18
Dec
A 10-year old Ocala [Florida] girl brought her lunch to school and a small kitchen knife to cut it. […] The student now faces a felony charge for the possession of a weapon on school property and the principal suspended her for ten days.
There’s no real need to read farther, is there?
21:29 on December 19th, 2007
Ocla…wow…that’s just about an hour south of my folks town…
I post a lot lately on wordforge.net’s “hidden” (member’s only) Red Room forum and TrekBBS’ “The Neutral Zone”, and this was a recent topic we discussed.
I agree the level of stupidity in this case on the girl’s part….in this day and age, did it not occur to her that this might not be a good idea?
I mean, this is an over-reactionary day in which kids have gotten suspended in 1st grade for pointing a finger at fellow students and going “bang”. (Seriously…)
At the same time….I think a *felony* charge is just a wee bit over-reactionary….couldn’t a suspension and a good talking to the folks!?
Felony? That seems a bit much, even for terminal stupidity. This should have been an easily dealt with internal school matter.
For cryin’…
But I grew up in a much, MUCH different day and age…on the military base, or in the OKC and Texas schools I attended, I took a jackknife in pocket every day starting after I got my toting chit in Cub Scouts…
Now days, I might wind up in Gitmo over something like that!
My dad…he and his fellow Dallas students all had gun racks in their cars in HS, and those racks had…wait for it…*guns* on them.
Now days, a gun in a car on campus would violate I don’t know how many laws…
Yet still, in his day, and even mine later on, despite the guns and knives, we avoid Columbines’…
21:56 on December 19th, 2007
Heh, the “stupidity” to which I was referring here is only and entirely on the part of the schoolteachers, administrators and law enforcement authorities.
The girl was ten years old. Kids fuck up. The extreme overreaction to an innocent mistake is asinine and unconscionable, and I personally believe every school and law enforcement official involved should — at least — be put on a two-week administrative unpaid leave of absence to attend get-your-head-out-of-your-ass training.
And believe it or not, the number of killings in schools is actually in decline, historically. We just hear about it now because of instant-access national coverage — and of course news that focuses mostly on the frightening because that’s what gets the attention of a jaded and decadent public consciousness.
0:28 on December 20th, 2007
[quote]The extreme overreaction to an innocent mistake is asinine and unconscionable, and I personally believe every school and law enforcement official involved should — at least — be put on a two-week administrative unpaid leave of absence to attend get-your-head-out-of-your-ass training.[/quote]
I agree!
11:15 on January 15th, 2008
The worrying part is the attitude of the school staff;
There was no danger, no wrong intention, no threat but we had to act as though there were.
And the police;
There was no threat, no problem, but we had to take her in.
What are they, automata? What is the point of having trained teachers and cops if they can’t make a judgement call on something as trivial as this?