Thursday, February 04, 2010

More Zero Tolerance Idiocy

Just get rid of the people who create such rules. Get rid of those who enforce them with zeal, and consider getting rid of those who enforce them even though they truly know better. Do this, and we won't ever again have to hear about a 9-year-old almost being suspended for having a 2" Lego gun at school:

"This principal is a bully and a coward, and needs to be held accountable," said Laura Timoney, 44, after her teary fourth-grader was nearly suspended for playing with the tiny toy at lunch...

Patrick Timoney, 9, was terrified when he was yanked into the principal's office to discuss the teeny-weeny plastic "weapon."

"The gun was so little," the boy said. "I don't understand why the principal got so upset. I was a little nervous. They made me sign a statement"...

"The toy gun is not the issue," she (the boy's mother) said. "A lack of common sense is the issue."
Lego toy guns are not weapons. I'm just saying.

7 comments:

Rhymes With Right said...

But you know how it is.

If we don't mete out the same punishment to the kid fiddling with the miniature, non-operational toy gun in the cafeteria as we do to the kid who fires off a few rounds from an AK-47 in the cafeteria, then we will get sued -- especially if the kid with the toy is white and the kid with the real gun is a minority.

Besides, that's what our lawyers told us we have to do, so we are just following "best practices".

Jenna Culbertson said...

This is pretty ridiculous. What next suspension for making a hand gesture that looks like a gun?

Darren said...

Jenna, please don't offer any ideas!

Rhymes With Right said...

Jenna, Darren, I believe it has been done. And don't forget the kid suspended for drawing a picture of his uncle, who was deployed in Iraq, with a gun.

Ellen K said...

Where are they finding these principals? They sound like the SNL character from Mainway Toys trying to justify "Bag O Glass." A two inch lego gun is NOT a weapon. By that reasoning, I surely hope they don't have a baseball team, because a bat is more likely to be used as a weapon than a lego toy. What idiocy.

allen (in Michigan) said...

Where there's no motivation to employ common sense why would anyone be surprised when common sense is ignored?

neko said...

When I initially read this, I assumed that the kids had built a small gun out of LEGO. I didn't realize he had just put a tiny plastic gun into a LEGO mini-figure's hand.

How stupid can an administrator get?