If you thought the drawing above looked like something a kid would do, you’d be right. Since you’re reading about it here, if you assumed that the kid got into trouble over the drawing above, you’d also be right. Eight-year-old Kody Smith was given the assignment to go outside and look at the clouds, and draw something he saw there. I don’t know if he actually saw a gun shape in the clouds or just drew it because he thought it was cool, but in these days of Common Core and 2+2=5 being OK as long as you can justify your answer, who am I to judge? However, I’m a rational person . . .
in an irrational world, so it comes as no surprise that when Kody’s teacher saw his drawing was a gun, she called him into the office, and then filed a behavior report. The report says that Kody showed behavior that is disruptive to the entire learning community. You know what I find disruptive to the learning community, if I was a parent with a child at that school? That an action like this would call into question every other thing that goes on there. Because if someone in a position of authority feels this reaction is justified, who knows what the hell else is considered reasonable and proper.
Your Lockdown of the Day™ comes from Ambridge, PA, and some random 15-year-old won the “worst timing” award today in the process. You see, a scary message was found written on a restroom wall: “I have a gun.” No mention in the story of who discovered the message (possibly the person who wrote it, in an attempt to get out of a test?), but it’s obvious who found the message scary: anyone and everyone in authority in Ambridge, PA. The school was locked down and “several police officers and K-9s responded to investigate.” Ambridge Police Chief Jim Mann said, “A very thorough search was conducted at the school. Every locker, every book bag and every student was wanded with the metal detector.” The lockdown was lifted after about 90 minutes after they “ruled all students were safe” and there wasn’t a threat. I like the construction of that sentence, “ruled all students were safe.” You could alternately interpret that as an adjective (“safe from harm”) or as a verb (“safed the weapon”). So all’s well that ends well. Well, except for one person. Remember the random 15-year-old from the beginning of the story? Yeah, so he’s having a bad day. During the “very thorough search,” that kid was found to have a 10-inch kitchen knife in his backpack. Authorities don’t believe the student’s possession of the knife had anything to do with the initial threat. “Threat.”
One of the more obvious places to try to steal a gun might be at a gun show, or at least in the parking lot. But I would think that course would also be fraught with danger, wouldn’t you? As it turns out, it wasn’t dangerous for whoever hit the Southern Knife and Gun Show at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando last Saturday. An unknown number of miscreants broke into four different vehicles in the parking lot between 1-2 p.m., in at least one case by smashing the driver’s side window. They got away with three pistols, an unspecified amount of ammunition, a laptop, a camera, and a C-PAP machine. Orlando police are “seeking information.”
Ammunition supplies are rebounding in many areas of the country at this point, but not in all. In my area, .22LR is still not to be found unless you’re doing the morning coffee run to Gander or Bass Pro when they open. On the upside, at least I don’t need my ammo to survive. An AP story out of Nome, Alaska (found in the York, SC Enquirer Herald) says that ammunition is still hard to come by in the remote wilderness, and it’s hitting the subsistence hunters out there where it counts. The Alaska Native Industries Cooperative Association supplies 40 stores across Alaska, and Distribution Manager Bill Williams says he watches subsistence hunting seasons to prioritize what ammunition gets shipped when, and who gets it. People that are shooting to live get priority, because there’s just no alternative. Kinda puts your blown range session in perspective, doesn’t it?
The Yankee Marshal on Handgun Purchase Delays, specifically the “three day delay” and release aspects.
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I was drawing much more detailed arms than that in class by 8 years. And dat Hello Kitty shirt doe.
OMG – untreated sleep apnea is linked to hypertension, stroke risk, heart attack risk, increased risk of accidents from excessive sleepiness….I hope they find this person and prosecute them. Is Shannon Watts aware of this? Gosh…if it’s a school bus driver in a white upper class suburban private school system, those poor kids could be at risk. She needs to launch a media campaign.
For the children…
What a good kid. If I had been to go outside and watch clouds, I would have walked home to watch ’em.
Teacher, I didn’t NOT draw a picture of a gun! That’s a DEADLY PENIS!!!
Assault Penis. I believe that’s the term they are using.
Kid should’ve just said, “That’s my thing that goes up.”
LOL! You win the internets today!
Does “assault penis” have to do with magazine capacity, size or color?
I once asked my brother the musician what’s the difference between a violin and a fiddle. He said, “Your attitude.” I think a similar logic might apply here….
A civil trial was being held as a result of a bad car accident where one of the drivers involved was suing the other for millions in compensation for back injury, chronic headaches, loss of spousal affection and anything else he could think of that would provide the jury more reasons to award his client money.
The defense attorney had only one witness. When the witness gave his testimony it completely conflicted with the prosecution’s story and would let the other driver off the hook but the prosecuting attorney wasn’t worried. The witness was small, meek and old additionally he spoke with a strong eastern European accent and was difficult for the mid-western ears of the judge and jury to understand. The witness happened to be a violinist with a small orchestra.
The prosecution had a plan to completely discredit the witness and began by attacking his occupation. He approached the witness and and began with the questions.
“So you said you play the fiddle. Right?”
“No sir. I play the violin.”
“How long have you played the fiddle?”
“Sir. I do not play a fiddle. I play a violin.”
“Where did you learn to play that fiddle?”
“Sir. I am a violinist not a fiddle player.”
“Ok. Ok. Please tell the jury what is the difference between a violinist and a fiddle player?”
The violinist did not hesitate for a second. “Do you play the violin?”
“No.” Said the prosecutor. A little perturbed that his plan was taking a turn.
“Well then let me put it in a way that you will understand.” The violinist said loudly and turned to look directly at the jury. “The difference between a violinist and a fiddler is the same as the difference between an attorney and an ambulance chaser.”
The case was dismissed.
With apologies to Charlie Daniels…
I knew a fiddle maker when I lived in TN. He said the difference between a violin and a fiddle was about $200.
Same here, Burke. At eight years old, you let me out of class to go watch clouds, and I’m going to watch them watch me go fishing.
Dude, that’s obviously an Assault-Dildo with combat-style grip! What else would it be!
Colorado–what can you say? Well, OK, public schools, what can you say? Poor kid, gonna be stuck there too looks like.
No, they’ll send him to the “special” school for children with “behavioral issues.”
With all of the school budgets being so tight and all, maybe the NRA should volunteer to run some of these “special” schools for the children with “behavioral issues” (including controlling the curriculum). Then we’ll have some very “well regulated” militias.
gotta admit i get a little sick of seeing yankee marshal videos on here…
So what, don’t watch Yankee Marshal, I do
Drawing could be by the next JMB
I happen to like seeing his videos. You may not agree with him on everything (I certainly don’t), but he always explains his position rationally and provides balance on a lot of issues, e.g. “smart” guns.
Will someone please show me where in the constitution delays on firarm purchases is allowed or called for? In fact show me where it says someone with a “criminal record” can not even buy a gun?
Finally, someone designed a less ergonomic gun than the Glock.
Thought it looked like a Tokarev myself. You know, my “favorite” part of the whole story is where the school admin responded by saying all that lunacy was proper, appropriate, in line with accepted protocol, blah, blah–not even a hint of “well maybe someone overreacted a bit”. Nope, they are one and all such absolute moronic idiots that they think they handled it well. Hopeless.
Modern “educators” often lack critical thinking and basic reasoning skills. If they did have those skills they kid would be back in class eating glue like everyone else.
Public school are freakin’ nuts.
Am I the only one who initially thought that was a penis?
My art was better, go 1911 great art.
Man, if I were an 8 year old kid in school today I’d be in soooo much trouble. What this kid did is so innocuous, although I have a feeling he was pushing the envelope a bit. Even 8 year old’s can have a rich sense of irony. At most the teacher should have reminded Kody that drawing guns was against school rules and then let the matter drop. “Disruptive to the entire learning community”? What a load of crap. If that teacher were in my school she—I don’t mean to sound sexist, but most elementary teachers are women and this one sounds true to type— would have been invited to my office for a little chat on classroom management. Reading this makes me all the more satisfied that I hung up my spurs after a 40 plus year teaching career and retired.
Speaking from experience, the learning environment has changed drastically since you were in education. Not for the better. If you’re not a demure, non-threatening female who preaches peace at any cost, you’re fighting an uphill battle. I LOVE my job, but I fear I am fighting a losing battle. Thank you for your work.
At my school, the teachers wouldn’t have tolerated having a mindless twit like Kody’s teacher in their midst. They were a pretty solid bunch (this was a private school). I was a principal for only a brief time before i returned to college teaching—where I belonged. For a long time that was a really good gig. But now the intellectual rot we’re discussing here extends even to colleges and universities. Kody Smith is a cool kid.
“Even 8 year old’s can have a rich sense of irony.”
This is true. Like I said above, he may have just thought that his gun was a cooler drawing than the “stupid” assignment. If you pause the video when they’re showing the behavior report, you can see a handwritten part where it says “…he knew it was wrong…” or words to that effect. Of course, like any 8-yo worth his salt, when the shit hit the fan he just claimed up and said he “saw a gun in the clouds, honest.”
I guess that’s better than saying a cloud looked like his teacher so he drew a “stupid b#-%h”
Mayhem Ensues As Gun Shaped Cloud Forms Over Baltimore School: Community Looking For Answers
4/01/13 | by Chris Callahan
Park Elementary School in Baltimore is at it again—the same institution that suspended one of its grade schoolers for chewing his pop tart into the shape of a gun, is looking for answers in another ‘firearms’ incident that has shaken this fragile community.
Last Friday, on a mildly overcast spring day, students in the progressive parochial school were enjoying their lunch recess when out of nowhere all hell broke loose. During a school wide game of kickball at roughly 12:30 in the afternoon the weather and sky’s above began to shift. As a set of low-level cumulus clouds began to form over Park Elementary’s play-field, one ‘lone wolf’ cloud separated itself and morphed into the shape of handgun.
read the rest at
http://www.guns.com/2013/04/01/mayhem-ensues-as-a-cloud-in-the-shape-of-a-gun-forms-over-baltimore-school/
According to some sources, “All Students Suspended For 5 Days”
http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/2013/03/robert-farago/incendiary-image-of-the-day-ban-clouds-edition/
I read that, knowing it wasn’t true, and expecting to see a link to The Onion at the end. Guns.com really did a good job on that.
Met some subsistence hunters in Alaska. Some of them are seriously poor. I doubt they could afford the ammo some of us blow on a fun range day. And they are trying to live off of what they can kill.
I believe it. If I could box up some of mine and send it their way I would, but I don’t think many people in those parts hunt with 5.56 and 45 ACP. I could be wrong, but I’d think that if you shot a moose with a 5.56 you’d be left with ringing ears and a pissed off moose truckin’ right at you. Buying ammo hits me where it hurts, but maybe not as much as it hurts some of them.
The article does mention using .223 on certain varieties of seal.
Yikes. I initially thought it was a dreaded finger gun. Poor kid being BULLIED by the POS teacher. Parents should sue for emotional distress, infringement of artistic expression or maybe we all could find the teachers name…seriously I’m happy my son is home schooling my 3 grandchildren.
You could alternately interpret that as an adjective (“safe from harm”) or as a verb (“safed the weapon”).
Well, you could, if you had no respect for the English language. “Safe” is not a verb, notwithstanding all the HSLD operators at the range using it as such. 😉
Is there really a black market for stolen C-PAP machines?
There probably is a black market for stolen C-Pap machines, but I doubt a smash and grab artist has those sorts of connections.
Regarding stealing guns in the parking lot at the gun show, it’s probably a good spot to look for car-stored concealed carry pistols, since most gun shows prohibit loaded weapons or loose ammunition. I completely understand the rule, there are plenty of examples of negligent discharges at gun shows, but I’d much rather go “concealed means concealed” than leave a loaded weapon in the car in a situation like that (assuming local laws permit). At the very least unload, leave the ammo behind, and bring in the unloaded pistol…
Still can’t find .22lr around here in northern nevada Walmarts, although the armslist scalpers always seem to have some on hand for $.15+ a round. I did happen to see a couple of 100rd 9mm boxes today though… too bad I can reload that but can’t reload 22lr…
Re Subsistence Hunters – when the Canadian government revamped/tightened its firearms licensing regime in the 1990s, it basically screwed over subsistence hunters who were no longer permitted to buy ammo, in some cases because they hadn’t filled out all the new paperwork (because subsistence hunters are known for being paperwork gurus) and in other cases because of government delays in processing properly submitted paperwork.
Fortunately (and ironically) the Canadian Army stepped in to essentially donate ammo to hunters in the far north.
The Canadian Forces are the one institution in Canada that is pro gun rights. The Army blew the whistle on the RCMP when they illegally broke into homes in High River Alberta.
Got a redirect ad while reading this page. Sent an e-mail with the link.
Thanks for the heads up. We’ll get it zapped.
Turn the photo upside down and it kinda looks like a Colonial Viper … sorta. If you take your glasses off.
All part of Holder’s “brainwash children” scheme. We’ll have total civilian disarmament as soon as that generation is old enough to vote. And, their grammar will suck. Kiss America goodbye.
Sending your child to a public school is tantamount to child abuse in this day and age.
Even if both parents must work and homeschooling isn’t an option, any good American parent now has a de facto second job waiting when they get home: finding out what their child was “taught” that day and deprogramming them as necessary.
Of course, I don’t honestly think the leftist attempt to brainwash children will work too well. Gun ownership is spreading, video games and movies are more graphic than ever in depicting guns and gun wielding heroes, and children listen to their shows and games a lot more than they listen to their panty wetting teachers.
The message could have also said “I have a Dildo.” These days a dildo is apparently the same as a gun, as Ms. Marcotte has made me aware.
Oh where I would have been, if it weren’t for Ms. Marcotte – why, I would probably still be using a gun for self-defense! ~gasp~
Looks like Choda Boy’s time has come at last.
http://31.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lha6w9DQ5c1qcm8gho1_1280.jpg
I blame the parents for putting up with this nonsense. If a group would get together and organize a “draw a gun at school” day and force the administration to risk a class action suit by a dozen parents by disciplining the children then there is a good chance that the school will back down. But the problem is that we live in an atomized society where parents would never think of taking collective action. This is something that you faux Libertarians ought to consider when you support Progressive social policies. The entire purpose of the Progressive emphasis on personal autonomy and their war on civil society is to atomize society and make the individual vulnerable to government coercion. Personal autonomy and Liberty are not correlated and may actually be in opposition to one another. No man [or woman] is an island where one is truly an autonomous individual.
+1000^
“Personal autonomy and Liberty are not correlated”
You’re right. They’re not “correlated.” They’re f’kin identical. I think maybe some of the words you’ve used don’t mean what you think they mean.
Is that why faux Libertarians are in lock step with Progressives on personal autonomy issues? One of you is wrong and it isn’t the Progressives. The biggest constraint on personal autonomy isn’t government. It is civil society. There are lots of things that are perfectly legal that will get you ostracized from civil society. That is why faux Libertarians are as much at war with civil society as Progressives. Liberty is about political rights not who you sleep with or what you put in your body.
Ah. The herd mentality. OK, you go join your herd, and may peace be with you. But if you send men with guns to try to compel me to behave in accordance with your oh-so-superior “civil society,” I will defend myself with whatever means is necessary to protect my Liberty and personal autonomy, which, to a true Libertarian, are one and the same.
‘K?
Uh, Civil society is the network of private social institutions that hold a Republic together. The stronger the institutions of family, church and club the less government you need. Without civil society liberty does not exist. Clearly your education is deficient as to political science. But I shouldn’t be surprised about this from the guy who didn’t know what radical syndicalism is.
Am I the only one skeeved out by the Ministry of Truth sound to this line:
” and then filed a behavior report. The report says that Kody showed behavior that is disruptive to the entire learning community.”
I know it’s been a really long time since i was in public schools, but didn’t they understand that 1984 and Animal Farm were warnings to society and not a guidebooks on how to do things?
You’re last line is marvelous! I think it’s possible that school administrators have misunderstood the point of those books, but I think it’s more likely that most have never read them. Either situation is a pretty sad indication of what sort of people are in some of these positions.
So, drawing clouds in second grade is considered school work now?
My seven year old is writing in cursive and doing multiplication and division in first grade.
What was this particular 2nd grade teacher’s name? Moonbeam Sunflower?
Writing cursive? I thought that was a dead art these days–at least in public schools. You’ve got an exceptional school there.
Private school. It’s very advanced.
It’s not cheap, but I make it a point to put my children’s education before my wanting of more stuff.
I’ll drive a 7 year old used truck and live in a regular house to ensure my kids have the best education possible.
Shoulda known. I salute you, sir. We did the home-school thing, seems to have worked out OK: one teacher, one 2nd LT, one shooting for engineering.
I was home pre-schooled. One of my earliest memories is of sitting on Mom’s lap, with a book in my lap, Mom reading from it, moving her finger along the page pointing to the words as she read them. And Dad was real good about buying edjumacaishunal toys. When I got to kiddie garter, I was disappointed. “Hey, I thought they were supposed to _teach_ me stuff here. I already know how to fingerpaint!” This was in about 1954, so they gave me an IQ test. Today, they’d label a kid like that “disruptive” and start drugging him.
The teachers and administrators these days have NO idea what a “disruptive” student is, and I can tell you from personal experience, it isn’t an 8yr old drawing a picture of a gun…
Not only that, but FOLLOWING INSRUCTIONS and drawing a picture of a gun.
I have kids in public schools (middle school and High school) here in WA State. A complete joke. Teachers takes days to return emails and calls, they tell us they don’t have enough money, yet my taxes are higher than ever here. The other day they told all middle school GIRLS on an angry campus wide announcement they were not allowed to wear those tight, low-waisted yoga pants to school anymore. Guess who wore Yoga pants the next day? About 15 boys and they all got detention. They tell me I am in the GOOD school too….ridiculous.