Child kicked out of school for gun hat (merged threads)

[SharpsDressedMan]

I agree with most all the above, especially the comments about zero tolerance policies. The so called educated people who created "zero tolerance" have created "no thought zones", and have basically shown that school administrators have become lazy and incompetent, and can no longer address the individual, but must punish all for the sins of a few. It's just easier.

 

[Double Naught Spy]

Zero tolerance is pretty stupid in my book. However, it is a very easy policy with which to conform. I don't agree with it, but I don't see how it is that people keep violating it.

The kid's intent was nice, but not completely relevant beyond the fact that what he was doing was not intended to cause harm or fear of harm. He wasn't using the tiny guns to "shoot" people. This whole bit about he was doing this to honor the troops is nice, as I said, but it is just a form of sensationalism meant to get the reader more emotionally involved with the article so that the article seems much more interesting than the actual salient issues at hand.

I see this as no different than the kid who work the gun brand logo shirt (no picture of a gun, even) and got in similar trouble but not because it was a logo shirt, but because the logo was gun-oriented. The kid wasn't trying to cause or threaten harm. It was just a shirt like a shirt with a Ford logo or sports team logo.

 

[smallbore]

Maybe it's just me. . .hat with American flag & toy soldiers is a no-no. . .newspapers in school w/photos of soldiers holding guns is okay. What a country.

 

[danprkr]

My kids are not going to be brain washed by not seeing toy guns at school.

I beg to differ the elementary years are some of the most formative and susceptible to influence of a child's development.

Besides, do we really want to teach that zero tolerance is acceptable. Especially since the equation:

zero tolerance = zero thought = stupidity to the highest order

Has proven itself to be true so many times in since it's inception.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

Without the zero tolerance policy, the task of deciding what is appropriate and what is not lies in the hands of the teachers/school administrators.

Which do you think could potentially cause more problems.

I could only imagine how it could play out down here. "hey jimmy, thats a mighty fine budweiser/nas car shirt you have there." Hey timmy, you're suspended from school, you know you can't wear a shirt with Obama on it!"

 

[Deanimator]

The kid can't bring plastic guns to school, big deal its not like he's a pint sized FFL of fictional weapons attepting to make a living in the school cafeteria.

I can virtually guarantee you that if the kid had worn a button with a picture of a gun in a circle with a line through it, nobody would have thought twice.

 

[Deanimator]

Without the zero tolerance policy, the task of deciding what is appropriate and what is not lies in the hands of the teachers/school administrators.

Which do you think could potentially cause more problems.

Yeah, wouldn't want teachers and administrators to THINK.

On second thought, you're probably right...

 

[TexasRifleman]

Yeah, wouldn't want teachers and administrators to THINK.

On second thought, you're probably right...

Well the thing is, without zero tolerance policies if an administrator overreacts they can be held responsible.

Zero tolerance gives them an insulator to hide behind and no one takes responsibility, that's always a bad thing.

 

[speaksoftly]

...the task of deciding what is appropriate and what is not lies in the hands of the teachers/school administrators.

Just going against the grain here, but whose genius idea was it to expect a handful of people to be able to accomplish the task (that is difficult for parents of one) of raising hundreds of children at a time? Kids need direct attention, shaping, and molding and this is not possible to obtain when fighting dozens of other kids for the attention that they all deserve. The task of deciding what is appropriate and what is not for a child is one that should be left up to the parents and NOT a school official who's doing well to remember your kids name.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

Well thats the point, what might be appropriate in your home, may be inappropriate in my home. After seeing some of the parents at my childs school, I'm glad there are minimum acceptable levels to adhere too.

The fact that it is extremely difficult to manage hundreds of children's needs simultaneously is in fact the reason to have a set of guidlines in the first place.

I don't want my child seeing alcohol advertising, depictions of drugs, etc at school, just because some other dead beat parent thinks it is ok for their kid.

 

[WinchesterAA]

I dunno, man, it seems to me like freedom is a thing that makes everything better, and we shouldn't raise our kids in an environment contrary to that.


This one just came in -- http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iMXgWX1my2TrMvxt5JNxRShwyzBwD9GD9RV80

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — Christan Morales said her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.

Absurdity... Stop paying for public schools.

 

[speaksoftly]

Here's the kids mother's facebook if anyone wants to drop her a note of encouragement. She has the hat in question as her profile picture haha.

http://www.facebook.com/christanm?ref=search

 

[HGUNHNTR]

I dunno, man, it seems to me like freedom is a thing that makes everything better, and we shouldn't raise our kids in an environment contrary to that.

HA! Most kids wouldn't attent school in the first place if we put "freedom" first.

Freedom doesn't mean being able to do anything you want, whenever you want to do it.

There were rules in place, if you violate them, be prepared to suffer the consequences. Don't wear the damned hat in school! I don't go around crying if I get a parking ticket, and it certainly doesn't infringe on my ability to "park".

 

[WinchesterAA]

I understand your argument, but I think you're missing the cause of it.

I think most kids, if given the choice, wouldn't go to school because it is a lot like being in jail.

 

[BikerNut]

One question:

Do any of the history books in that school district show, explain, or otherwise describe any war that has ever been fought?

If so, then this kid's cap is in the same league as those textbook stories, pictures, details, whatever.

I haven't looked at a grade school book in a long time, but I would not be surprised if EVERY photo or illustration of a soldier carrying a rifle during ANY U.S. war had been purged in favor of pictures of burning cities and weeping civilians.

School boards and administrators conveniently forget that guns and the force of arms and the cost of lives bought them the freedom to act like idiots and pretend that they live in some utopian universe where wars never happen because people "compromise" and "come to solutions" that "we can all live with".

The cost of freedom also insured our ability to stand up to idiots like this guy and every other school union bully that goes kneejerkingly ballistic at the mere mention of a gun.

They're not protecting our children. They're flexing ideological muscle.

 

[jon86]

This situation is disgusting because the child's hat was supposed to honor veterans who have fallen protecting OUR rights. The same rights that give the school principal authority to dictate what is "right" in his or her school. Don't people stop and think? Where is common sense in this country?

 

[speaksoftly]

Where is common sense in this country?

All but dead IMHO.

 

[BikerNut]

Now that my rant is over, I should mention that not EVERY school teacher, principal or administrator is a mindless zero-tolerance automaton.

My youngest kid has a t-shirt with Chuck Norris holding an Uzi, and he wore it to high school probably a hundred times. He also wore a t-shirt with some Halo/XBox game fantasy symbol/something that features two large crossed rifles.

He never had an issue wearing either, and this is in Evanston, IL, home of radical leftism, home of the Violence Policy Center, one of the original handgun ban cities, and a "nuclear-free zone".

However, zero-tolerance did get my son booted out of junior high for five days. He had a clear plastic airsoft gun stashed in his backpack, which was going to be used to fight an airsoft battle at a friend's house after school. My son's reasoning was that if he left it at home, came home after school to get it, and then went to his friend's house, it would already be time to come home for dinner.

It so happened that he fell down during gym that day and broke his jaw, and had to go to the hospital. When a teacher went to get his backpack, the airsoft gun was found.

I met with the principal and vice-principal, and agreed that my son should not have brought the toy to school. Like it or not, rules are rules until citizens are willing to change them.

Their attitude was that, yes, rules are rules, but it was a stupid rule for not allowing school officials to exercise individual judgement on a case basis (in this case, an honor student who had never been in trouble).

They scheduled his five-day suspension to coincide with the days he would be in the hospital for surgery and at home recuperating.

 

[HGUNHNTR]

I understand your argument, but I think you're missing the cause of it.

I think most kids, if given the choice, wouldn't go to school because it is a lot like being in jail.

So, would you CHOOSE to go to jail?

That's my point, regardless of cause the result is the same.

This situation is disgusting because the child's hat was supposed to honor veterans who have fallen protecting OUR rights.

Wrong, not since the revolutionary war has this been true.

The same rights that give the school principal authority to dictate what is "right" in his or her school. Don't people stop and think?

Wrong again, this is not a "right" of a principle, it is their job. Police don't have the right to ticket you, they have the duty by law.. HUGE difference.

 

[heron]

Christan Morales says her son just wanted to honor American troops when he wore a hat to school decorated with an American flag and small plastic Army figures.

Good on him, and his mom too.

The principal told the family that the hat would be fine if David replaced the Army men holding weapons with ones that didn't have any, according to Superintendent Kenneth R. Di Pietro.

So, a student wants to HONOR our soldiers, and the administration wants to DISARM them . . .
Does the school prohibit these kids from watching the evening news, too? The soldiers on TV carry rifles . . .

 

[BikerNut]

The same rights that give the school principal authority to dictate what is "right" in his or her school. Don't people stop and think?

Wrong again, this is not a "right" of a principle, it is their job. Police don't have the right to ticket you, they have the duty by law.. HUGE difference.

You're completely nuts and you're equivocating terms, which is a common tactic for making unreasoned attacks.

Don't confuse law with ideological policy statements.

This situation is disgusting because the child's hat was supposed to honor veterans who have fallen protecting OUR rights.

Wrong, not since the revolutionary war has this been true.

Don't confuse the right of self-governance with the other rights that were fought for in subsequent wars, and if you need a primer for that, read a damn history book.

 

[sv51macross]

HGUNHNTR wrote:

This situation is disgusting because the child's hat was supposed to honor veterans who have fallen protecting OUR rights.

Wrong, not since the revolutionary war has this been true.

I know it's off topic, but, THAAAAAANK YOU!

 

[svaz]

During my youngest girl's open day at 1st grade, her teacher asked all parents to ensure that if their children brought GI Joes to school to please make sure they left the guns at home. This is freak'n Arizona - most of the fathers and a few of the mothers were all shaking their heads sadly. I don't blame the teacher as it is a school board policy and she's only charged with enforcing it. I blame the governor for not extending the fence w/ Mexico to include fencing off CA ...

 

[jon86]

Wrong, not since the revolutionary war has this been true.

I respectfully but strongly disagree... care to elaborate?

 

[WardenWolf]

Perhaps they should remember the soldiers who fought and died with and in the face of guns to give them the right to educate children as they see fit. Perhaps they should remember that our independence and survival as a country was only secured with guns.