“You’re worried about offending people, or somebody is going to get upset, or somebody is going to hurt? You’re actually hurting more people that care about America and their rights to guns and their amendments. This gun thing has escalated so much.” – Breanna Rasmusson, Crookston schools ban guns from yearbook pictures after ‘questionable’ senior photo [via valleynewslive.com]
They are doing that kid a favor. Five years from now he’s going to wish nobody ever saw him with that gun. It’s hideous. What’s up with the upper receiver? Or the handguard made out of schedule 40 pipe?
Funny – It used to be the only thing about our high school senior portraits that we laughed about 20 years later was the haircuts.
But what this kid really ought to be concerned with is what some pantywaist liberal corporate recruiter is going to think when he applies for a job after college.
I think it’s a Rock River.
Are you sure it isn’t something he made in Shop?
Article said he modified and painted it himself… so possibly.
There’s no good way to censor a yearbook that allows kids to showcase some, but not all, of their interests, passions and hobbies.
Back in the day, yearbook photos were all taken by a hired photographer who came to school and took a simple, traditional headshot of everyone. What the heck was wrong with that? Kids who want photos that capture their interests and hobbies can do that on their own dime and distribute them as they please.
Sure there is. How about this standard? If the passion, pursuit or hobby at least dovetails with something already officially sanctioned by the school, then it’s in?
For example, since the school allows licensed students to drive to and park on campus, then a picture of a guy who’s into cars standing beside his car should be allowed into the yearbook.
If the school offers a home economics class, then a girl who takes pride in her baking can pose with a cake if she wants to. Similarly, if the school offers JROTC or has a shooting team, as this high school does, then guess what? A student sitting with his favorite AR build is good to go.
Now, what is offensive are the racy, flaming, flamboyant poses and expressions that a tiny percentage of the student body adopts in their pictures. Nevertheless, without the homosexuals serving on yearbook staff all senior year long, in any given high school, there wouldn’t even be a yearbook to speak of. So we’ll have to give them a pass.
I was thinking only props acceptable are props from school activities that the student is involved in. So if you’re on the school rifle team you can hold a rifle you use in competition, if you’re not tough luck you shoulda been. If you’re not on the basketball team you can’t hold a basketball.
Crookston is in Minnesota, not North Dakota.
is that even a real gun?
My high school year book from 1980 has a picture of a Chihuahua being held hostage with a revolver being held on it with the caption “Get this yearbook or else….”.
I wonder how well that would float now.
Stolen from National Lampoon. Typical yearbook editorial policy.
Saying that banning pictures like this hurts you is just as dumb to me as people saying viewing this picture hurts others.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it should be banned, but please don’t snowflake over the fact your special picture wasn’t allowed in a book you won’t care about in two years.
Lets see…
While there are plenty of places to scream total freedom, there are also places where there should be some boundaries.
Examples.
Pic of just you and the rifle… eh….
Pic with you and your rifle where the shot also shows the sport or activity in which the rifle is used in… more so.
Pic of your daughter in a bikini…. eh…
Pic of your daughter in a swim suit at the Olympic pool…. maybe…
Giving the photo context could keep a lot of these from becoming issues. If they would bring back target shooting as a sport in schools, a lot of this would blend well.
Yearbook photo of a kid in a black trench coat with two glocks wedged in his belt….eh…..
I believe this is the fundamental issue surrounding a lot of this issue.
Freedom is great, but when you exhibit it in a strange manner, people begin to draw conclusions, its just life, its how it is, its how its always been, its an inherent defense mechanism built into all of us. People judge people…. period.
I say the same thing about the open carry demonstration guys.
Properly dressed, pistol on your side or rifle properly carried…. nice.
showing up like you’re about ready to go postal on a mall carrying 2 AR’s and an AK with WWII ammo belts and dressed like you just rolled out of bed and are 17 years old…. it looks bad.
Presentation.
That said.
I think instead of banning anything outright there should be some form of actual thought and work by the school to apply a guideline or two first, if the guidelines fail or cannot gain control, then perhaps restriction.
This knee jerk reaction bull crap does little to nothing to improve our society.
Having said all that, the above photo seems fine, the addition of the shirt shows the photo is meant to capture the boys feelings about freedom and our rights.
Probably wouldn’t have hurt anything if he had smiled. Looking super-serious while holding your MSR… eh…
Smiling and looking like you enjoy life while holding your gun… better…
This story is more about pussified, career government types who may not even actually care about the issue or want to impose their preferences on others, than it is anything else. They just don’t want to rock the boat. They don’t want, post-shooting spree, some reporter shoving this yearbook photo in their face and demanding to know why the school failed to see the obvious early indicators. “He’s right there…..*gasp*……with a gun…..in the yearbook!
They don’t want any whiff of controversy, especially if there’s even a trace of a chance of it blowing back on them should someone ever go on a spree.
It’s just easier for the principal to punt to the school board and for the school board to let it stand by pushing the vote on it out for weeks.
Then everyone graduates and forgets all about it. By next year, it will have become “long standing policy” and therefore a non-issue.
They also banned the trapshooting team from having guns in their pictures.
Reaction was swift and, as you see here, national.
They’re going to revisit the idea at the next meeting.
Best guess is they’ll let the varsity shooting team photos back in and keep the senior pictures out.
http://www.crookstontimes.com/news/20180109/crookston-school-board-to-vote-again-on-yearbook-firearm-ban-after-firestorm-erupts
After reading that article here are some thoughts:
If he was going for the “I want to defend my country and join the national guard” pic, I would feel better if it WAS an “assult” rifle.
I feel I’m educated enough to know that he shouldn’t NEED to be on the trap shooting team to qualify as having involvement in a shooting sport as trap shooting is not all encompassing and he may as I do myself, dislike trap shooting.
Again to touch base on it, no matter how scary the firearm looks, has nothing to do with how it will be used, a scope makes it no more an “assault rifle” than a hello kitty sticker does.
PS, yes, we all know that “assault rifle” is a coined phrase for the way a rifle is used and not a designation of a design.
It’s not the gun that scares me. It’s his inbred eyes-to-close together dead stare. He already look like the poster child for the next mass shooting.
Home or private school…be glad they aren’t pushing “transgender” BS. Yeah things have changed since I graduated HS in the early 70’s. Pathetic😖
The Greatest Generation raised a generation of some of the worst examples of precious snowflakes. I cringe every time I hear an old fart “baby boomer” say “I feel” instead of “I think”.
I thank my RIP dad for theaching us critical thinking skills. And the nuns who dictated head shots only for school photos.
“I feel” was definitely banned during my education and upbringing, too. Even “I think” was frowned upon. If you’re speaking it or you’re writing it, then it’s understood this point is the result of your thoughts on the subject.
That kid just flagged himself for extra scrutiny in any background investigation he has for life and made any court fight with a future spouse very easy for his spouse’s lawyer. Common sense is to not put yourself on Facebook or public places with guns.
If it was a blanket ban on any accessories used in year book photos, sure I can see that, but banning ONLY guns points to your ideological bias, your inability to reason and your acquiescence to the PC JBTs.
Would they ban a photo of a kid holding some communist manifesto? Ban a picture of a student holding a chainsaw or someone standing in front of construction machinery?
Its just a picture, its not perpetuating your belief in this fictitious gun violence narrative.
“LOOK AT THIS BABY!!”
looks like an airsoft rifle, and it’s ugly as shit.
Tyrants love to ban things. It’s what they do.
If you parents are not willing to break up these little fiefdoms that you pay to send your crumb crunchers to, expect more of the same.
And don’t expect it to end with firearms.
But it would be ok if he just wore a LE badge.
It would be better if HS photos went back to a posed head shot with required shirt colors. No logo T shirts, guns, BLM or rainbow buttons or other expressions of personal causes. Reserve that stuff for the candid photos and club or team photos, including rifle, trap, archery, fencing, and any other sport or club that bothers the easily triggered.
Fascism is always the easy answer.
Sigh…. It is just a yearbook photo. Like fights over Prom dresses, it is annoying nanny state at work. On the bright side? In a few weeks you will graduate And never look back at those jerks again. It is just a book to sit in closet shelf for 30 years…… Lose the gun, say cheese & move on with life….
We had a trap team that was organized by a young lady I graduated with and the photography club did a group pic with Winchester ’97s and other vintage guns, and dressed like ’30s gangsters. No problem with any of that, but that was a couple of years ago.
The long term solution to protecting our rights is to defend this boy’s right to bear arms even in a photograph. The boys loss is our loss as well.
It is his civil right to bear arms. The adults who deny him should be sued for violating his rights. Put fear into these anti liberty zealots.