“The issue for us was, can it be done in a way that didn’t violate the zero-tolerance for weapons?” he said. “Nothing was being done to limit patriotism, creativity, other than find an alternative to a weapon.”
Yet another zero tolerance tale. I do grow weary if pointing completely obvious things out to people who should know them just as well as I do, but here goes:
This is not a weapon. It is a toy soldier holding a rather poor representation of a weapon. It is in fact a harmless object, though I suppose someone could poke someone’s eye out with it, if they really, really tried.
These are weapons. They are dangerous and deadly, especially in the hands of the insane, untrained, and small children.
If schools wants to ban representations of violence, more power to them (and good luck), but banning toy soldiers holding tiny plastic replicas of weapons under the guise of BANNING WEAPONS and calling them WEAPONS is the height of stupidity.
Want to know one of the many things that has directly lead to the dumbing down of America and the failure of its schools? Zero tolerance.
My school once had a political event for a week and as a part of our promotion I made some posters with Terminator 2 images.
Questions were asked about whether I should have to remove the weapon from the picture, but they backed down when I pointed out that a Terminator is a weapon in and of itself, built in a factory with no purpose but to kill humans.
People always ask me why I don’t go back to being a teacher. It’s because I know, for a fact, that within the first two weeks in the modern system of schooling, my head would explode, and it would end with me stripping to my undies, setting my hair on fire, and running through the halls screaming.
And yes, A Terminator is a weapon and doesn’t need another weapon to kill someone. Of course, neither does a human, for that matter.
When I was a kid, many, many, many years ago, I always had toy guns. I used to always play war as well. Anyway, the mother of a friend of mine wouldn’t let him play war or have toy guns. One day, she called up my mother in a panic, saying that Ian and Phillip (her two sons) were in their back garden with sticks shooting at each other and making gunshots noised…
What’s really ironic, the family owned the local toy shop and sold all kinds of toy guns, etc.
That’s a very good point, Paul. If very unrealistic replicas of guns are to be banned then how do people address the fact that you can make one of them with the fingers on one hand?
It is not unheard of for a child to be disciplined in American zero tolerance school system for making a “gun” with a finger, stick, or pencil. I wish that statement wasn’t a fact, but unfortunately it is.
A 13-year-old Houston girl was suspended from school for making a “terroristic threat” against a teacher — pointing a finger gun at her.” -source
A Michigan kindergartener’s make-believe gun – which he created with just his fingers – got him suspended, the Grand Rapids Press reported. -source
And those are just the two most recent things that pop up with a rudimentary search. There have been kids suspended for pointing a fried chicken strip at someone and saying “pow pow”, for having a gun charm on a charm bracelet, for drawing an image of a gun, and on and on. It’s completely stupid, and not so amazingly, not allowing any representations of guns in schools –even pointing fingers– does nothing at all about REAL guns being brought to school and people getting shot, which happens from time to time (or the existence of real guns period).
And, of course, we also suspend kids for having Tylenol and Jolly Rancher candies. All hail the educational opportunities supplied by zero tolerance!
Makes my head want to explode.