Zero tolerance strikes again

ZeSpectre · October 28, 2009, 12:09 PM

Des Moines school suspends girl over empty gun shells

Quote:

By GUNNAR OLSON • [email protected] • October 28, 2009

An 11-year-old Des Moines girl was at home on suspension Tuesday for bringing a handful of empty shotgun shells to school last week.

Jazmine Martin, a sixth-grader at Brody Middle School, picked up the shells as souvenirs during a family trip to a ranch in South Dakota, where the rounds were fired as part of a show. They were blanks.

"I didn't think they were going to hurt anyone," Jazmine said. "I wanted to show them to my science teacher because he's into stuff like this."

She said she didn't have time to show her teacher, but she did show a couple of friends. This week, she was called into the office and suspended.

Principal Randy Gordon said the shells were considered ammunition even though they were empty, and were therefore against school policy.

A copy of the school policy shows that it specifically bans "live ammunition or bullets" but makes no reference to empty shells or casings. However, the policy says it is not limited to the items specifically listed as being banned.

The girl's mother, Chenoa Martin, 39, said school officials were trying to make an example of her daughter — and overreacted. She said she will fight to have the offense removed from her daughter's record.

"They could have handled it differently," she said. "I could have seen a detention, a conference with the parents ... but this was harsh."

This article includes information from the Associated Press.

Wow, when I think of the damage those empty bits of plastic might have done...crisis narrowly averted

Brian Pfleuger · October 28, 2009, 12:17 PM

What will destroy our nation faster than anything else? Lack of common sense.

Idiots. Plain stupid. I can not believe the number of people in this world who simply can not THINK.

Even the policy! "Bullets" are banned? What the heck? If they didn't list "ammunition" then you might think that they meant "ammunition" when they said "bullets". Not so! They list them separately! You get suspended for bringing a bullet to school. What are you going to do with a bullet? Use it to shoot someone with the slingshot you made in shop class?

Empty cases? Jeez, we let people on airplanes with those when I worked for TSA. Of course, I actually made people think, like people, and not slaves to "procedure" and "policy" at the cost of common sense.

Stupid people really irritate me.

My God. We're doomed.

zombieslayer · October 28, 2009, 12:35 PM

I always took stuff from the Army surplus store to show and tell. Dummy rounds were a favorite. Our children are being indoctrinated to HATE firearms and the ownership of all types of weapons.

mrclean77 · October 28, 2009, 12:36 PM

any time I see the words, "zero policy", I think: turn off any & all logic when it comes to this policy/topic

stacks04 · October 28, 2009, 12:47 PM

the kids better be careful. soon the plastic pens could be said to once have been a plastic shot shell, and the lead pencils could once have been used in a led bullet. oh the misery:barf:

Rangefinder · October 28, 2009, 12:50 PM

I'm with everyone else---obviously. This is beyond stupidity. Though it was in a different era, while I was in highschool it was common practice for a lot of us guys to keep our hunting rifles in our vehicles so we could get out of school and get a few hours of hunting in during the season. one year there was a series of break-ins in the school lot--mainly stereos and such. But just to be safe, the announcement was made that we should unload our rifles and store them in OUR LOCKERS (preferrably in soft cases or wrapped up so as not to be too obvious) where they were more secure until better arrangements could be made to protect them from getting stolen. WOW, wadda-ya-know---not a single incident ever occured as a result.

Aside from that, several of us in woodshop took on projects of building new stocks for quite a few people---which meant having the rifle available and on hand to work from. Not only was it NEVER an issue, we turned out some truly gorgeous custom stocks---one was for my shop teacher, and another was for the school vice-principal.

The general population is getting dumb-ified more and more by the minute.

Glenn E. Meyer · October 28, 2009, 01:23 PM

Research has shown that zero tolerance policies have little effect on school problems as their application to minor things like Midols and butter knives make them a joke. They do nothing to the motivations of kids with truly evil intent.

KLRANGL · October 28, 2009, 01:26 PM

I don't think I would make it a week in elementary school today, and I'm only 22...
I did bring in a small plastic playmobile musket with bayonet (little toys, maybe 2inches long) when I was in kindergarten. Got a stern talking to by the teacher and my parents were called, but today I would have been at least suspended. In fact I'm surprised this girl wasn't expelled, because I have certainly heard of worse stories than this...

And come to think about it, every time I went to shoot guns with my uncle when I visited family in MI, I would always bring the shells in for show and tell...

I wish I had a better solution than just complain about it, but right now that's all I got...

Brian Pfleuger · October 28, 2009, 01:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Glenn E. Meyer

They do nothing to the motivations of kids with truly evil intent.

I've always thought that rules of any kind do "nothing to the motivations of (people) with truly evil intent." Evil intent pretty well indicates mental illness of some type. Those with mental illness tend not to be dissuaded by either rules or consequences. As such, basic rules bring about more or less acceptable behavior from every one who will follow rules and, as you indicate, any further restrictions simply make them a joke while doing nothing to prevent true violent actions.

Skans · October 28, 2009, 01:32 PM

That's a load of crap. I feel sorry for the girl - she thought she was bringing something interesting to school to show her teacher.

I bet they never even review these "zero tolerance" polices with the kids, until some retarded teacher thinks one has been broken.

I wish I was a 10 year old kid again, with all of the knowledge, p#ss and vinegar that I've got in me today. Teachers would hate me....Principals would fear me...

Kleinzeit · October 28, 2009, 01:56 PM

I don't want to defend these ridiculous zero-tolerance policies but I have to disagree with this:

Quote:

I've always thought that rules of any kind do "nothing to the motivations of (people) with truly evil intent."

First, there's no simple distinction between innocence on the one hand and truly evil intent on the other. There are whole spectra of behavior in between. I hear a lot of people make this argument that there's no point having laws, and it's usually from people who don't like to think about there being a muddy middle-ground.

Second, people are enormously influenced in their actions by the subtle social codes which define a society; there is no other way to explain why behavior varies so markedly from one culture to another. Behavior doesn't come out of nowhere; for the most part, it is learned. The overt forms that rules take are for the most part the outer expression of an underlying code. Actually, formal rules and unspoken codes have a kind of symbiotic relationship. It might not be the rule itself that stops someone from from doing something; it might be the underlying code. But the rule serves as a marker of the strength with which the community has embraced that code, and thus plays a role in shaping behavior. It also gives the community a means of meting out punishment: you can't punish offenders if there is no stated offense in the first place.

This is a bit of a simplification of the issue. And I'm not saying that there aren't people who are just going to do what they're going to do anyway. But it's a gross over-simplification to say that rules do nothing.

Glenn E. Meyer · October 28, 2009, 02:23 PM

My point was that empirical research (I could go dig up the reference but busy now) demonstrated that the zero tolerance policies did not change the problem rates at schools or change the behaviors of the kinds of kids who got in trouble. The social forces that do control behavior weren't impacted by these polices.

BTW, not to thread hijack, evil intent is not considered diagnostic of mental illness in standard systems. That falls into the great debate of whether criminal behavior is mental illness and we don't think so.

Brian Pfleuger · October 28, 2009, 02:28 PM

I think you misunderstand my point. I don't mean that there shouldn't be rules. What I mean is that there will be little or no difference between

"No guns or ammunition in school." and

"Zero tolerance: no guns, ammunition, spent casing or hulls, primers, spent primers, gun powder, toy guns, accurate representations of real guns, miniature guns, miniature imitation bullets, or anything else the faculty shall deem as a violation of this principle. All violations will be subject to the violators execution by firing squad, off school property of course, since a firing squad on school property would itself violate this rule."

Rule number one will stop "everyone" except the "nutjob", rule number two will do nothing more.... except get non-nutjobs in trouble for completely innocuous behaviors that the non-thinking, over-zealous faculty finds to be potentially violating the "all-inclusive" portion of the rule.

"Hate Crimes" legislation is a similar fallacy. If you're going to kill someone because they're jewish vs muslim, black vs white, French vs American, gay vs straight, man vs women, the inverse of any of the aforementioned or..... whatever, then "additional penalties" aren't going to stop you. Willing to kill is willing to kill. The consequences and moral implications are already enough to stop any "normal" person.

zxcvbob · October 28, 2009, 02:38 PM

The point of all this foolishness isn't safety, it's indoctrination. Anything even peripherally related to (or a symbol of) defending oneself is somehow evil.

Even the Mom in this case thought some level of punishment was reasonable. It's sad.

Deerhunter · October 28, 2009, 02:46 PM

When I was a senior in high school part of the gym class was archery. I was allowed to bring my own bow. I would leave it in the trunk of my car and get it on the way out to the area where we shot. The gym teacher had me give a class to explain the difference between a recurve and a compound bow. Then after class was over I would take the bow back and lock it in the trunk of the car. No issues.

When I was in 7th or 8th grade we had to bring in paperbags with stuff that represented who we were. The teacher pulled each thing out of the bag and showed the class. One of the things I brought in was a spent 16 gauge hull. After the class guessed who it was the teacher said....I think I was there when this one was shot. Sure enough he was.

Times have changed and not for the better.

Kleinzeit · October 28, 2009, 03:33 PM

Glenn wrote:

Quote:

My point was that empirical research (I could go dig up the reference but busy now) demonstrated that the zero tolerance policies did not change the problem rates at schools or change the behaviors of the kinds of kids who got in trouble. The social forces that do control behavior weren't impacted by these polices.

Absolutely. Amplifying rules to the nth degree doesn't amplify their effectiveness. What I was challenging was the idea that rules do nothing at all - an argument often heard around here from those who think that this is an effective strategy for beating down gun control. (It isn't.)

peetzakilla - So yes, if your point is just that amplifying the rule doesn't accomplish anything, then I apologize for my misunderstanding.

But your "Hate Crime" example somewhat undoes your argument. Again, you refer to people with an absolute commitment to kill someone. Most hate crimes (and most violent behavior in general) simply isn't that absolute in its intent. Circumstances that end up with someone bashed to death (or shot) don't necessarily commence with that as an objective.

That's why people make rules that try to nip bad behavior in the bud. The problem with zero tolerance policies is that they fail to distinguish between a genuine case of budding bad behavior and something that only superficially resembles it. As such, it constitutes a form of prejudice. And in this case, it certainly suggests, as zxcvbob says, a prejudice against self defense, or perhaps just against weapon handling in general.

Skans · October 28, 2009, 04:11 PM

I think what peetzakilla was getting at was this:

Hate crimes legislation is stupid and foolish
Zero Tollerance polices are stupid and foolish
Stupid and foolish laws and/or policies do nothing to protect people from harm
Therefore, Stupid and foolish laws must be for "other purposes", and those "other purposes" can only be to make retarded idiots feel safer or for indoctrination purposes.

raftman · October 28, 2009, 04:21 PM

There's been a couple of these "zero tolerance" stories making the news lately. I don't think it's deliberate indoctrination so much as it is ignorant paranoia. Maybe it's both, I dunno. The problem is, that too often it all becomes about the "letter of the law" so much so that those enforcing this rule don't even care about the intent of the rule in even the slightest. They seem to be so trapped in the delusion that they're keeping the school safe, that they can't even fathom the fact that they're punishing someone who brought something harmless to school, knowing it was harmless, and knowing full well that the student intended no harm, and what's more the student didn't actually violate anything expressly written in school policy... these sorts of policies usually say the forbidden items include (but are not limited to) the following: x, y, and z.

1tfl · October 28, 2009, 04:29 PM

Zero tolerance policies (drug, weapons, etc.) in our public schools were instituted because we could not expect our teachers to make common sense decisions on these issues. Imagine, it those same teachers with no common sense that are teaching our kids.

Scarry.

Kleinzeit · October 28, 2009, 05:04 PM

Quote:

Zero tolerance policies (drug, weapons, etc.) in our public schools were instituted because we could not expect our teachers to make common sense decisions on these issues. Imagine, it those same teachers with no common sense that are teaching our kids.

It is true that people do not have faith that teachers will make common sense decisions. But I think you are wrong to just blame the teachers for that.

It is, overwhelmingly, parents, not teachers, who demand these ridiculous rules. Parents who have little sense themselves -- who have never learnt, that is, the skills of critical thinking -- distrust the very people who are trying to teach those skills to their children, because they are afraid that, if their children learn to think for themselves, they might end up disagreeing with them. So, stupid parents choose to keep their own children stupid rather than grant them the intellectual freedom they deserve, and then blame the teachers when their children don't learn anything, and blame the schools for enacting the same stupid rules they themselves demanded.

You should remember, too, that it is administrators, not teachers, who make these decisions. And administrators make these decisions overwhelmingly because they are afraid of the fallout if they don't - afraid, that is, of some crazed parent going to the media and complaining that their child's school is allowing people to bring ammunition to class. People lose their jobs when that happens; and that's why the stupid parents win.

It is partly because of this strong culture of distrust toward educators that students in the US are falling further and further behind their international peers. And the more people blame the teachers, the worse it gets. Who'd want to be a teacher these days?

Quote:

Half of all teachers quit within five years of their first assignment, according to the National Education Association. Segun Eubanks, who directs the association's teacher quality program, says NEA surveys cite poor working conditions, low pay and lack of resources as major factors in this exodus of teachers.

You can add to that list the garbage they have to take from an ungrateful public.

http://www.voanews.com/english/archi...f1c331c4169015

WARRIOR I · October 28, 2009, 06:18 PM

Thanks for pointing out that fallacy, Kleinzeit. Teachers have not
been the problem in issues such as this for at least four decades,
since their professional autonomy has been negated by the legions
of administrators which make up any given school district. Many
of these clowns are politically appointed to their positions, with
no real expertise in any area, almost no accountability and all
the authority of the state's departments of education behind
them. All too often, the best and brightest teachers become
demoralized by the problems resulting from this arrangement
and leave the field.

whippoorwill · October 28, 2009, 06:50 PM

Seeing as it's almost the end of October, and reading these reports, I'm reminded of one Halloween when I was in elementary school here in Virginia. As I recall, all the kids were supposed to dress up for a Halloween party. I put together a costume made partially of items my Dad had liberated from Europe during WWII. I was wearing an Eisenhower jacket, a Nazi helmet, and a 12mm pinfire revolver (Lefaucheux) strapped to my side. I believe that I also had a US bayonet on my belt, but I can't swear to that. Nobody batted an eye, other than to oooh and ahhh over my costume. This would have probably been around 1964-65.

Can you imagine what would have hit the fan these days?

zombieslayer · October 28, 2009, 07:36 PM

Don't illinois and especially Chicago have Zero Tolerance policies on everything, and who had 40 school shootings this year??

Seems like places that don't want you to arm yourself have a lot of victims of violence.

treg · October 28, 2009, 08:03 PM

Quote:

the problem in issues such as this for at least four decades,
since their professional autonomy has been negated by the legions
of administrators which make up any given school district. Many
of these clowns are politically appointed to their positions, with
no real expertise in any area, almost no accountability and all
the authority of the state's departments of education behind
them.

Sadly I've seen a couple of kids ruined by the above situation. All who attend are affected.

In the end it's the fault of the fools who give them their money and their kids.

Newton24b · October 28, 2009, 10:45 PM

Schools are a joke these days. The public schools i went to did their best to make anyone who thought self defense was a right and a given, and anyone who had guns or supported the rights of guns out to be reject background actors from "deliverance".

Also these "upstanding" educators did their best to encourage and promote bad things like premarital sex, teen age pregnancy (they actually used the girls who got pregnant as role models for female empowerment to the younger girls).

October 28, 2009, 12:17 PM	#2
Brian Pfleuger Moderator Emeritus Join Date: June 25, 2008 Location: Austin, CO Posts: 19,578	What will destroy our nation faster than anything else? Lack of common sense. Idiots. Plain stupid. I can not believe the number of people in this world who simply can not THINK. Even the policy! "Bullets" are banned? What the heck? If they didn't list "ammunition" then you might think that they meant "ammunition" when they said "bullets". Not so! They list them separately! You get suspended for bringing a bullet to school. What are you going to do with a bullet? Use it to shoot someone with the slingshot you made in shop class? Empty cases? Jeez, we let people on airplanes with those when I worked for TSA. Of course, I actually made people think, like people, and not slaves to "procedure" and "policy" at the cost of common sense. Stupid people really irritate me. My God. We're doomed. __________________ Nobody plans to screw up their lives... ...they just don't plan not to. -Andy Stanley

October 28, 2009, 12:35 PM	#3
zombieslayer Senior Member Join Date: September 11, 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 3,198	I always took stuff from the Army surplus store to show and tell. Dummy rounds were a favorite. Our children are being indoctrinated to HATE firearms and the ownership of all types of weapons. __________________ "An angry prophet, denouncing the hypocrisies of our time"

October 28, 2009, 12:50 PM	#6
Rangefinder Senior Member Join Date: August 4, 2005 Posts: 2,017	I'm with everyone else---obviously. This is beyond stupidity. Though it was in a different era, while I was in highschool it was common practice for a lot of us guys to keep our hunting rifles in our vehicles so we could get out of school and get a few hours of hunting in during the season. one year there was a series of break-ins in the school lot--mainly stereos and such. But just to be safe, the announcement was made that we should unload our rifles and store them in OUR LOCKERS (preferrably in soft cases or wrapped up so as not to be too obvious) where they were more secure until better arrangements could be made to protect them from getting stolen. WOW, wadda-ya-know---not a single incident ever occured as a result. Aside from that, several of us in woodshop took on projects of building new stocks for quite a few people---which meant having the rifle available and on hand to work from. Not only was it NEVER an issue, we turned out some truly gorgeous custom stocks---one was for my shop teacher, and another was for the school vice-principal. The general population is getting dumb-ified more and more by the minute. __________________ "Why is is called Common Sense when it seems so few actually possess it?" Guns only have two enemies: Rust and Politicians.

October 28, 2009, 01:23 PM	#7
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	Research has shown that zero tolerance policies have little effect on school problems as their application to minor things like Midols and butter knives make them a joke. They do nothing to the motivations of kids with truly evil intent. __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

October 28, 2009, 01:26 PM	#8
KLRANGL Senior Member Join Date: September 9, 2008 Location: Fredericksburg, VA Posts: 958	I don't think I would make it a week in elementary school today, and I'm only 22... I did bring in a small plastic playmobile musket with bayonet (little toys, maybe 2inches long) when I was in kindergarten. Got a stern talking to by the teacher and my parents were called, but today I would have been at least suspended. In fact I'm surprised this girl wasn't expelled, because I have certainly heard of worse stories than this... And come to think about it, every time I went to shoot guns with my uncle when I visited family in MI, I would always bring the shells in for show and tell... I wish I had a better solution than just complain about it, but right now that's all I got... __________________ And it's Killer Angel... as in the book

October 28, 2009, 12:36 PM	#4
mrclean77 Member Join Date: January 22, 2009 Location: Alabama Posts: 81	any time I see the words, "zero policy", I think: turn off any & all logic when it comes to this policy/topic

October 28, 2009, 12:47 PM	#5
stacks04 Member Join Date: February 27, 2009 Posts: 62	the kids better be careful. soon the plastic pens could be said to once have been a plastic shot shell, and the lead pencils could once have been used in a led bullet. oh the misery:barf:

October 28, 2009, 01:32 PM	#10
Skans Senior Member Join Date: November 20, 2008 Posts: 11,132	That's a load of crap. I feel sorry for the girl - she thought she was bringing something interesting to school to show her teacher. I bet they never even review these "zero tolerance" polices with the kids, until some retarded teacher thinks one has been broken. I wish I was a 10 year old kid again, with all of the knowledge, p#ss and vinegar that I've got in me today. Teachers would hate me....Principals would fear me...

October 28, 2009, 02:23 PM	#12
Glenn E. Meyer Senior Member Join Date: November 17, 2000 Posts: 20,064	My point was that empirical research (I could go dig up the reference but busy now) demonstrated that the zero tolerance policies did not change the problem rates at schools or change the behaviors of the kinds of kids who got in trouble. The social forces that do control behavior weren't impacted by these polices. BTW, not to thread hijack, evil intent is not considered diagnostic of mental illness in standard systems. That falls into the great debate of whether criminal behavior is mental illness and we don't think so. __________________ NRA, TSRA, IDPA, NTI, Polite Soc. - Aux Armes, Citoyens

October 28, 2009, 02:28 PM	#13
Brian Pfleuger Moderator Emeritus Join Date: June 25, 2008 Location: Austin, CO Posts: 19,578	I think you misunderstand my point. I don't mean that there shouldn't be rules. What I mean is that there will be little or no difference between "No guns or ammunition in school." and "Zero tolerance: no guns, ammunition, spent casing or hulls, primers, spent primers, gun powder, toy guns, accurate representations of real guns, miniature guns, miniature imitation bullets, or anything else the faculty shall deem as a violation of this principle. All violations will be subject to the violators execution by firing squad, off school property of course, since a firing squad on school property would itself violate this rule." Rule number one will stop "everyone" except the "nutjob", rule number two will do nothing more.... except get non-nutjobs in trouble for completely innocuous behaviors that the non-thinking, over-zealous faculty finds to be potentially violating the "all-inclusive" portion of the rule. "Hate Crimes" legislation is a similar fallacy. If you're going to kill someone because they're jewish vs muslim, black vs white, French vs American, gay vs straight, man vs women, the inverse of any of the aforementioned or..... whatever, then "additional penalties" aren't going to stop you. Willing to kill is willing to kill. The consequences and moral implications are already enough to stop any "normal" person. __________________ Nobody plans to screw up their lives... ...they just don't plan not to. -Andy Stanley Last edited by Brian Pfleuger; October 28, 2009 at 02:39 PM.

October 28, 2009, 02:38 PM	#14
zxcvbob Senior Member Join Date: December 20, 2007 Location: S.E. Minnesota Posts: 4,720	The point of all this foolishness isn't safety, it's indoctrination. Anything even peripherally related to (or a symbol of) defending oneself is somehow evil. Even the Mom in this case thought some level of punishment was reasonable. It's sad. __________________ "Everything they do is so dramatic and flamboyant. It just makes me want to set myself on fire!" —Lucille Bluth

October 28, 2009, 02:46 PM	#15
Deerhunter Senior Member Join Date: April 15, 2009 Location: Northern VA Posts: 607	When I was a senior in high school part of the gym class was archery. I was allowed to bring my own bow. I would leave it in the trunk of my car and get it on the way out to the area where we shot. The gym teacher had me give a class to explain the difference between a recurve and a compound bow. Then after class was over I would take the bow back and lock it in the trunk of the car. No issues. When I was in 7th or 8th grade we had to bring in paperbags with stuff that represented who we were. The teacher pulled each thing out of the bag and showed the class. One of the things I brought in was a spent 16 gauge hull. After the class guessed who it was the teacher said....I think I was there when this one was shot. Sure enough he was. Times have changed and not for the better.

October 28, 2009, 04:11 PM	#17
Skans Senior Member Join Date: November 20, 2008 Posts: 11,132	I think what peetzakilla was getting at was this: Hate crimes legislation is stupid and foolish Zero Tollerance polices are stupid and foolish Stupid and foolish laws and/or policies do nothing to protect people from harm Therefore, Stupid and foolish laws must be for "other purposes", and those "other purposes" can only be to make retarded idiots feel safer or for indoctrination purposes.

October 28, 2009, 04:21 PM	#18
raftman Senior Member Join Date: May 4, 2009 Location: Oregon Posts: 1,890	There's been a couple of these "zero tolerance" stories making the news lately. I don't think it's deliberate indoctrination so much as it is ignorant paranoia. Maybe it's both, I dunno. The problem is, that too often it all becomes about the "letter of the law" so much so that those enforcing this rule don't even care about the intent of the rule in even the slightest. They seem to be so trapped in the delusion that they're keeping the school safe, that they can't even fathom the fact that they're punishing someone who brought something harmless to school, knowing it was harmless, and knowing full well that the student intended no harm, and what's more the student didn't actually violate anything expressly written in school policy... these sorts of policies usually say the forbidden items include (but are not limited to) the following: x, y, and z. __________________ "My momma, she done told me, there's heart and then there's hate If one of 'em's inside of you, the other one, it aint."

October 28, 2009, 04:29 PM	#19
1tfl Senior Member Join Date: September 12, 2007 Posts: 287	Zero tolerance policies (drug, weapons, etc.) in our public schools were instituted because we could not expect our teachers to make common sense decisions on these issues. Imagine, it those same teachers with no common sense that are teaching our kids. Scarry.

October 28, 2009, 06:18 PM	#21
WARRIOR I Senior Member Join Date: September 13, 2009 Location: SC Posts: 169	Thanks for pointing out that fallacy, Kleinzeit. Teachers have not been the problem in issues such as this for at least four decades, since their professional autonomy has been negated by the legions of administrators which make up any given school district. Many of these clowns are politically appointed to their positions, with no real expertise in any area, almost no accountability and all the authority of the state's departments of education behind them. All too often, the best and brightest teachers become demoralized by the problems resulting from this arrangement and leave the field.

October 28, 2009, 06:50 PM	#22
whippoorwill Senior Member Join Date: June 6, 2008 Location: Shenandoah Valley, Virginia Posts: 521	Seeing as it's almost the end of October, and reading these reports, I'm reminded of one Halloween when I was in elementary school here in Virginia. As I recall, all the kids were supposed to dress up for a Halloween party. I put together a costume made partially of items my Dad had liberated from Europe during WWII. I was wearing an Eisenhower jacket, a Nazi helmet, and a 12mm pinfire revolver (Lefaucheux) strapped to my side. I believe that I also had a US bayonet on my belt, but I can't swear to that. Nobody batted an eye, other than to oooh and ahhh over my costume. This would have probably been around 1964-65. Can you imagine what would have hit the fan these days?

October 28, 2009, 07:36 PM	#23
zombieslayer Senior Member Join Date: September 11, 2009 Location: Florida Posts: 3,198	Don't illinois and especially Chicago have Zero Tolerance policies on everything, and who had 40 school shootings this year?? Seems like places that don't want you to arm yourself have a lot of victims of violence. __________________ "An angry prophet, denouncing the hypocrisies of our time"

October 28, 2009, 10:45 PM	#25
Newton24b Junior member Join Date: February 10, 2009 Posts: 974	Schools are a joke these days. The public schools i went to did their best to make anyone who thought self defense was a right and a given, and anyone who had guns or supported the rights of guns out to be reject background actors from "deliverance". Also these "upstanding" educators did their best to encourage and promote bad things like premarital sex, teen age pregnancy (they actually used the girls who got pregnant as role models for female empowerment to the younger girls).