We have previously seen absurd examples of disciplinary actions taken under zero tolerance rules for drugs and guns (here andhere and here). This includes cases involving kids using finger guns (here). Now Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Montgomery County has joined these ranks by suspending a six-year-old boy for making a finger gun with his hand and saying “Pow.”
Assistant Principal Renee Garraway wrote to the child’s parents about this “serious incident” and said that by using he “threatened to shoot a student.” The letter also reference to a prior incident that the parents say was never conveyed to them.
It would be absurd to suspend a student for a finger gun, though this is not the first time. At most such an incident should result in a note asking the parents to speak with the student. Frankly, I fail to see the danger in kids using finger guns. I have made an intensive search and failed to find a single fatality linked to a finger gun. I am waiting for the NRA to issue bumper stickers insisting that schools will have to “pry my finger gun from my cold dead fingers.”
Source: Examiner
Darren:
It makes sense because if you are a typical gun owner, the rifle is put away and the ammunition is usually not in a magazine. From my understanding of murder, it is usually a crime of passion in the heat of a moment and you use the thing closest at hand; a stick, a lamp base, your fist, a club, etc. You dont typically think about what you are doing, you lose control in the moment and arent thinking about going to the safe or locker to remove your weapon, load it and shoot the person. You could make the case that doing all of that would refocus your brain and mitigate the anger if, indeed, it was a spontaneous rage.
Can you please comment as a LEO?
Bron:
You hit the nail on the head.
Also, there are about 32,000 fatalities in car accidents per year in the US, about half of those involve DUI. Yet, we are not banning motor vehicles despite the fact they are roughtly 30 times more likely to cause death due to felonious operation (DUI related vehicular homicide) than rifles used feloniously.
Just saw this brilliant video on youtube, which puts 2nd amendment more in perspective (as long as he didn’t pick and choose on the years and all)
when hammers are outlawed only carpenters will have nail guns:
“According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.
This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats’ feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.
However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.
Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.
And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.
For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs.
While the FBI makes is clear that some of the “murder by rifle” numbers could be adjusted up slightly, when you take into account murders with non-categorized types of guns, it does not change the fact that their annual reports consistently show more lives are taken each year with these blunt objects than are taken with Feinstein’s dreaded rifle.
Another interesting fact: According to the FBI, nearly twice as many people are killed by hands and fists each year than are killed by murderers who use rifles.
The bottom line: A rifle ban is as illogical as it is unconstitutional. We face far greater danger from individuals armed with carpenters’ tools and a caveman’s stick.
And it seems fairly obvious that if more people had a gun, less people would be inclined to try to hit them in the head with a hammer.”
outlaw hammers now!
Dear Fabien,
Did anyone ever suggested to you that you might be fixated on guns.
So even a theme, “persecute for whatever reaason the children” brings you bearing and defending your guns..
Try getting out of that truck more often and get a life, that is the common cure for most obsessions.
Good luck, or find a therapist.
And stop cocking your triggers, it makes me jumpy. Not really, it is not an iCBM you have, or is it. Let Obama know in which case.
I don’t see this as much of an offense, especially one worthy of suspension. However, if it was done in the threatening manner, it seems that the teacher or the principal should have had a chat with the student explaining why it’s inappropriate; suspension not required.
I’m glad they aren’t the cops and they don’t come to my apartment… My girlfriend’s daughter and I pretend to shoot each other with finger guns a lot. And pretend to punch each other. And fight with wrapping paper rolls like they are swords… We’d be arrested for all of our violence.
And yet she is a well-rounded nine-year-old who doesn’t hurt people.
Court rules one finger gesture is legal these days, from Huff post:
“WASHINGTON — A police officer can’t pull you over and arrest you just because you gave him the finger, a federal appeals court declared Thursday.
In a 14-page opinion, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled that the “ancient gesture of insult is not the basis for a reasonable suspicion of a traffic violation or impending criminal activity.”
John Swartz and his wife Judy Mayton-Swartz had sued two police officers who arrested Swartz in May 2006 after he flipped off an officer who was using a radar device at an intersection in St. Johnsville, N.Y. Swartz was later charged with a violation of New York’s disorderly conduct statute, but the charges were dismissed on speedy trial grounds.
A federal judge in the Northern District of New York granted summary judgement to the officers in July 2011, but the Court of Appeals on Thursday erased that decision and ordered the lower court to take up the case again.
Richard Insogna, the officer who stopped Swartz and his wife when they arrived at their destination, claimed he pulled the couple over because he believed Swartz was “trying to get my attention for some reason.” The appeals court didn’t buy that explanation, ruling that the “nearly universal recognition that this gesture is an insult deprives such an interpretation of reasonableness.”
Oh, Maryland? Pirate Territory. Islamic law.
Connecticut again? Pirate Territory. Dont go there and if you fly over, please flush.
that just illustrates a phobia some people have about guns.
sadly some of these kind of people would be making our gun laws
A client’s fourth-grader got an after school detention for exactly the same thing while on the playground. The principal told me it was a “low level threat of violence.” I think the teacher gave him the detention just had it out for the boy.
shano, It is a different world from our youth. We discussed the differences @ Saratoga and how owners treated their help compared to now. I’m a glass half full guy, and while there have been many changes for the better, they certainly are not all for the better. The lawyerization of our culture, which grew exponentially when they began advertising 30 or so years ago, is one negative factor.
Shano,
We made ones which would fire kitchen “strike anywhere” matches.
Our form of bazookas. Making one taxed my engineering non-talent.
I think someone “solve” the mysteries by suggesting that true to most bureaucratic jobs (not the teachers ElaineM, the Principal et al) are in essence dissatisfying in terms of feeling you are productive and an important factor. It was then said that they were given “power” over others to boost their morale. And power has to be exercised to feel it is yours.
Thus stupid rules are created, creating a serf class, and our children are punished. What is Tylenol? Something like narcotics? You would almost believe it.
Outlandish, who knows. Anybody remember how “Brazil” begins? Plausible that we have reached a similar point in our “development”
Sorry, can’t recall who it was, but having it repeated will perhaps be some comfort.
I had a really good method to make rubber band ‘guns’ out of a clothes pin. I guess I would have spent my youth in juvie for that these days.
old nurse “It was a teachable moment…”
Exactly WHAT could POSSIBLY have been learned from this situation? That common sense in this country is DEAD? That’s a well known fact.
It was a teachable moment for the schools and for the parents. And they took the wrong fork in the road.
Paul, That’s one of many reasons.
And we wonder why education in this country has been going downhill? Wonder no longer, in some schools common sense is uncommon.