to be a loaded weapon? To add insult to the insanity, the school then sent home letters to parents offering counseling for any students who may have been traumatized by the non-event. How about the trauma inflicted on the poor seven year old boy? Shameful. But it gets worse.
News item three: just last month, a six-year old kindergarten student in Massachusetts was accused of causing a disturbance and of traumatizing other students on his school bus by bringing a teeny tiny plastic toy gun (like something those green toy soldiers in “Toy Story” would hold) along with him. I’ve seen a picture of the offending item. It is the size of a quarter. The kindergartner was forced to write an apology letter to the bus driver, was given detention and may lose his bus riding privileges.
News item four: a middle-schooler in Maryland was suspended for ten days for merely talking about guns on the bus ride home. The bus driver had overheard the boy talk about wishing he could protect everyone by having a gun to use against bad guys. Not only was he subsequently interrogated by the school principal, but also a Sheriff’s deputy who then attempted to search (without a warrant) the boy’s home.
News item five: In May, a five-year-old boy (also in Maryland) was interrogated so ruthlessly he wet his pants. He was then suspended for ten days after school officials “caught” him with a cowboy-style cap gun in his backpack. The frightened child was viciously badgered by school officials before they bothered to call his parents. Then the pinhead of a principal told the boy’s mother that, had the cap gun been loaded with a roll of paper caps, they would have deemed it an “explosive device” and called in the police. I deem the school principal a dangerous idiot.
News item six: In June the parents of a three-year old deaf boy in Nebraska were told that they must change their son’s first name because when it is “signed” it looks like a finger-pistol. The boy’s name is Hunter. His school has said that the way in which he signs his name is a violation of its “weapons in school” policy. You can’t make this stuff up.
I could go on with more examples of this foolishness. And I will, next week.
I’ll see you ‘round town.
