This adds new meaning to the old phrase, reductio ad absurdum:
Terry Wilson-Spence thinks administrators at Spokane Public Schools may have jumped the gun when it comes to her 8-year-old son. The third-grader, along with two other boys, was suspended Friday from Bemiss Elementary School for bringing toy guns to the northeast Spokane school.
But, according to Wilson-Spence, the toy guns her son carried in his pocket were for GI Joe action figures. The guns are from only 1 inch to 3 inches long -- half the size of a pencil.
Emphasis mine. This is the logical conclusion - to the absurd - of hysterical rules that ban all weapons, regardless of the type of "weapon" is it, or whether you have to be an 11-and-a-half-inch doll in order to use it.
...the school district is standing by its zero-tolerance policy on weapons, which doesn't specify size or type, school officials said.
"We've been very clear with our students and parents that you don't bring anything that resembles a gun to school," said Bemiss Principal Lorna Spear.
"At school you don't need anything that's going to make kids feel unsafe."
I'd take my kids out a school if the principal was unable to make them feel safe when confronted with GI Joe and his military pals. It seems the suspended boys were playing with the tiny toys - and that IS all they are, tiny toys - at lunchtime and allegedly making "threatening actions while playing with the toys."
I assume this means they were pointing the toys at other kids and going, "Bang bang." That's when a principal with any sense would tell them to put the toys away and give them a lecture on playfighting in school. You see, it was the boy's actions here that were probably rude and intrusive, not their possessions, and while the other students may have felt nervous, they were in fact in no danger from them at any time.
Suspending these kids on a "weapons" charge sends the message that it's the "weapon", not the behavior, that's the problem, and it also sends the message that these kids are a danger to others, when they weren't. So it's the wrong decision on two counts, and the school administrators look like fools for standing behind this policy.
Sadly, they're fools with a precedent:
This is not the first time miniature weaponry has gotten a Washington student in trouble.
The Seattle School District suspended a 10-year-old boy in 1997 for bringing a replica of an Army-issue handgun to school. That inch-long plastic gun also belonged to G.I. Joe, an action figure that's been a favorite of boys since 1964.
Does anyone else here suspect that the G.I. Joe action figures are feared and hated by Washington's educrats? Not politically correct enough, I suppose. If Barbie came with a pink rifle, would that be okay?
Posted by kswygert at January 27, 2004 11:46 PM