Ultimate Dumb Laws

[artsmass]

I'm talking about the latest "zero tolerance" weapon laws that our illustrious school systems have adopted. I'm as horrified as anybody about the recent school shootings, but these laws would have done exactly SQUAT to prevent any of them. They are the epitome of our politically correct "we HAVE to do SOMETHING" reactionary way of pseudo-dealing with problems that are obviously more than surface deep. Let's discuss this.

[Serendipity]

I'm in the UK, Arts. Could you please give some more details of the laws you're on about?

[Midnight77]

Well, here's a few of the "weapons" I've recently heard about: a 6" chain on a Tweetie Bird key ring that was attached to a bookbag, emery boards, nail clippers, a dinasaur's head-shaped water squirter, and the worst of all... a hand made into the shape of a gun to play cops and robbers on an elementary school playground. Ooo, real scary.

[~wildangel~]

Hey now...I'm deathly afraid of tweetie!
Toy guns, those are the worst when kids carry them!Never know what they might be loaded with! http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/wink.gif

[Serendipity]

What, so there's now a policy of confiscating anything that's even a far-fetched potential weapon? Yeah, absolutely daft. The reactionary crowd may have a point - something should be done - but not that. Something should have been done years ago, there's been a huge 'Boiled Frog Syndrome' that is now way past dealing with in such ineffective ways. (Could've put that better...)
Midnight ( http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/smile.gif), so kids should leave their hands at home...

[Code_Monk]

Yeah, something needs to be done, but they are doing it very badly.
Discipline does need to be done in schools, but if it is not done in the home, its probably not going to work very well in the schools.
Several years ago, when I was writing a puzzle column for the local MENSA newsletter, I also wrote an article on schools, and comparing how much was spent per child versus how much was spent on each inmate incarcerated in the US (I was working in a prison at the time).
I don't recall the exact figures but it was something like :
Amount spent per child : $4,500
Amount spent per inmate : $26,000

I did this in 1989, and the figures were from 1985 (Accurate information was difficult to find).
And while more dollars are spent today, it probably comes out to less actual material etc, then it did then.

Now, you may ask what does this have to do with the "Zero tolerance"?
Plenty.
When school funding is cut, you can only afford to hire say, a principal that was 99th out of 100 in his graduating class instead of someone in the top 10. You end up getting people that, while "certified" may not be the best person for the job.
These people may be poor at making decisions (obviously).
But in the end, it still boils down to discipline, or lack of, in the home.

Other thing I have heard about in this vein :
1. Giving an aspirin to a friend.
2. Wearing a Star of David necklace (I think it was a necklace). The school thought it was a gang symbol.
3. Having a gun rack in the truck. No guns in the rack, just the rack.

[paulgro]

I work in the school system and all this is done to make the parents feel safe about sending their kids to school. All doors are locked when school starts a camera shows anyone at the main entrance then they are buzzed in and have to go to the office for a badge. All personnel wear badges, the only people that don't are the students. All the recent things that have happened have been done by the students yet we Have ID's not them. Like I said this is really for the parents not security. Did it ever dawn on people that a pencil could be a deadly weapon? Maybe we should remove those to!

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"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

[saint]

our schools have goten bad
i graduated last year that year they were puting sceruity cameras in i try to keep in touch with kids from the school
one person said there puting metal detectors in.
one day i went by there around 12 and there was about 3 cops and cop cars
when i went there around lunch there was no cops just one graudletting ppl in and out
she would call the cops if you where not aloud to leave
o ya the first year we got the internet someone from out school emailed a treat to the president
he got arrested

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The great mass of people...will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

[artsmass]

These laws were obviously founded upon good intentions, but the old phrase "it's like throwing the baby out with the bath water" comes to mind.


* A school in New Jersey suspended two kindergarten students after they
played "cops and robbers" on the playground, pointed their fingers at each
other like guns, and shouted "bang bang!"

* A school in Maryland suspended a student after he drew a crude picture of
a gun on a piece of paper. The nine-year-old was charged with violating the
school's anti-weapon policy.

* A school in Kansas suspended a seventh-grader for three days after he drew
a picture of a confederate flag. The flag, said officials, violated the
school's policy against "racially divisive" material.

* A school in Michigan flagged a sixth-grader as a potential violence
risk -- and told his parents they had to meet with the school's "Hazard and
Risk Assessment Team" -- after he suggested that one way to prevent school
shootings would be to allow teachers to carry guns.

* A school in Minnesota refused to allow a high school senior who had
enlisted in the Army to pose for a yearbook picture sitting atop a World War
II howitzer at the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. The photo would
violate the school's anti-weapon policy, said officials.

A 9 year old was suspended for bringing a picture to school of him holding a gun........with his aunt, a law enforcement officer, in the background.

A second grader was suspended for bringing a key fob to school that was shaped like a gun. It was 1 1/2 inches long.

A 17 year old was suspended for having an unloaded, inoperable paint gun in his truck.

A second grader was suspended when a squirt gun fell out of her backpack

A 14 year old was expelled for drawing a map of the school in study hall. No threats, no weapons, just drawing a map like the one you see when you first walk in the front door of the school.

Take, for instance, the case of an 11-year-old girl suspended for 10 days from her Cobb County school for violating the school's zero-tolerance weapons policy. Her crime: carrying a novelty key chain with the Tweety Bird cartoon character on it. Apparently, the school officials believed the thin, 10-inch chain could be dangerous and belongs in the same category as a machete, stun gun, ice pick and bow and arrow

· “A grade-school girl brings a nail clipper to school in her backpack and is expelled for bringing a weapon onto school property. The nail clipper turns out to be slightly more than one inch long with no metal file or attachments. The straight “A” student is in the process of appeal.”

· “A 15-year-old Chicago youth is assigned to bring an object from home in order to write a report for his English class; when he enters the school with a large, elaborately carved cane he is expelled for bringing a weapon to school.”

A high-school boy pulls out a steak knife in the cafeteria to peel an apple, and is expelled for weapon possession

. He was dressed for Halloween as a firefighter and the costume came with a 5-inch hollow plastic ax. And under the district's "zero tolerance" policy with regard to weapons, a 5-inch plastic ax - even though you couldn't cut through melting butter with it - is a weapon

Using a smooth-edged table knife to eat leftover chicken is a crime worthy of arrest in Columbia, S.C. Just ask the 11-year-old who was suspended and arrested for her lunch box "weapon."

In North Kingstown, Rhode Island officials suspended a six-year-old boy for
bringing a four-inch plastic knife to school. Asked if the school would
suspend a child who brought in a package of cheese with a tiny plastic
knife in it, the director of pupil services said he wasn't sure.

In Pensacola, Florida officials suspended a 15-year-old because she brought
fingernail clippers to school that included a two-inch fold-out blade to
clean under nails. Officials sent the sophomore home for ten days, then
recommended she be expelled. The police said that but for an oversight the
girl also would have been arrested.

In Glendale, Arizona a 13-year-old constructed a model rocket made with a
potato chip can and fueled by three matches. When school officials
discovered the toy in the boy's locker, they phoned the police and
suspended the aspiring scientist for the remainder of the year.

In Greeley, Colorado administrators suspended three students caught with a
plastic water pistol and a spring-loaded toy gun. State law requires
suspension, followed by expulsion hearings, for students who "carry, bring,
use or possess a firearm or firearm facsimile at school." In other words, a
kid caught with something that shoots water earns the same punishment as
one carrying a weapon that shoots bullets.

As a tip-of-the-iceberg example of what I'm talking about, on April, 28th the New York Times carried a story on page B4, that "A 4th grader at a Middlesex county elementary school has been suspended and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after telling a classmate he was going to ‘shoot’ another student with a wad of paper launched from a rubber band.”

Chicago school officials are rethinking the handling of a case involving a 7-year-old student who brought a telescope to school -and got suspended for 10 days because the grownups thought it looked like a weapon.

[~wildangel~]

OMG! That is unf****inbeleivable! I am In awe over this! The things these kids did were no more dangerous then....no more dangerous then...ummmm...well.... they WERENT DANGEROUS AT ALL!!!!!!!!My 3 yo has done worse than this!Maybe I should have him thrown in Toddler jail for trying to stab his 5yo brother with a plastic sword!Oh no....the officials will be banging down my door any minute now!***gasp***NOT A PLASTIC SWORD!!!!!!!****This is what I would tell the principle of that school BEFORE I met him in a dark alley l8ter that night!>>>>
>>>>>
http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/s/net7/hjtwofinger.gif
oops sorry Idnew my halo is slipping off again!
http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/s/net8/newangel.gif

[Serendipity]

Arts, I am in awe of the stupidity there. What's really stupid is still if a kid wants to bring a gun in to school and go crazy with it, all s/he needs to do is be quick. Pictures of guns? Nailclippers? Water pistols? Crazy days.

[Midnight77]

It's partly due to all this absurdity that my husband and I will not be sending our children to school. We have chosen to home school them instead.

BTW, artsmass, you forgot the one where just a few years ago here in OH, two teenage girls were suspended because one of the girls gave a Midol to the other. The girl that gave the Midol to the other also had to undergo drug abuse counciling or something like that.

Also, kids with severe asthma are no longer allowed to carry their necessary inhalers on them. They must be locked up in the nurse's office.

[cleoeo]

Do schools still teach "shop class"? I took woodworking, power mechanics, and metal work in Jr. and Sr. High School. We used some pretty serious tools. Many kids found a trade they liked, turned it into a skill, and make pretty good livings. I'd hate to see what a school board would make of a lathe knife if they think a nail clipper's a dangerous weapon.

[~wildangel~]

Midnight...I'm sure your kids will be just as good off or better off at home schooling!Beleive me..I did better with my home studies then In public school...just my opinion.

cleo..thats a good point! Makes no sense to ban nail clippers if your kid is going to school using skillsaws! http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

[paulgro]

Believe it or not, some schools have done away with shop..

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"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

I've taken shop class myself for three years, and i have seen some kids (mainly freshmen) get hurt really bad. We run layths and mills in there and I have watched some of them come close to killing each other, maybe shuting down shop isn't as bad as it sounds.

[artsmass]

Midnight: I have read about some pretty absurd incidents with "zero tolerance" drug laws as well, but I was trying to stay on topic with the weapons insanity. I've heard about kids being expelled for mouthwash, Midol (like you said) Tylenol and organic cough drops to name a few.

>I've taken shop class myself for three years, and i have seen some kids (mainly freshmen) get hurt really bad. We run layths and mills in there and I have watched some of them come close to killing each other, maybe shuting down shop isn't as bad as it sounds.

I have to strongly disagree here. Teaching kids in shop class about the SAFE use of tools is and always will be a good idea.

While we're discussing shop class, when I was in school (no cracks about how old I must be please!) I made a functional muzzle loading .50 cal. cannon. The whole class went outside and we test fired it right there on school grounds. I also made a 24" machete.



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"quotes are for people who have nothing original to say" You can quote me on that :Þ~

[paulgro]

It just shows you how times have change. Sometimes change isn't always for the better!

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"I have not failed. I've just found
10,000 ways that won't work."

Ferrets Place (http://pub20.ezboard.com/bferretscomputerstuff)

Even if you do teach about safty in shop kids will not just suddenly get along with each other. From personal experiance, i have had a kid light a cutting torch and try to fend off others that he had made rather mad. I know not all kids are like that, I guess i should restate that, maybe they should kick the bad ones out of shop so all the others can learn a good trade.

[Idnew]

Wild http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Just like everything else they get carried away with thier stupidity. They should just put those detectors in and have someone checking what makes the buzzer go off. Course if some pscho kid was wanting to shoot then guess he/she would start with the one at the door.

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This school weapons things is out of hand. There a few cases I can recall that are so stupid. For instance a kid was kicked out school for bring a knife to school to cut her food. Another time is a kid got suspended for bring a little 1' gun he got out of a cracker Jacks boxs which he hung around his neck. Come on this is getting out of hand!!

[CBranski]

Originally posted by Idnew:
Wild http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

Just like everything else they get carried away with thier stupidity. They should just put those detectors in and have someone checking what makes the buzzer go off. Course if some pscho kid was wanting to shoot then guess he/she would start with the one at the door.




Shortly after the Columbine tragedy, a Milwaukee radio talk show host invited some high-schoolers to the studio to discuss school violence. One suburban high school was contemplating setting up metal detectors to stop such a thing, and a student from the same school noted that a shooter could merely pick off those waiting to pass through. He further noted that he thought the key for stopping school violence was parental involvment. Funny with all the hysteria, none of these ostensibly educated school administrators thought of the most tried and true method...

[This message has been edited by CBranski (edited February 27, 2001).]

[saint]

i found a story about a kid geting suspend for puting a spell/hex samething on a classmate
so now in day u can get suspended for any thing
i say some thing is going to happend no matter what u do to prevent it
some one is going to be smarter and learn more
i say if your going to use a carmeras to watch kids u have to have cameras to watch at 360 degrees and there is not enougt money to out fit any school

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The great mass of people...will more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one.

[Ada_Doom]

Maybe they should ban Chemistry as well. And Physics. Who knows what kids could get up to with all those bunsen burners and flasks of acid. Then there are those nasty sharp compasses in maths, and horrid hard cricket/hockey/baseball balls (not to mention the bats) in PE, then all the knives and cookers in cookery, and the pins and needles in needlework, and the scalpels in art. You could probably do damage with a hardback book as well, so that's English, ModLang, Geography, History and RE out. Rather narrows down the well-rounded education doesn't it. Banning any vaguely dangerous implement is not the answer. Better supervision at home and in school is. Don't know how you go about that though.

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Le singe est dans l'arbre...

or we could use our brains and realize that the problem is not in the school's courses or in the toys the kids play with but in the home they were brought up in. period. when a parent is so unaware of what their child is doing that that child can remove weapons from the home, go to school, and shoot someone, that parent is as guilty as the child. criminal negligence, even if the parents are dumb as bricks, is still criminal negligence.

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--our father

[Idnew]

I hadn't realized this topic had already gotten to where I was wanting to discuss and started a topic on EE about some of the causes we think might be happening to the teens for them to start shooting. Would everyone please go over there to finish this discussion since this has sorta got off topic that was originally about taking harmless things to school or what to do with school security. If it doesn't get back to that then I will lock this one. Thanks

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[bi-blonde]

Idnew.....you asked about causes of school violence. The #1 main reason kids are acting the way they do is because of BAD PARENTING!

[xV35ballx]

I've got several I can tell you about. Here's just two of them.

This first one happened at a high school I used to go to. A senior saved the life of a fellow student with his asthma inhaler. But the senior got suspended because he wasn't suppossed to have his inhaler with him. It was suppossed to have been in the nurses office. Their reasoning? The one given the inhaler by the senior could've had a fatal reaction to the medication if it wasn't the same kind he was already on (or something along those lines). http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/rolleyes.gif

Here's the other one. This happened at another high school I went to. A student had his necklace taken up, and was suspended for like 3 days. The reason? His necklace had three WOODEN bullets (or maybe it was knives...can't remember) that were less than an inch long, totally useless, and a gift from a friend of his from right before he moved. *sighs*

[This message has been edited by xV35ballx (edited September 14, 2001).]

[CBranski]

I think the previous post indicates that this nation's public schools are run by the least capable people imaginable. Such a lack of common sense used to be embarrasing, but now gaurantees you a job shaping America's future.

I wouldn't send a virus through a US public school let alone my offspring!

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Jennifer Lopez for Mayor

[~wildangel~]

Well CB it's easy to say and think that but my kids HAVE to go to public school. We cannot afford any other way! I agree that private schools are better, thats why I teach my kids at home by myself as well as what they learn in school. Little Gilbert was student of the month last year and gets straight A's! http://www.dumblaws.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

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~Wild, the angel of the Mod Squad~
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I am interested in the kid that drew a map of the school. What was their reasoning? It seems like a presumptive response to me, like they assumed it was for inappropriate purposes. That's not just dumb, it's scary.

What I want to know is, if you're having a serious asthma attack, how in the world are you supposed to get down to the nurses office before you DIE from not being able to breathe? The only way around this was to get a note from your family doctor saying that you really need your medication so you don't DIE. I think school officials are generally lacking in common sense. If they require that you keep life-saving medication in the office and far from where you are, aren't they liable if something happens due to lack of quick access if a student should die because the medication was down the hall and in his hand? Asthma medication is bad enough, but what would happen if a school told a diabetic that he or she had to keep their sugar tablets in the office because the looked too much like pills even though taking them at the very moment they needed them would save them from insulin shock. A lunatic has more common sense than a school official.

-only alive because of a doctor's note in spite of her high school's idiocy

[Mysko]

Wasn't a 6-year-old boy once expelled from kindergarten for a week for kissing a girl of same age? He hadn't asked for permission first...

[Mysko]

Yepp, here comes more:

* A kindergarten boy in Newport News, Virginia was suspended for bringing a beeper on a class trip.

* A 9-year old Manassas, Virginia boy received a one day suspension for giving breath mints to a classmate.

* A 13-year old Fairborn, Ohio honors student who brought ibuprofen to class received an 80 day expulsion, the expulsion was later reduced to a 3-day suspension.

* A 6-year old Madison, North Carolina boy who kissed a girl on the cheek was given a one-day in-school suspension and banned from an in-school ice cream party.

* In Columbia, South Carolina, an 11-year old girl was arrested and suspended for having a steak knife in her lunch box to cut her chicken.

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A kiss on a girl's cheek had severe consequences for Jonathan Prevett, a irst grader in Lexington, N.C. He was suspended from school because of sexual harassment. The school thinks this action was justified. Jonathan's mother is outraged. She could understand if older students were accused of sexual harassment, but in her son's case the school overreacted. After all, Jonathan only kissed another six year old on the cheek after she had asked him to do so in order to prove his friendship to her.

"A six-year old kissing a six-year old is inappropriate behavior, no matter how old they are," explains Jane Martin, spokesperson for the school. These rules can be found in a rule book that every student received at the beginning of the school year. The principal has a written statement of all parents in which they confirm that they have explained to their children in detail what is and is not allowed in school. These rules will make kids think twice whether or not they are allowed to hug someone, argues Jonathan's mother. "No wonder there are so many sick people out there."

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[RayH]

In the United States, we are now two generations removed from rural living where kids learned to hunt and responsibily handle weapons. We are one generation removed from compulsory military service, where adults could learn to handle weapons responsibily.

Weapons have now become a mystery to society.