There oughta be a law! That’s the familiar cry of almost every aggrieved and aggravated citizen since, well, Rome. That said, there’s something particularly galling about a kid who’s kicked out of school because he ate his Pop-Tart the wrong way. Or his slice of pie in an unapproved manner. As a result, in a state that exhibits precious little common sense about gun laws, we’re now treated to the delicious irony of Maryland state senator J.B. Jennings trying to legislate against the knee-jerk edicts of mindless automatons on the public payroll. In response to the case of the Pop-Tart terrorist, he’s penned the Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013 . . .
As washingtonpost.com is reporting,
The measure would prevent principals from suspending or expelling students who make “a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun” or bring to school “any other object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose.”
So it’s come to this. Because government schools are run by people who can’t (or refuse to) distinguish between real threats to their students’ safety and the harmless actions of normal children acting like – er – children, lawmakers now find it necessary to do what they do best: enact more laws.
And you can blame people like Principal Sandy Blondell, the Park Elementary School disciplinarian who laid down the law when a 7-year-old in her charge said something dangerous like “bang, bang” while holding his ballistically bitten toaster pastry.
As you’ll read all too often in the comments section around here, “you can’t fix stupid.” Now, thanks to zero tolerance administrators who make it through their days wholly unencumbered by the thought process, maybe Maryland will be able to make it illegal.
Instead of “The measure would prevent principals from suspending or expelling students who make “a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun” or bring to school “any other object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose.”
We need to rid society of the problem, not just the symptoms. The bill should read: “The measure would require firing principals who attempt to suspend or expel students who make “a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun” or bring to school “any other object that resembles a gun, but serves another purpose.”
YES! Start with the principals (better yet, Superintendents of Schools), AND WORK YOUR WAY DOWN, until the system is rid of these HYSTERIA-RIDDEN PARAKEETS in the school system!!!
The sooner the better. I have yet to figure out why these school teachers and admins so firmly believe that finger guns, pictures of guns, and “bang bang” play is so harmful to kids that it cannot be tolerated in any form. This is where the prejudice against guns starts–but it doesn’t have any discernable effect, does it? Are there any studies at all tht support this nonsense? Brawling and knife fights in the school yard are one thing, but chase games? Why?
Because COMPETITION HURTS FEELINGS. And that HURT HURTS. Something like that. It’s phony egalitarianism. Pretend we’re all equal, until it gets too obvious that not all kids are on the same level of development.
What do they do then? Tweak the grading system. RINSE. REPEAT.
You may want to stipulate “mentally equal” as opposed to just “equal”. Some might take issue with that particular wording and perceive a viewpoint I doubt you wish to convey.
An interesting conundrum, but while the rubric ” we’re not all equal” may not be PC, it is 100% proven to be factual.
The suggestion that those with relatives/friends in power achieve the same a random person with the same (or better) qualifications, is patently absurd.
Right or wrong, it’s just human nature. Willow Smith gets to ‘whip her hair’ on national tv because her daddy is Will, nothing more. We, as humans, ‘take care of our friends’, which means that if you have the ‘right’ ones, your life is guaranteed to go better than those who don’t.
I wish all lawmakers would be required to read the laws about supplying locks with firearms, then look at the toy locks that meet the requirements of those laws. I’m sure it would put some humility in them to see how little they accomplish.
This is not about banning stupid, this is a culture war.
This. These events are not about Guns, they’re about Gun Culture.
The drive is to make guns as “uncool” as possible. Remove any and all glamorization of guns. The problem with the AR-15 is not that it’s an “assault rifle”. It’s that it’s a really cool “assault rifle”. Gizmos, widgets, designer colors. It’s accessibility to modification without gunsmithing makes it even more attractive. Instead of buying new rims for a Civic, lets buy new furniture in Mossy Oak for an AR.
If they could deter the use of guns in movies similar to how it was done with smoking, then they would be giddy. Make any movie with a gun in it rated R.
So, the first step is to make guns, any gun, “awful”, taboo, and punishing. Newspeak them out of existence. Don’t play cops and robbers, go play Labor Representative. “Ooh! I’ll play Corporate Greed, you play usurped workers and Sally can be the pro bono legal aid!”
It wouldn’t surprise me if they asked Police Officers making presentations to children to not carry at all.
Continue with this and they won’t have to ban guns, we simply won’t want them any more.
Bull’s-eye.
In this case I respectfully disagree, you can legislate against stupid. The fact the legislature has to pass a law to limit stupid should be an eye opener to school administrators that they have gone a wee bit to far. And I agree with William, the law should enact harsh penalties against those administrators that show such a lack of judgment. Dismissal with loss of all pension rights seems to be an appropriate punishment for the offender.
Monsters in authoritarian positions, call them what they are. Humiliate a child because they can, under color of political correctness. Barely above the low of pedophiles. Calling these people stupid is an act of kindness. There is no respect of law being taught, just the fear of it.
“We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control. No dark sarcasm in the classroom, teacher leave them kids alone!”
Thank you Pink Floyd
This will become a demonstration of why Maryland, and much of this country, is heading down the tubes. Jennings is a Republican; the MD Senate is about 3-1 Demoncrats [sic] and the House more than 2 – 1. This bill will never even come up for a vote.
In Maryland there are mostly only RINOs. This is a state where they drive Beretta out but go all-out to get FBI headquarters. Half the state already gets fingerprinted for their job – that should tell you something right there.
And the other half [although there is actually a large overlap] gets fingerprinted at their arraignment.
Not true at all. There are some RINOs, but most of the Republicans here are strong conservatives, they’re just waaay outnumbered in the legislature. In most places the RINO will be beaten in the primary or soundly beaten in the general election.
sigh.
This is how we got the blunt instruments known as mandatory minimum sentences. Some uber-liberal judges were stuck on stupid, and so the legislators had to set them straight. A very imperfect solution to a real problem.
Everyone used to think stupidity could be fixed by a new law. But stupidity, being stupid, couldn’t obey a law if it had to, except maybe by accident.
Probably the scariest part of stories like the pop tart pistol is the thought that these people are training our kids how to think. I’m nearly convinced that a public school education is the modern form of child abuse.
Good man. Now make a law banning fascist bills like O’Malleys gun ban!
We expect schools to teach critical thinking, but then pass educational policies from on high that make any exercise of the same against the rules. I can’t blame the principal here, since I’ve been in the system and know how many rules teachers and administrators operate under. Regarding this situation, this is one small problem struggling to get out from among a host of much bigger problems.
All he needs to add is a clause that states that: any teacher or
principal violating this law will be suspended pending
investigation and meet before an independent review board to
have their teaching certificates examined.
I appreciate the sentiment, but the fact that we are even at this point is sad.
Banning progressive fascism would fix this country overnight.
I wish we could find a better way to impress upon our teachers and faculty the need to exercise SOUND JUDGMENT over a robotic adherence to draconian “zero tolerance” policies. Simply making it illegal to suspend a student doesn’t address the root problem. It’s a step in the right direction, I suppose.
In Texas, thank God, things are considerably different. Recently a teacher in a local high school requested permission from the principal to use a real muzzle loader in a class play about the American Revolution. Permission was granted and no one blinked an eye. Don’t know what the principal would have said if he had requested to use a cut-out of a gun…probably would have called him stupid.
The Pop Tart Freedom Act!