We have yet another zero logic case out of our schools enforcing zero tolerance policies on guns. We have yet another case of lunacy in our schools as part of the zero tolerance policy regarding guns. We have previously explored how teachers and school administrators are expelling or suspending students for everything from finger guns to stick figures. (here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here). For a prior column, click here. Even nibbling a danish into a gun shape can get you expelled today. Now a 6-year-old kindergartner attending Old Mill Pond Elementary School in Palmer, Mass faced possible suspension or expulsion because he was spotted with a plastic Lego G.I. Joe gun — the size of a quarter — on to his school bus. After public outcry, the school decided that it would not discipline the boy. However, the boy was given detention after the discovery.
After a fellow student alerted the bus driver, the boy was taken to detention. He was forced to apologize to the bus driver — presumably for endangering the whole bus with the quarter sized LEGO toy. Then school officials sent home a letter to all parents alerting them to the harrowing experience and reminding them of the zero tolerance policy.
Once again, teachers and administrators insist on applying this policy will little judgment or logic. The fact that this boy was put into detention at all is moronic, let alone requiring him to apologize to a bus driver that a toy was brought on board.
Source: Wash Times
It’s good to see things back to normal here. 🙂
Glad to have you back Gene
nick,
What? Mike and Tony kicking your ass in my absence not enough attention for you? Awwww.
I’ll be back to smacking your intellectually feeble gibberish down as I see fit. Meanwhile, you keep “making friends” in that traditional method of yours. We’ll see how that works out for you. See, I know how the story ends. I’ve seen it a thousand times.
Here’s what you don’t seem to understand. You think you’re the Emperor. We all know you have no clothes.
You are not the teacher or the lesson. You are the object lesson and we who call you out on being nekkid are collectively the teachers.
There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. You? You’re playing in the rough as the duffers say.
So keep bangin’ those rocks together, space monkey.
You’ll figure it out eventually.
Or not.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/05/30/third-ricin-letter-threatens-obama-over-god-given-gun-rights/
Blouise, Remember that group than posted on here about the July 4 revolution in DC. Must be the same folks.
nick,
Gene has been out of pocket for the past week. I see he posted a comment a few minutes ago, so he is back. He will explain as he sees fit…or not.
SwM,
Oh well …guess we’ll have to put ol’ Bessie away for another day
And where is Gene? I wouldn’t be so dishonest to say he’s “chastened” simply because he’s not responded. But, there are some threads the last week that are his cup o’ tea.
Scatological, Mikey! I like it. And kudos on the one paragraph screed. Your “proof” was middle school quality. In reality, the zero tolerance plaque is not really left/right, the prism in which you see everything. It is the lawyerization of our culture. Step up your game and get checked for severe myopia.
“People who were planning on celebrating freedom and liberty by sightseeing along the Tidal Basin and National Mall on July 4 can rest easy, because it appears they won’t be joined by other people celebrating those values by attempting to walk around with loaded rifles. Adam Kokesh, the libertarian activist who recently spent a few days in federal lockup in Philadelphia, says he is calling off his plan to gather likeminded citizens for an attempt to cross from Virginia into the District while carrying loaded rifles. “DCist
I’ll be headed into Yellowstone tomorrow. We’re in beautiful Jackson Hole, Wy. and Victor, Id. tonight. When I didn’t respond to one of your countless screeds last week because I was in bed, you had the dishonesty and lack of honor to claim I was “chastened.” It looks like I’ll be off the grid for a few days. Maybe you can spin I’m in prison for the felony of being scatological. That seems to really bother you. I guess your shit doesn’t stink. Remember the self imposed one paragraph rule.
Is that all you got? And, what happened to the one paragraph or less? And where’s Gene?
“Is that all you got? And, what happened to the one paragraph or less? And where’s Gene?”
“When I didn’t respond to one of your countless screeds last week because I was in bed, you had the dishonesty and lack of honor to claim I was “chastened.” It looks like I’ll be off the grid for a few days. Maybe you can spin I’m in prison for the felony of being scatological.”
Nick,
What a tool you are. I respond to your call of bullsh*t, prove you wrong and you don’t acknowledge. You continue to attack me gratuitously and with scatology. Yes, I don’t like scatology because it is usually the production of little minds, like yours and unnecessary. Nick, you are dishonest and gutless and I don’t need to go back and prove the fact that after you were drubbed last week you asked for peace. You attack, the attack is returned and you play victim. You say you were in bed, but then you make many an unsubstantiated claim, while you evince dishonest behavior. Who knows, or cares who you are Nick, not me. However, what I react to the most in life, I admit is bullies. You are the typical gutless bully Nick, here and in your life. You tell us how much people love you personally, but your behavior here makes me wonder the truth of that. Tony C., pegged you correctly last week, but then so did Gene and I. In fact most everyone sees who you are and it is not a pretty picture for them. Have fun in Jackson Hole an appropriately named place for you.
Mike S.
What YF said was, “…. pantheon of self-identified Democrats…”
Obviously that does not mean all registered users, because there are a number of members of the “RKBA” group, as well as firearms hobbyists who are not members of the RKBA interest group. However, I know YF very well, and he is one of the most precise users of the language I know. Pantheon is a word with multiple meanings, one of which is, “A group of persons most highly regarded for contributions to a field or endeavor:”
Mike, that group gets away with trolling and attacks that would get almost anyone else banned. “Highly regarded” indeed. It has gotten so bad that many of the most beloved users on the site left for other blogs to get away from the toxic exchanges. There are a number of former DKos users who fled to the Motley Moose Blog.
I will say this. There are far more members who are rabidly anti-firearms than supporters of the 2nd Amendment. It is bad enough that even-our former museum curator, shortfinals, has been criticized for writing about antique military aircraft on display in various museums. One commenter attacked him for writing about “death machines.”
OS and little red devil, there is a great deal of passion on both sides. IMO the answer is in the middle, and I hope we can reach a place where we stop yelling and start listening.
For balance, here is the collection of posts gathered by the DailyKos’s Right to Keep and Bear Arms group: http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Right%20to%20Keep%20and%20Bear%20Arms
So, I suppose it is now time to ban all the history books because they will surely show images of the civil war where guns were wielded.
ONe way this is going to stop is for the legislatures to pass a law requiring actual violations of the law before schools may prosecute punishments such as this. That is bringing a real gun to school not a picture of one or a piece of plastic resembling one.
The other way its to sue the pants off every one of the school officials involved going all the way up to the school board for vicarious liability purposes. Unfortunately it will have to take multiple lawsuits against the same school before the insurance carrier drops them or rattles their cage to get their act together. There are many bureaucrats who think they can get away with a lot because the gov’t will indemnify their abusive behavior civilly.
The third way would be to get the public energized enough were they are outraged and vent their anger at the elected school board who must then fear for them losing their position with a recall or a general election.
This zero tolerance stems much from paranoid school officials who have unchecked power. The worst type of person to have in any position of power.
Proof of the lack of common sense in our leaders & teachers. Parents are unaware of the bias being taught to our children. The People have the power!
Mike S.
Yankee Farmer is right.
Here are links to a couple of the most vocal special interest groups on the blog:
http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Repeal%20the%20Second%20Amendment%20RSA/
http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Shut%20Down%20the%20NRA%20and%20Amend%20the%20Second%20Amendment/
If anyone dares disagree or try to debate, the discussion quickly turns into comments like this one (had to edit the obvious bad language) and I changed the name of the person being addressed to “Joe” and deleted some identifying information:
“Joe” has said repeatedly he is not a member of the NRA and disagrees with them on almost everything. It is just a recurring theme. If anyone disagrees, or says something contrary to the meme, they get slapped down in a somewhat similar fashion. A few weeks ago, after the Sandy Hook shootings, I said something to the effect we needed to spend more on mental health care, and got piled on for “NRA talking points.”
Chuck,
I don’t doubt that somewhere there are groups who want to ban guns that are represented on Kos, but then you are also a Kossack and don’t believe that at all. His statement:
“@Mike Spindell, there’s a website called Daily Kos, and a pantheon of self-identified Democrats calling for either a total ban on civilian gun ownership, or a defacto ban by means of redlining.”
His statement implies that the DailyKos is a website that in tot represents the anti-gun people and your presence there alone as an esteemed regular belies that. There is an unstated assumption in his thinking that all “Libruls” want to ban guns and that is not only incorrect, but takes the issue into a partisan realm.
“Most zero tolerance people are Republicans.” I call absolute and total bullshit on that one. Back it up!
“Most zero tolerance people are Republicans.” I call absolute and total bullshit on that one. Back it up!”
Nick,
See below.You want more cites, do it yourself. I backed it up, let’s see you back up your scatological attack.
“The term “Zero Tolerance” appeared for the first time in a report in 1994 The idea behind this expression can be traced back to the Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Act, approved in New Jersey in 1973, of which inherits the same underlying assumptions. The ideas behind the 1973 New Jersey policy were later popularized in 1982, when a popular magazine published the broken windows theory of crime.
In 1982, conservatives James Q. Wilson and George L. Kelling formulated their theory in the article Broken Windows, published in The Atlantic Monthly, a U.S. cultural magazine.
The title of the article comes from the following example:
Consider a building with a few broken windows. If the windows are not repaired, the tendency is for vandals to break a few more windows. Eventually, they may even break into the building, and if it’s unoccupied, perhaps become squatters or light fires inside. Or consider a sidewalk. Some litter accumulates. Soon, more litter accumulates. Eventually, people even start leaving bags of trash from take-out restaurants.
According to scholars, zero tolerance is the concept of giving carte blanche to the police for the inflexible repression of minor offenses, homeless people and the disorders associated with them. A well known criticism to this approach is that it redefines social problems in terms of security, it considers the poor as criminals, and it reduces crimes to only “street crimes”, those committed by lower social classes, excluding white-collar crimes.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_tolerance
Now for a history of zero tolerance in the school system one can look at this paper, with the introduction:
“The following paper outlines the history of Zero Tolerance policy and legislation within school systems through the United States. Tracing it back to its roots in drug interdiction policy, the paper lays a historical framework that shows Zero Tolerance to be strongly influenced by policy designed to combat hardened criminals involved in the drug war. This same unforgiving system has been used over the last two to three decades under the guise of keeping our children safe and improving their learning atmosphere. With a combination of research and real world examples, this paper reveals the real effects of Zero Tolerance policy and legislation on our country’s youth and their education. Far from the intended goals laid out by proponents and legislators, Zero Tolerance in the school system actually creates a less productive education environment, rife with racism, unfair treatment, and a general lack of forgiveness that leaves our youth population stranded in an environment that was originally designed to protect, nurture, and facilitate educational growth within them.”
http://www.sheldensays.com/zerotolerance.htm
A little researc,h prior to shooting from the hip Nick can be very helpful even to a “know it all” Shamus. Now cry that I attacked you, after you dumbly called my reasoned opinion BS.
In reading the story in the Daily News, it seems that the student traumatized other students on the bus. Taking that statement at face value, what has happened to our children if a tiny toy gun can traumatize them? What have they been told and by whom that would cause this kind of reaction? It isn’t just the school administrators that have lost their common sense, it’s also those who have instilled this kind of fear in the children.