Public Education's War On Children & The Second Amendment

Yet another story is in the news about a child pretending to have a gun getting punished by teachers and school administrators:

A Suffolk school suspended a second grader for pointing a pencil at another student and making gun noises.

Seven-year-old Christopher Marshall says he was playing with another student in class Friday, when the teacher at Driver Elementary asked them to stop pointing pencils at each other.

"When I asked him about it, he said, 'Well I was being a Marine and the other guy was being a bad guy,'" said Paul Marshall, the boy's father. "It's as simple as that."

Christopher's father was a Marine for many years. . . .

So how did the school justify their insanity?

"A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made," said Bethanne Bradshaw, a spokesperson for Suffolk Public Schools.

Ummmmm, no, its not. It is still a pencil. There is no chance whatsoever that a pencil becomes an actual gun. There is no chance of anyone being hurt, nor is there any chance of anyone, teacher or administrator included, being put in even momentary fear that the child is operating an actual gun on school grounds.

So what is really going on? It seems obvious that the teacher and administrators are trying to teach these toddlers that real guns are bad and unacceptable. They are certainly entitled to their opinions, and it is a gray area whether they should share their opinions with children, but that is not at issue. The teachers and administrators engaging in this insanity are going the step further and using their authority under state law to punish children for even pretending to have a gun. That crosses a big red line.

Everyone in this country is born with certain "inalienable rights," one of which is the right to keep and bear arms under the 2nd Amendment. Now no one will argue that the school system has every right to use their state power to demand that children do not bring actual guns to school. And if a child brings in something that a reasonable person could mistake for a weapon, well, the school would be within their rights to discipline the child just to keep good order. But punishing a child for utilizing an imaginary gun - that is punishing a thought crime. More, it is using the power of the state to punish a child for even thinking of bearing a gun - and that is Constitutionally protected territory. Some enterprising lawyer really needs to start suing these school systems for this abuse of their state power.

Tweet