There was a time in America when the first priority of our schools was educating our children. That's no longer the case. Today, schools are primarily job programs for the unions and indoctrination centers for the Left. The great teachers in our schools are now used as cover for the mediocrities, the overpaid administrators, and the blatant attempts to force feed liberalism to children before they become experienced enough to recognize all the problems associated with it.
Since the Left has been losing the public battle to curtail the 2nd Amendment, liberals started fighting it in a place where they feel like they can get away with anything, our schools. Towards that end, they've instituted "no tolerance" policies that harshly punish children for wielding imaginary weapons. Even though no crimes are committed, no one is in danger, and no one is being hurt, these schools are persecuting children for pretending to play with guns.
The real problem here isn't the kids; it's the teachers, principals, and school boards that are allowing this to happen and it's time we put a stop to it. When a kid is kicked out of school for playing with an imaginary weapon, they should be deluged with complaints. Conservative groups should offer to sue the school on behalf of the parents. The people responsible should lose their jobs. We won't need to do that a hundred times. Take three or four schools, makes examples out of them, and then you'll be surprised at how quickly the rest of the schools outside of the most hopelessly blue parts of the country start to become reasonable.
1) Suspended For Playing With Airsoft Guns In Their Own Yard (Virginia Beach, Va): Aidan Clark, Khalid Caraballo and a third friend were given three month suspensions for shooting spring-driven airsoft guns at each other on Caraballo's property. No one was arrested, no one was hurt, no crimes were committed, but all three children were suspended from school for AT LEAST three months. If a school can suspend kids for doing something legal on their own property that has nothing to do with the school, what's next? Suspending children for owning toy guns? Suspending them because their parents are in the NRA?
2) Students Suspended For Performing A Scientific Experiment With Permission (Edmonds, Washington): A group of students got permission from their teacher to bring NERF guns to school as part of a probability experiment, which actually sounds like more fun than anything most of us ever did in math class. Afterwards, the school responded by suspending all the children who brought toy guns to school and all the children who were present, while the teacher was unpunished. Well, at least the school is preparing the children for real life where government employees get a free pass for breaking the rules while private citizens are punished for doing nothing wrong.
3) Suspended And Arrested For Wearing An NRA "Protect Your Rights" T-shirt: Fourteen year old Jared Marcum wore a NRA "Protect Your Rights" t-shirt to school with a hunting rifle on it. Despite the fact that the shirt didn't violate the school's dress code, a screaming teacher demanded that he turn the shirt inside out. Marcum was then removed from class, suspended, arrested, and faced a year in jail for "obstructing an officer" because he wouldn't stop protesting his innocence while he was being hauled away. In this case, 100 kids wore the same shirts to school as part of a protest without being challenged and the family lawyered up and got the charges dropped. If everybody fought so hard to "protect your rights," these out-of-control government employees wouldn't be getting away with treating our kids like this.
4) Sixth Grader Suspended From School For Saying The Word "Gun" In A Sentence (Ownings, Md): The 11 year old son of Bruce Henkelman was discussing the Sandy Hook massacre with friends on the school bus and he noted that he wished he had a gun to stop the bad guys. This earned him a ten day suspension from school while his father received a visit from police who wanted to search their house without a warrant. Who’s running this school? Piers Morgan? Michael Moore? Barack Obama?
5) Deaf Preschooler Asked To Change How He Signs His Name Because It Looks Too Much Like A Gun (Grand Island, Nebraska): Three and a half year old Hunter Spanjer is deaf and signs his name in a way that looks like a gun. This was unacceptable to the school, which told Hunter's parents he'd need to change his name because its "Weapons in Schools" policy forbade "any instrument...that looks like a weapon." This sounds like the start of a "Chuck Norris at three joke," but it really happened.
6) Five Year Old Accused Of Making Terror Threats Over A Hello Kitty Bubble Gun (Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania: A five year old who was talking with her friends offered to shoot herself and her friends with a Hello Kitty bubble gun that she had at home. The school's reaction to the little girl's love of soapy bubbles? The school accused her of making a "terrorist threat," suspended her from school for 10 days, told her the police might need to be involved, and demanded that she get a psychological evaluation. The psychological evaluation should have been saved for the people who run that school.
7) Student Suspended For Chewing His Pop-Tart Into The Shape Of A Gun (Brooklyn Park, Minnesota): Seven year old Joshua Welch was eating a strawberry Pop-Tart and started playing with his food. After making a mountain out of it, he turned it into a gun. For that dastardly crime, he was suspended from school for two days and believe it or not, a letter was sent home to the student body telling them, "A student used food to make an inappropriate gesture." Thank goodness he didn't do something more serious like draw a gun in his mashed potatoes or Welch might have never been allowed to come back to school.
When do we put our foot down and say that the sort of people who are victimizing children like this have no business being around kids? If you're so ideologically rigid that a Pop-Tart shaped like a gun or a child who signs his name in a way that looks like a gun is more than you can handle, you don't belong in a school. It's time to demand better for America's children than what they're getting from schools today and the principals, teachers, and school boards that won't get on board with that need to be replaced.