A bill backed by the National Rifle Association that lawmakers said would add “common sense” to zero-tolerance policies for guns in public schools sailed through a House education panel on Wednesday.
The measure (PCB KTS 14-02) by House Judiciary Chairman Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala, would prevent children from being disciplined for simulating a gun while playing or wearing clothes that depict firearms.
Baxley called the measure “the pop-tart bill” — a reference to a widely reported news story about a Maryland 7-year-old who was suspended from school last year for chewing his breakfast pastry into the shape of a gun.
“Obviously we don’t want firearms brought to school in a backpack,” Baxley said. “But we were definitely having some over-reactions.”
According to national news reports, incidents have included punishing students for drawing a picture of a gun, using a finger as an imaginary gun while making the sound of a gun, owning a miniature gun on a keychain, owning a gun made of Legos and wearing a National Rifle Association T-shirt to school.
Rep. Karen Castor Dentel, a Maitland Democrat and a public-school teacher, said the zero-tolerance policies often prevent administrators from using their common sense “because their hands are tied. I support the bill so that people will be able to have that flexibility.”
I'm up with keeping that NRA t-shirt out of school; bunch of legal terrorists.
ReplyDeleteSo the First Amendment has to go as well, in your view?
DeleteDepends on whose common sense you are accepting.
DeleteI wouldn't want Greg's "common sense" making any decision, especially when it comes to children.
I don't go for the term, common sense. It too often is a case of special pleading. But the good news is that you don't have any say in the matter.
DeleteYou don't have common sense, only gun loon sense.
DeleteAnd your response to "legal terrorists" is to dictate where children can and can't wear their T-shirts???
ReplyDeleteBWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHHA!!!!!!!!!!
My opinion is that schools should be allowed to have their own dress codes. A kid wearing a t-shirt that says FUCK in big letters might be banned without violating his rights. Same with images of guns or NRA insignia, if the school wants. But as for the pop-tarts and the pistol-shaped pizza, this is just hysteria on the part of those trying to understand and enforce the no-tolerance rules.
DeleteNow this is a sensible change. Pointing a finger or chewing a poptart isn't an act of violence, unless you're a gun control freak.
ReplyDeleteThe death of innocent children and adults is a concern to most, except gun loons.
DeleteSay--waddya know--there is such a thing as "common sense gun legislation." This is long overdue, nationwide.
ReplyDeleteSo, as we have come to expect from the anti-gun crowd, the administration of a New Jersey middle school terrorized a 13-year-old boy, for the way he held a pencil:
ReplyDeleteEthan Chaplin, a seventh-grade student at Glen Meadow Middle School, was twirling his pencil in math class when a fellow student suddenly yelled out, “He’s making gun motions, send him to juvie!”
Ethan was immediately taken to the principal’s office, suspended, and told he would not be able to return to school until he passed a psychological evaluation.
So, what did the "evaluation" entail?
The child was stripped, had to give blood samples (which caused him to pass out) and urine samples for of all things drug testing.
Yep--because another kid (who seems to have had his own agenda against the victim) claimed that the way he held a pencil was "making gun motions" (whatever that means), the dangerous young pencilslinger had to be left naked, bleeding, and unconscious.
Own it, Mikeb--this is the "gun control" mindset, in all its hideous "glory." This is your side in action.
I know you're proud.
No Kurt, I don't own that. Those nuts are the extremest fringe of the gun control movement, which I've made clear a time or two around here.
DeleteThey are however, your exact counterparts on the other end of the spectrum. So, in a symmetrical and ironical way, you yourself can own it.
My "exact counterparts," stemming from the utter non-existence of instances in which I cruelly abused a child over an idiotic agenda?
DeleteI suppose some might call that "symmetrical and ironical." The rest of us call it bullshit.