A high school kid got suspended for bringing a squirt gun to school.

This may not be a popular view here, but there are other factors to consider, I believe. A squirt gun could be a "weapon" of sorts, if it were filled with chlorine bleach or something flammable, for instance. I don't think that this incident should be lumped in with the "kid who fashioned a pop tart into a gun" thing, and I think it's silly for the NRA to jump all over it and try to whip people up into a frenzy.

Times have certainly changed - I admit - but so have kids and parents. There probably are a lot of members here that think: "well, in MY day, that wouldn't even have been an issue!". That may be true, but in my day, kids didn't go nuts and shoot up the school because they got "bullied" either.

I also believe that the kid was indeed "lucky" that he only got a 10-day suspension. Many schools would have expelled him, due to their "zero tolerance" rules. He was stupid to bring it to school - should have known better - and now he has to face the music. He gets to learn from it and move on.

Anything could be a weapon - you could fill a water bottle with "something flammable" and turn it into molotov cocktail, you can use shoelaces as a garotte, pencil as a stabbing weapon. Zero tolerance sounds like zero common sense to me.

You could take a "squirt bottle", like dish soap comes in. That is obviously not a weapon. Should not get suspended or expelled for having a squirt bottle. Put the same bleach or gas or alcohol in it, that you are worried about, and you have the same "weapon".

Zero Tolerance is total stupidity.

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I always take precautions

Schools have changed over the years. The question is have they changed for the better.

Agree 100 %...BUT..This is not a kid..He's in high school.. Doesn't he listen to the news or read the papers??? WAIT..maybe that's toomuch to assume???

JIM..........................

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SWCA # L-1911

A 10 day suspension taking place less than a month before finals? This is a 10th grader and if I remember correctly, 10th grade is when grade average becomes important. And the Squirt gun fell out of his backpack.

This is the alleged "look-alike weapon":



Ask yourself: Does the punishment fit the crime?"

Schools have changed, and so has society. We also live in a society in which parents will sue the school corporation (or each other) at the drop of a hat.

Heck, I used to carry my rifle to school and leave it in a gun rack in the Principal's office. I would love for the world to be that simple again, but it never will.

I brought up the bleach or flammable liquid as a way to perhaps explain what the school administration was thinking, as it relates to squirt guns. They don't want kids getting hurt, and they don't want to be sued.

I get it.
I don't like it and I don't support it, but I get it.

Wow how have times changed! Back when I went to high school we used to have squirt gun fights in the hall during class changes if no monitors were looking in our direction. Probably a 1/3 of the senior boys and some girls carried squirt guns. We even used to squirt the teachers on occasion as the way the school was laid out there was a walkway on the second floor that went over the lobby and the teachers sometimes stood there below during class changes.

Walk by hold the gun low by your side and let fly and just keep walking. A couple guys got caught wetting down the teachers and had their guns confiscated and were sent to the PHYSED department for a few hits on the back side by the plywood paddle lovingly called Board of Education. (Paddling was a common punishment for certain infractions back then)

Of course that was early 60s and things are not now near as innocent. We have had a few incidents both in and out of school with squirt guns a couple years ago (including a couple armed with Super Soakers) but the kids doing it had rather nasty liquids not water and the cops were not amused.

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14 S&W Revs none with locks!

Answer it: They have NOT. The school officials are running scared about not stopping something that might be bad that they just freak out over everything and suspend/expel/ everyone who does anything they think may, possibly, get them in trouble.

Oh, a dictator mentality helps!!

He's lucky. If he would have brought that to see Miss America he probably would have gotten the chair.

I always hated it when one of my better water pistols got snagged by the teacher. We started taking only the cheap ones to school. I remember once seeing my teachers desk drawer full of them. Those were the days.

Odd. In criminal justice zero tolerance and apocalyptic prison sentences are commonly applauded. Appeals for understanding and thoughtfulness and proportionality are decried as mere permissiveness. In school a student breaks the rules, some of which are arbitrary and illogical. The same zero tolerance and excess in discipline otherwise applauded are now decried as excessive, unreasoned, etc. Perhaps the extremes justly criticized in how school administrators deal with various student issues mirror a similar reality in how society functions. Just thinking out loud.

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Really? By whom, exactly?

Really? Really. One need only consider discussions of crime and sentencing as pertains to hot button issues such as drugs, domestic violence, etc. When these and similar issues are under debate there will not surprisingly be calls for the most draconian legislation, some on the assumption that such will actually deal effectively with whatever crime is being discussed, some simply out of frustration, some simply out of a desire for retribution. The same simplistic thought is not uncommonly bandied about as the infallible solution to those seemingly indomitable problems faced by teachers and administrators in schools systems both public and private.

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Gee, I'm guessing that boys don't go to school with a pocket knife and lighter in their jeans, and a pack of cigarettes in their shirt pocket anymore.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

In Grammar School the Nuns taught us very early on. Never bring a knife to a ruler fight.

Really, did that kid learn nothing?
Political views aside, how could he be dumb enough not to realize that it would be a bad idea to bring it to school with the zero tolerance policies they enforce.

I'm really having a hard time caring about self inflicted stupidity.

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Hold my beer and watch this!

I was suspended from School for having a plastic Gun for a Video Game(NES Duck Hunt).It had a cord hanging out the bottom and I was returning it to a Friend who had borrowed it to me.The Police took me out of class and then cut the lock off my locker.They said that they had a report that I had a Shotgun in my Locker........Suspended for 3 Days.

Just imagine the trouble he'd be in if it were a real Flash Gordon Ray Gun.

I want to know when the administrators are going to learn something. What happened to the principal putting contraband in his desk, and maybe you'll get it back at the end of the year? I want zero tolerance on stupid administrators. 10 days for a squirt gun? Sheesh. We would drag race in the parking lot, and only get a couple of days of detention. Today, Lord only knows if someone threw a spitwad!

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

C'mon even if you are a hard core believer in the zero tolerance, no mercy, no exceptions, on guns policy. Do you really think this looks anything even remotely like a "gun?"

Back in '64 in Civics/World History all us kids of WWI & WWII Vets were invited to bring their memoribilia/bring-backs for display. Overjoyed we all brought tons of stuff.

My Grandfather, Dr. Martin W. Freas, a Cpt. in the Army Medical Corps in the trenches in WWI carried a personal H&R .22.
I snuck it out without permission loaded with acorn blanks.

The class went well and I was allowed to fire a blank in class to appreciate the sound.

It went South from there. I put it in my pocket and carried it to the next class, Mens Health, and displayed it on the desk before, first Jeff picked it up and "click, then Ralph (spook) picked it up and pointed it at the door and it fired. BANG.

Right at the teacher recovering from a stroke, who had to use a microphone walked in.

Short story is after the Principles office and calls to our parents, we both got three day suspensions.

We're still friends to this day. Spook.

Next story is how I used to buy switchblades in Jr. & Sr. HS.

Allright, switchblades! The gold standard of what a boy could carry in his pockets to school.
Let me be clear about this, a squirt gun, is not a gun, a cap gun is not a gun, a rubber band gun is not a gun, a pop tart is not a gun, a finger is not a gun, a pea shooter is not a gun, an image on a bookcover is not a gun, a drawing is not a gun. Those who act like they are, and support any such nonsense are less than human morons. They should recieve a sound pistol whipping, so they will know the difference. Then publicly stoned, exiled to Gitmo, thrown in solitary with a big picture of Wayne LaPierre pointing his finger at them and a caption of "BANG, BANG,BANG,BANG." That is all.

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Wayne
Torn & Frayed

Personally I would prefer that the school teacher have a little more leeway in dealing with a water pistol or a pop tart than the legal system have with a someone who has committed an actual crime. We can leave debating what constitutes and actual crime for another day and not forgetting due process. The trouble I see in many cases is that the legal system is not designed to find the truth or for justice but rather is rigger to see which lawyer can get the best deal for their client.

It might help if we had laws on the books to keep Pop Tarts out of the mouths of people who shouldn't have them.

Agree. It would be much more preferable for such matters to be dealt with by the teacher and not managed by some administration person. It would be much better indeed.

It is true that the legal system as currently constituted is not well suited to deal with such matters that are properly the responsibility of parents in an intact home/family. Generational change has sown to the wind a broad even complete disregard for commitment and permanence. The current post-modern world is now reaping the whirlwind.

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You see, you see. It starts with Pop Tarts and ends up like this...

Suspect uses potato in attempted robberies

When I was a kid in the 50s I was sitting at a soda bar hangout and a highschool age kid was flashing a plastic replica toy gun of a colt SA. The manager set him straight and that was it. The toy gun did look exactly like the real deal.

All of these problems are a result of a Surplus and a Deficit.

There is a surplus of lawyers. They all want to make big money so they sue any and everything. Little Johnny got a hang nail at school so it must be the schools fault so we sue them. It has gotten to the point of becoming a legal "shake down". Lawyers file some trivial law suit against a big corporation and it is cheaper for the company to settle out of court than pay all of the legal expenses to fight the case. When the mob did the same thing to shop keepers, they were put in jail.

There is a deficit on common sense. People are so afraid of the lawyers and being sued, they let common sense disappear. Better to do nothing than do something and get sued for it. If someone is injured and you help them, they can come back and sue you. because you saved their life.

Just my $0.02.

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Bill

Wow; they got to you.
What a shame..... I'll fly my flag at half staff in honor of the loss of a Marine........

My dad CARRIED a 22 to school on the bus when he was in ROTC. It was never loaded, but that's what it was during basic rifle and marksmanship training. (High school.) In Hawaii, not a western state like Co. or Tx.

We had in no certain order: Potato guns, tennis ball launchers, rubber bb guns, and yes, those God awful squirt guns to 'help' nubile young female friendlies with their tops being too hot on sunny days at lunchtime.

Teachers were often in on the mayhem.

America has been pretty effectively homosexuated and emasculated. Next comes capitulation classes instead of American History classes.

The REAL issue is a fear mongering and a lack of firearm education available to the broader public, via schools. It's not possible to have a positive spin on history when you tell people that the civil war was all about slavery. It's not possible to to have a positive outlook on language/ ie English when you teach 1/3 the class in another language and hold back the English speakers so the non English speakers can keep up, and when you allow non-words and improper spelling, punctuation and lousy writing to permeate the study.

Guns are no different. They have been demonized, because kids DROWN every day all across America from those evil squirt guns.

Sorry. Can not agree with you on this one.

Its just plain stupid. If it would have been full of bleach maybe, but it wasn't. This 0 tolerance **** is so ignorant. No pocket knives, no this no that. You can easily kill someone with a sharp #2 lead pencil. Are thouse allowed??

Ah, that conjures up the Joker's "pencil trick" from The Dark Knight. Classic.