Zero Tolerance Weapons Policy strikes again!

[GTSteve03]

And people wonder why we badmouth public schools here...

Wheeler student suspended for having knife
By YOLANDA RODRÍGUEZ
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Published on: 09/04/07

A Wheeler High School student has been suspended for 10 days and charged with a felony for carrying a weapon onto the campus.

According to an arrest warrant, Wilford Ray Chandler Jr. had a pocket knife with a 2.5-inch blade on Aug. 29, a violation of the school district's weapons policy.

Jay Dillon, a Cobb schools spokesman, said Chandler left the Wheeler campus about midday — a violation of the school's rules. When he came back onto the grounds, a school resource officer searched him and his car, which is standard operating procedure when a student leaves campus without permission.

The blade, described in the warrant as a "multipurpose-type pocket knife," was found in the center console of the car.

"He left campus when he wasn't supposed to, and he acknowledged that," Dillon said.

The district's zero tolerance policy dictates that a blade longer than 2 inches gets an automatic 10-day suspension and criminal charges. Smaller blades get a 5-day suspension and may result in criminal charges, Dillon said.

Last year, "dozens" of weapons were found in Cobb schools, he said.

Dillon noted that on Friday a Pebblebrook High School student stabbed another student on campus. That student, a juvenile whose name was not released, was suspended and charged with bringing a weapon to school, aggravated battery and aggravated assault.

The injured student, also a juvenile, was OK, Dillon said.

So, the SAK wasn't even on his person, just in the console of his car. I like how you are mandatorily searched when coming back to campus. Makes me glad I'm not in school these days, and I only graduated high school 8 years ago.

The poor kid gets a felony charge and won't be carrying guns for the rest of his life now. Hey, if the anti's can't get it to work through legislation, they'll do it somehow!

 

[Bitmap]

Homeschooling. It's for the children.

 

[fletcher]

What a waste of time and resources.


I remember in high school one time when I accidentally brought my big Swiss Army knife to school (the one with like 40 tools on it). I had left it in my trumpet case while on a scout campout the previous weekend, being the troop bugler. Got to school, saw it in the case and started freaking out because of the weapon policies. Just crammed it underneath the platform in the case and left it there. It's a shame I even had to worry about that.

 

[Sistema1927]

We used to carry 4" Buck Knives in belt sheaths as part of the unofficial young man's "uniform" when I was in High School. And, we had our rifles and shotguns in our vehicles in the parking lot, often in visible gun racks.

Funny how we didn't have any problems in those days.

Zero tolerance = Zero common sense

I pity the kids who are growing up in "Nerf World" these days.

 

[Loucks]

I'm not even 30 yet, but I carried a pocket knife to school every day from 3rd grade until I finished college without a single objection from an educator or administrator. Why do I suddenly feel like sitting on the front porch in a rocking chair, smoking a cigar and complaining about the world going to pot?

Actually, a cigar sounds good right about now. Sancho Panza, here I come.

 

[35Rem]

I'll do one better (worse) this is in a small town in Alabama.

Cottonwood Student Arrested

COTTONWOOD: A student at Cottonwood High School was found in possession of a police baton Tuesday.
Houston County Sheriff's Sgt. Randy Anderson, also referred to as Deputy Randy, School Recourse Officer, said the student did not threaten or hit anyone with the baton, often called a "billy club". However, Anderson stressed there is a zero tolerance policy regarding weapons at school.

The student, who was not identified because of his age, was taken to the Southeast Alabama Diversion Center. It's not immediately known where he got the baton.

 

[Robert Hairless]

Yow!

Forgive my exclamation but I belong to a generation in which part of the rites of passage to manhood was the gift of a good pocketknife. It was both a tool and a badge of impending adulthood, a tangible sign that the adult world believed that you had developed a sense of responsibility. My father liked the idea too, in part because it gave him the opportunity to give me the jobs of opening packages and boxes.

I probably still have one of those I was given at that time tucked away in a drawer somewhere. I was very proud of it. Still am.

We live in a strange new world now. The one in which I was a child and grew to adulthood was imperfect and needed serious improvement, but in many ways it was a more humane world than the one we've given you folks. My generation obviously has made some dreadful mistakes that you people need to correct. I apologize for my part in it. I'll add, though, that I never supported the kinds of lunacy being discussed here.

What will happen, I wonder, to the increasingly large numbers of children who are being felonized by this madness. Perhaps more serious, what will happen to the other children who are taught by it to be passive components of a herd.

 

[Standing Wolf]

Another Great Triumph in the wussification of America.

 

[Piedmont Plinker]

If anybody ever tries to search my care at school they're going to get a resounding "NO!"
The kid has a pocketknife in his car. Most likely an SAK or multitool. You'd think he had brought an h-bomb with him.
I swear to God, if I ever start a school, it's gonna have a zero-blissninnnie-leftist-idiotpolicy. Knives would be fine.

 

[ilcylic]

Hunh. I always carry tools in my car. It's just the smart thing to do. After all, we're living in a different world now. Terrorists could attack at any time, and it pays to be prepared for emergencies.

 

[yesit'sloaded]

I hate to think like this, but wouldn't it be a solution if everyone gave their kid a knife. Then they could not send home everyone so they would just have to accept it. Way back when schools were built because parents pooled their money for the good of their children's future. Now it is the government telling you that your child must go to school and must learn all the liberal trash they cram down their throats. By the time I have kids they will be reading to kindergartners how little Jimmy loves both of his daddies. I support the boy scouts now as much as ever because they have yet to back down. They will not accept homosexuals, they teach teach firearms, promote moral value, and independence from social welfare. They don't care how unpopular it is and sadly the number of boy scouts is going down. And...they all carry knives because you never know when you will need a good pocketknife.

 

[obxned]

Shame they don't have a zero tolerance of stupidity!

The only purpose of public education that I can see is that it does teach kids how to survive outrageous quantities of bullcrap!

 

[FieroCDSP]

I've said it before and I'll say it again. Zero Tolerance is simply an excuse to avoid making decisions you might have to stand up for. Once upon a time, such a situation would have required a principal to decide whether the child had evil intent or not. Now we can't trust anyone but the courts to decide how much evil intent your child has, because it's obvious that the only reason you need a knife (or scissors, or a hole-punch) is because you're looking to hurt someone.

Please, God, let common sense ring out.

 

[Nolo]

Ha! Same thing happened to me a while ago. I dunno if it was a felony, but boyhowdy did they get me on it. It sucked. I think this kid can get it stricken from his record when he's 18, so he should be able to own firearms when he's older.
Either that, or I'm screwed.
This would be one of the few times that I'd say "screw the law!" with any honesty.
By the way, being able to survive extreme quantities of bull is a necessary life skill.

 

[koja48]

Glad I grew-up when & where I did. Shotguns/deer rifle/ gear in the trunk so we could leave directly from school to go hunting in my '51 Chevy sedan that THOUGHT it was a 4x4. Shop teacher agreed that building a stock for my '06 was a great project & did a good deal of the inletting. I know that times have changed (not always for the better) & rules are rules (too often knee jerk overkill/politically-correct and all), but this over 1/4"???? Maybe size DOES matter! Sounds as if the kid was either a bad-a$$, or an administrator had an axe to grind (whoops, that surely wouldn't be allowed), I mean a fingernail to file (probably bad, too), alright, a nerf ball to clean . . .

 

[jbauch357]

you know if we didn't have kids regularly stabbing eachother at school the complete prohibition of pocket knifes wound't be on the agenda. don't get me wrong, I carried a pocket knife to school from middle school on - and still carry one daily (I just suppliment it with a G26 now too) and don't generally see a problem with students doing the same.

what needs to happen is a serious crack down/punishment agenda for the kids that are actually commiting the serious crimes, like stabbing fellow students - instead of cracking down on kids that may have a pocket knife in their car.

the whole thing just makes me sick...

 

[Black Adder LXX]

I had a moment when I realized *how* much things have changed when I watched 'To Kill a Mockingbird' a couple years back. In the movie, Gregory Peck talks about how when he was 12 he used to run around the woods and fields with his 22 rifle and his dad told him it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
Kids running around at 12 with rifles... and society didn't collapse...

 

[Snapping Twig]

And yet these dweebs ignore the car as a weapon!

I'd rather face down a multi tool than a speeding car.

How about all the gasoline he brought onto campus? Admittedly it was in the tank, but he could have accessed it under these same speculative B.S. what-if hyperbolic theorems.

I bet there was a tire iron in the trunk too...

Save us from ourselves!

 

[Nolo]

Exactly my logic, Snapping Twig. They can get you for anything nowadays, it's all just a matter of whether they do or not.
Thankfully, my school is relatively reasonable.
But I'm not comfortable with my school having that kind of power over me, even if they don't exercise it.
I've often thought of a "knife strike", where several students bring pocketknives to school and make the faculty aware of them but do not surrender them, thus getting suspended.
I would do it... but if I commit another misdemeanor, they'll both go on my permanent record and I won't be able to get firearms as an adult.

 

[koja48]

they'll both go on my permanent record and I won't be able to get firearms as an adul

Then simmer & be tolerant, Nolo. This too, will pass.

 

[Nolo]

Oh, certainly, Koja, but it boils my blood to think of the stupidity.

 

[mpc12]

I guess I came out of a great place. We had a no tolerance weapons policy at my school, but i carried a knife from day one of Kindergarten through Graduation. Almost daily in high school my knife was borrowed by a teacher. I wound up giving him one when I graduated. I just graduated in 2003 also.

 

[Nolo]

Jeez!
Where'd you go to school, mpc12?
I'm transferring!

 

[mpc12]

Sadly, we had an administration change two years after I graduated, so the glory days of keeping a knife with you, or in your car are long gone.

 

[Zundfolge]

Jeebus ... I remember making billy clubs on the lathe in Jr. High shop class ... I seem to recall I got an A for mine.