Is the solution to violent crime more gun laws?
I’d ask you to think rationally now. Detach yourself from your emotions and think logically as you consider the topic.
Most violent crime is committed by repeat offenders who have a pattern of felonies. They don’t act out of impulse. They are not killing loved ones in a fit of anger. They are not nice people. Typically they are young, drug abusing, school drop outs fighting over the sale drugs or the right to sell drugs in a given territory. Others are using guns, knifes and their own fists to take property from unarmed individuals. They have committed dozens of crimes prior to them even being caught. They are caught many times before they even are convicted and are convicted a few times before they serve any time. Do you see anything wrong here?
So we now have this drug using, 24 year old young man who sells drugs for a living and has served a couple years time in the state prison for his fifth or sixth arrest. After his release he gets one of the tools of his trade, a pistol, from the same people that supply his drug trade. We then pass a law requiring that all gun owners register their guns, or a law that bans a certain type or color of gun or requires all gun owners to have the mark of Cane tattooed on their foreheads.
Do you honestly think that this young predator, this man who you fear will shoot you or rob you will take one nanosecond of time to even consider the penalties of this new law? It is illegal (last time I checked) to kill someone, rob them, deal drugs and to do violence using a gun already. What makes you think that infringing on my legal right to own firearms is going to do you one tiny bit of good? Remember that it is people that kill people and not guns.
Paul
Third-grader suspended for gun-shaped medallion in school
January 13, 2001
PONTIAC, Michigan (AP) -- School officials have suspended a third-grade student under the state's zero-tolerance weapons law after he brought a 1 1/2-inch-long gun-shaped medallion to class.
The boy apparently found the piece of jewelry in a snow bank and brought it to Owen Elementary School on Wednesday, school officials said.
"State law takes precedence and requires us to take action even though it was a toy," said Donna Poag, director of elementary education for the Pontiac School District.
The item posed no threat to students but could frighten someone who didn't get a good look at it, Poag said. The boy, whose name was not released, never pointed the item or threatened anyone with it, she said.
School officials have not determined how long the suspension would last, The Oakland Press reported Friday.
So now we’re suspending children who bring jewelry shaped like a gun. When appearance becomes illegal don’t you think things have gotten a little extreme? When I was a child we would play with our toy guns right out in the public streets - guns so realist that the police would shoot and kill a seven year old so stupid to play with one in the light of day. What has this society done to such a basic human right?
Boy Suspended for Pointing Chicken
JONESBORO, Ark. (AP) - An 8-year-old boy was suspended from school for 3 days after pointing a breaded chicken finger at a teacher and saying, ``Pow, pow, pow.''
The incident apparently violated the Jonesboro School District's zero-tolerance policy against weapons. The boy was suspended last week.
Kelli Kissinger, mother of first-grader Christopher, said she believed the punishment was too severe.
``I think a chicken strip is something insignificant,'' she said. ``It's just a piece of chicken. How could you play like it's a gun?''
South Elementary principal Dan Sullivan said he was prevented by law from discussing Christopher's suspension.
Sullivan said the school has zero-tolerance rules because the public wants them.
In March 1998, four students and a teacher were killed and 10 others wounded when two youths opened fire on a schoolyard at Jonesboro's Westside Middle School.
``People saw real threats to the safety and security of their students,'' Sullivan said.
A school discipline form provided by the boy's mother and signed by Sullivan says the child was suspended because he ``took a chicken strip off his plate, pointed it at (a teacher) and said 'Pow, pow, pow,' like he was shooting her.''
Sullivan said punishment for a threat ``depends on the tone, the demeanor, and in some manner you judge the intent. It's not the object in the hand, it's the thought in the mind. Is a plastic fork worse than a metal fork? Is a pencil a weapon?''
Boy revoved from school for drawing
The Associated Press
May 11, 2001 OLDSMAR -- A boy was taken from his elementary school in handcuffs after his classmates turned him in for drawing pictures of weapons. The 11-year-old fifth grader was not charged with a crime in the Wednesday incident. His name is not being released to protect him, school officials said.
``There were some drawings that were confiscated by the teacher,'' Oldsmar Elementary School Principal David Schmitt said. ``The children were in no danger at all. It involved no real weapons.'' Still, Schmitt refused to discuss details of the boy's case.
``All I can tell you is it was a threat . . . against students,'' he said. ``Nobody in particular, but students in general.
``We just need to get it through kids' heads that there are certain things you don't say and there are certain things you don't draw,'' he said.
The boy was handcuffed by school police for his safety, according to Pinellas County School District spokesman Ron Stone.
``That's normal procedure in a situation like this,'' Stone said. ``The primary concern was to make sure we get appropriate services for the child.''
Making threats is not unusual for students in elementary and middle schools, said Nancy Zambito, a director of school operations for the school district.
Depending on the severity of the threat, Zambito said, the outcome for the student can be a number of things.
Those possibilities range from disciplinary action by the school _ like suspension or expulsion _ to being arrested, or taken to a hospital under Florida's Baker Act, which allows for the involuntary commitment of people who threaten or try to hurt themselves or others.
``It's nothing unusual and we address them all seriously because, of course, we don't know,'' Zambito said. ``And in most cases, our prime goal is to let those students know what is appropriate to say and what is not, and how to be angry and cute and funny without alarming people.
