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Guns don’t kill people. Pictures of guns kill pictures of people.
UPDATE: The picture above is the drawing the kid made. Obviously, it’s the smiley faces on the barrel that did him in.
The whole having a real gun debate is still raging here. But the issue of imaginary guns hasn’t been touched. If, in the hopes of preventing another Columbine, this is the most effective response schools can come up with, we’re screwed.
Ariz. school suspends boy for sketching gun
School officials suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates.
The boy’s parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted.
“The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good,” said the boy’s mother, Paula Mosteller.
The drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries or target any human, the parents said. And the East Valley Tribune reported that the boy said he didn’t intend for the picture to be a threat.
Administrators of Payne Junior High in nearby Chandler suspended the boy on Monday for five days but later reduced it to three days.
The boy’s father, Ben Mosteller, said that when he went to the school to discuss his son’s punishment, school officials mentioned the seriousness of the issue and talked about the massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School, where two teenagers shot and killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves in 1999. Mosteller said he was offended by the reference.
Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the crude sketch was “absolutely considered a threat,” and that threatening words or pictures are punishable.
Back when Dennis Miller was a liberal, he had a good routine where he commented that new laws were making “realistic toy guns” illegal because they were a danger to the public. Real guns however are still legal. Good line that one.
And yes, a country suffering from too many murders by firearms that cannot even begin to discuss solutions without violating the “rights” of gun advocates, is, indeed, ==== screwed.
Maybe administrators might consider spending time working on education instead of being Nannies?
I blame rednecks.
That’s clearly a scifi-esque depiction of a gun. If this kid was suspended for that, then I would have probably been jailed for all the doodles of stuff I did back in high school. And college. And last week.
Bottom line is….it’s art. And they’re effectively banning it.
Jerkfaces.
I thought you guys had a right to self expression in the constitution or something
#1 Bobbo – Take away my greenhouse gases and now my guns?
To my knowledge I haven’t used a gun to kill someone. I haven’t used a car to kill someone either but I’m more like to kill some with my truck than a gun. Why? I use my truck more often.
I collect guns and keep them in a large safe. Why should they be taken away from me?
Is it to make other people feel warm and fuzzy? Is it to make other people feel safer?
Some people are just not ever going to feel warm and fuzzy no matter how much they infringe on some else’s rights. They won’t feel safer either knowing that criminals and the government will be the only ones with guns.
We used to get vaccinations when I was in the Army from a gun that looked something that looked like that drawing. Maybe the kid is interested in the medical field.
I’ll be if he drew a picture of a syringe, they’d put him in rehab as well suspending him.
Drawing of a pen with the quotes
“the pen is mightier than than the sword”
gets busted next…
The zero tolerance crap in schools is beyond insane.
Point a finger at someone the wrong way, suspended.
Draw a violent picture, suspended.
Bring aspirin to school, suspended.
So much as hug or touch another student or teacher, suspended.
Look cockeyed at the lunch lady, suspended.
Some of the stuff we did in school back in the day would probably result in expulsion and jail today.
On, and on, and on with the BS
bobbo, you’re right, just like a country that is under attack by followers of Islam can’t offend Muslims by not also checking 90 year old white ladies at the airport is equally screwed.
Just for the record though I’ve never heard of any pro-gun person say the issue can’t be discussed.
#9 And while some of the stuff that we did do at school would get us kicked out today and bunch of stuff that is much worse and we wouldn’t have even thought of doing is allowed.
It won’t be terrorists, foreign governments or a financial crash that destroys America. It will be PCness.
6-Steve–glimmer of a sense of humor. Thats a start anyway. I’ve never killed anyone with anthrax spores. Why can’t I keep some in a locker? Anyway–long thread referenced covered many of those issues.
10–Gigg–quite correct unless a discussion means something more than never admitting the problem exists to begin with and any restriction is disagreed with. Nice discussion that one.
One more example of the reasons why my children will never go to a government school (indoctrination center).
Those that can do, those that can’t teach.
WTF is this. Art is a crime again? Schools have art classes. Kids draw from their imagination. Are books with pictures of guns banned from the school library? If a kid writes a comic book where the hero is threatened with a gun is he suspended as well? This is crap, absolute crap.
typical red herring — people go after shit like this because it makes them look like they’re doing something
#14 — if conservatives have their way, there won’t be any art in schools
#12 Bobbo – I have thick skin as well and sadly it’s a requirement to post here.
#1 Bobbo “realistic toy guns” illegal”
In the 70’s when I was in high school a bunch of us were squirting each other with squirt guns from parked car to parked car in the parking lot of a 7-11 about 9pm one night.
We drove off to my friends house nearby and three squad cars converged on us lights, sirens blaring and cops with guns drawn laid us all down on the lawn – cuffed. Of course we were thinking “WTF didn’t we pay for that slurpee?” of course not thinking about the squirt guns. The cops searched our cars and found the three now empty dime store squirt guns.
Of course they let us off with a warning… good thing we used water instead of… Well, we all had some great stories in class for weeks after that – real heroes we were!
I wonder if that happened now I guess we would all have been shot! Either by the cops or some hero who is packing.
Yessiree, America has come a long way – to where no one knows! 😉
Cheers
#18 – Of course they let us off with a warning…
And of course had I been with you, this is the point where the situation would have escalated…
Who the fuck are you to warn me not to do something legal?
How about just apologizing for the humiliating inconvenience, you jackbooted thug, rather than trying to assert your power (which is on loan from the people, Mr. Public Servant)?
I sure as fuck hope you flatfoots aren’t letting some real criminals murder someone while you are fucking around with our legal squirt guns.
And if I really wanted to get cuffed and hauled downtown, how about you tell me what your probable cause is under the 4th Amendment?
In the early 90’s I got a detention for having a fake bullet on a keychain. I see nothing has changed 17 years later. It’s a bunch of bozos running these schools. I’ll be putting my kids in a private school instead.
goodbye freedom, it was nice almost knowing you
#18 I hear what your saying. If we had done that then as you said situation would have escalated.
So I was making a point how times have changed.
In the 70’s we were a bunch of kids mucking around and got collared by the cops. We all just did what the cops told us. We weren’t sure what we did that was wrong but it never occurred to us that something bad would come out of it. Cops back then were like our parents – they were authority figures and getting lawyered up didn’t exist at that time.
They did explain to us that at night it is difficult to for them to tell if that was a real gun or not – probable cause. They warned us not to muck around like that in a pubic place as it could be taken the wrong way. We happened to be unlucky that night as we were seen by one of the cops passing by that 7-11.
Did they overreact – I guess they did. But were we upset for our rights being trampled on? Didn’t occur to us back then as cops were still the ‘good guys’ and it was our fault for fooling them. Actually were awed by the fact that if someone flashed a gun the cops would be there to protect us.
Different time different attitude is what I am saying.
Cheers
Kids ALWAYS draw guns, they also draw naked people having sex.
when Dennis Miller was a liberal, he had a good routine where he commented that new laws were making “realistic toy guns” illegal because they were a danger to the public. Real guns however are still legal.
Um, sure that wasn’t George Carlin? I seem to remember that rant, but it’s on VHS, so it’d take about a week to find the cut….
J/P=?
When they said “drawing a gun”, I thought they meant pulling one out. It took a minute for my confusion to clear up.
#1 – “And yes, a country suffering from too many murders by firearms”
Oh my God! Guns are wandering around killing people *ALL BY THEMSELVES*??!?!?
People aren’t killed by guns. They’re killed by people. With guns.
And knives. And trucks. And second-hand smoke. And pillows.
Care to make a stupid overgeneralized comment on the ‘sort of people’ who’d own a pillow, too?
How about we start punishing people for what they do, not what they _could_ or _might_ do?
#24 – That’s what I thought it meant too… I was going to ask who would be against punishing a kid for drawing a gun at school, till I realized it was a hand drawing.
To bad the knee jerk reaction will be to indict the entire public school system because of one act of stupidity. If we closed everything where someone did something stupid, there would be no schools, restaurants, stores, hospitals, churches, etc…. (especially churches)*
*that was for you Mustard 😉
23–John==you are probably right, even sounds funnier with his voice saying “wtf?”
When I was a kid ((admittedly on a USAF compound in Japan)) we did not play with guns. We had real fireworks as in Roman Candles. Used to hide behind garbage cans and shoot them at each other.
I credit the Shinto religion for none of us killed or maimed but when the Japanese cops caught us, all they did was take our weapons away from us and bow===and that was only a week after we had peppered their guard shack. Its good the Japanese honor the little kiddies, and we won the war?
>>quite correct unless a discussion means something more than
>>never admitting the problem exists to begin with and any
>>restriction is disagreed with.
bobbo, did you star in the Wizard of Oz? You put up so many straw men (http://tinyurl.com/2nfh6n), it makes me think you must have been the scarecrow. Or were you the cowardly lion?
I have yet to meet a gun owner or 2nd Amendment supporter who balks at “admitting the problem exists to begin with” OR disagrees with any restriction. If you know of someplace in the US where gun sales are “unrestricted” (other than the street-corner transactions among criminals that will continue regardless of any laws to the contrary), please state where those places are. Every place I’ve ever been, guns are among the most HIGHLY restricted of commodities. Only for the law-abiding citizen, of course; if you’re a violent criminal, you can pick up a Saturday nigh special (or an AK-47) on any street corner in the ‘hood. Unrestricted, as it were.
The kid seems like sort of a ‘tard though. My 5-year-old grand daughter can draw better than that. He’s really 13?? That picture looks more like the Titanic, with hapless victims trailing off of a rope b/c there weren’t enough lifeboats. Since when do they make guns with tiny people on the trigger?
>>Obviously, it’s the smiley faces on the barrel that did him in.
btw, Uncle Dave, I believe the component with the smiley faces is the “slide”, not the barrel.
The only thing appearing on the barrel is that little string-like line, stretching back above what appear to be port holes. Maybe the school administrators thought that was the “link to al Qaeda”?
Mustard, I think there’s an S&W semi auto with vent holes along the side like that.