NRA’s ILA: Punishing Imagination Won’t Make Schools Any Safer

Zero tolerance policies were, at least in theory, a tool schools were going to use to deal with students who crossed the line by bringing guns to schools…or who displayed dangerous tendencies that might suggest their being a school shooter in the making. The problem with that is that no one seems to actually deal with the behavior of would-be mass killers and, instead, just goes after things like t-shirts and Pop Tarts.

Last week, Cam wrote about a Georgia kid who was suspended because he ate his sandwich into the shape of an “L” and pointed it at another student. He wasn’t the first to experience this level of stupidity.

The NRA Institute of Legislative Affairs has thoughts on this, similar stories from across the nation, and just how dumb all of this is.

This is not a first-of-its kind report, unfortunately. In recent years, schools have made headlines after students faced disciplinary consequences for firearm shaped food items or toys. Recall that a Maryland seven-year-old was suspended for allegedly biting his breakfast pastry into a firearm shape while at school. A five-year old in Pennsylvania was suspended for bringing a Hello Kitty bubblegun to school. And in perhaps the nadir of these accounts, a 3-year-old deaf boy named Hunter was told by his school that signing his own name was a violation of the school district’s “weapons” policy.

While school administrators unquestionably have an important responsibility to assess genuine threats and address disruptive behavior, this necessarily involves the use of sound judgement in distinguishing between serious safety issues and innocent childhood behavior.

The concerns extend beyond isolated incidents and even beyond the classroom. Administrators appear to be treating imagination as suspect, reflecting a broader cultural tendency to view even an imaginary reference to firearms as inherently dangerous. That mindset matters in reinforcing notions that any association with firearms or hunting, even when rooted in innocent childhood play, artwork, or family tradition, should be viewed negatively. A young child drawing a pilgrim hunting a turkey with a firearm simply should not be marked for the record as a safety concern or behavioral issue.

I remember when I first heard the stories of parents who refused to let their kids play with guns. In their minds, they were making a stand against violence. I even knew a couple of kids who were in that camp. Do you know what they did? They used gun-shaped sticks. They still played with “guns” of a sort, even if they weren’t that similar.

And since then, the problem has gotten worse. While I grew up with rifles and shotguns in the back of classmates’ pickup trucks, this generation can’t even wear a shirt supporting the troops without it becoming a criminal offense.

Going after a kid who used a sandwich in a manner similar to how a firearm would be handled is beyond vile. It’s especially so considering that the parents report the child is internalizing what happened and thinking of himself as a bad kid. That’s not good for his state of mind in the long term, to say the least, especially when it was over nothing.

No one was in danger except for having mustard spill onto the table or something like that.

Meanwhile, educators often are the most vocal about their opposition to armed staff. I have my own thoughts as to why that might be; the truth is that they do. They oppose hardening schools. They oppose almost everything that might actually make schools safer, including the presence of school resource officers in many cases. All they want is gun control to such a significant degree that it boggles the mind.

Not all, of course. I know too many teachers who are also pro-gun to make any such statement, but the loudest make their feelings known, and they’re remarkably quiet about kids being suspended over food items being nibbled into a gun shape. They know they can’t defend it, but they also seem to know that calling it out would be too much for their own psyches to take.

Kids will always play with weapons. Just like they pick up the empty wrapping paper tube and turn it into a sword, they will pick up anything they can make their minds pretend to be a firearm and make it into a firearm. This isn’t a bad thing. It’s good for them to explore these sorts of things, especially since they almost universally take on the role of the hero.

Stop blaming kids for being kids.

If you want safer schools, we have a litany of steps that can be taken. Punishing kids for food-based misadventures is nowhere to be found on that list.

Editor’s Note: President Trump and Republicans across the country are doing everything they can to protect our Second Amendment rights and right to self-defense.

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