Lindsay Brown is a very gifted young woman not far from me. Shortly after this incident I had the pleasure of meeting her and her family. I was quite impressed. This was a couple years ago, but I think it says it all about zero tolerance.
Why isn't Lindsay Brown happy? She’s getting ready to graduate
from Estero High School in Fort Myers, Fla. What’s more, she’ll be
wearing a gold tassel on her graduation gown, a tassel which
honors her position as a National Merit Scholar. After summer
vacation Lindsay will start at Florida Gulf Coast University, where
she was awarded an academic scholarship.
Well, not really. Yes, she’s a National Merit Scholar. Yes, she has an
academic scholarship. But she won’t be wearing that gold tassel.
She won’t even be wearing the graduation gown. Lindsay, you see,
is our latest victim of the hysterical and intellectually vapid
zero-tolerance crap that permeates our insipid government schools
across the nation.
Last weekend Lindsay Brown moved some of her belongings to her
new apartment. During the move a kitchen knife – not a steak knife,
not a butcher knife – just a simple little kitchen knife fell out of a box
and became wedged under the front passenger seat.
When Lindsay drove that car to school on Monday the knife was
spotted by a security officer. Lindsay was arrested and taken to jail.
Taken to jail because there was a kitchen knife in her car. The local
sheriff’s office considered the presence of this kitchen knife to
constitute probable cause to believe that Lindsay intended to use
this knife as a weapon to hurt someone.
Lindsay Brown spent nine hours in jail. NINE HOURS! Nine hours in
the custody of the state because of a kitchen knife in the car! Now
she won’t get to graduate with her friends. She won’t go to the
senior class breakfast. She won’t get to go to the yearbook party.
Yeah, she’ll get her diploma – and a record - a record for bringing a
"dangerous weapon” onto school property.
This is nothing less than mindless hysteria. The leftist mania over
guns has brought us to the point where common sense is virtually
lacking in the operation of our government schools.
A kitchen knife is a weapon? Consider this. If you had to retrieve a
weapon from your car, which would you chose? A kitchen knife or
the jack handle? How about the tire iron? Every single car in that
parking lot at Estero High School has a tire iron. They have
transmission dip sticks that could be used as swords. They have
spark plug wires that could be used as garrotes. The car itself could
be used to mow down a fellow student.
Mindless, abject stupidity!
Aren’t we supposed to be trying to teach our kids how to think
rationally? Is there anything rational about this zero-tolerance
nonsense?
Lindsay is just one in a long list of victims of these idiotic
zero-tolerance policies.
There was that Eagle Scout in Florida. Remember him? He had a
Scout meeting one night at which he taught young Boy Scouts the
proper handling of a hatchet. The hatchet was in the trunk of his car,
along with the rest of his Scouting gear, when he went to school the
next day. Suspended. Kicked out.
How about that girl in Atlanta who was kicked out of a government
school because she had a Tweetie Bird key chain? The school
principal said the chain could be a weapon.
Then there was that boy who took a knife away from a young girl
who said she was going to use it to kill herself. He locked the knife
in his locker. He got kicked out of school for four months. Two days
later that girl did try to kill herself, but failed. Maybe if she had tried
with that knife the kid took from her she would have succeeded.
Maybe he saved a life! Doesn’t matter, kick him out of school.
This left-wing generated mindless politically correct hysteria over
weapons in our schools MUST STOP!
The first line of defense? Getting your kid out of government school
and into a private school where administrators actually think before
they act.
