Comments on: Souvenir rifle shell gets 4th-grader suspended

By: ben

ben — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 20:36:45 +0000

wow. just wow.i once brought a bullet shell to school. no one cared. like, jeez, its empty atleast. really. the schools sporks are even more dangerous than that. and it was probably an m4 shell. if they thought he would swallow the shell, chances are, it wouldnt fit in a 4th graders mouth. these people are just plain hypocrytes.

By: CJ

CJ — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 17:02:28 +0000

Okay, I see your point Chrissie. Thanks for hanging in there for me.

By: Chrissie

Chrissie — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 14:27:19 +0000

Like I said before, it has nothing to do with whether any of us here believe guns are a good thing or a bad thing. It was the stance of the school that guns are a bad thing. It was the school who decided to make a huge fiasco out of this child’s act. I think that the school could have made a more tactical, intelligent example of this occurance then how they did. Whether that’s a gun safety or something else… but not humiliating this little boy and his family.

By: CJ

CJ — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:28:28 +0000

Chrissie, the problem is that there is nothing wrong with a gun. Even if it did represent a gun, what’s the issue? There would be less crime if there were more guns. Guns don’t equal bad. Bad people = bad. It is not up to the schools to educate our children that guns are good or bad. They are inanimate objects that do nothing without a human wielding them. Our schools should be teaching gun SAFETY if they’re going to teach anything about guns. Guns keep our government honest and they keep our neighbors honest.

By: SSgtJ

SSgtJ — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 18:29:49 +0000

Thank you Chrissie, for explaining your point.

By: Chrissie

Chrissie — Fri, 06 Jun 2008 16:28:14 +0000

It represents a gun, as it is part of the ammunition for a gun. I am not saying that there was any possibility of physical danger with bringing the case of school – an empty case can’t really do much of anything, can it? The fact of the matter is that the school wanted to make an example of this child’s actions – the point being “guns = bad”. Whether you or I believe in that point doesn’t matter – it is what the school thought and I was offering an alternative to suspension, which was gun safety. Do I think the child needs a gun safety course? No. Do I think the whole school needs a gun safety course? No. But it could have been an alternative instead of humiliating this child and his family. Do you see what I am trying to say, SSgtJ?

By: SSgtJ

SSgtJ — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:53:03 +0000

Chrissie, in this article, the child did not demostrate a need for a gun safety course. Even if he were showing it to his friends, gun safety was not an issue. There were no guns, there was not ammo, there were no safety issues. In fact, the child was operating within safety parameters. He had a totally safe object. If the teacher didn’t understand that, then the TEACHER should go to a gun safety course. As far as what the empty round represents … exactly what is that?

By: Chrissie

Chrissie — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:50:25 +0000

That I understand, SSgtJ. It’s a casing that is harmless – the issue is what it represents, I’m guessing. I mentioned the gun safety crash course as the most extreme thing they should have done, not suspension. I personally do not think the child did anything wrong, at least not wrong enough to deserve all of this nonsense.

By: SSgtJ

SSgtJ — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 22:44:22 +0000

Note the phrase “empty rifle shell casings”. As most of you already know, we are talking about something that is less dangerous then the pencil the teacher used to write the kid up. If anyone should go to a gun safety course, it would be the teacher that has no clue. We are talking about an empty casing with no primer, gunpowder or projectile. Just a little hollow piece of brass like a small whistle. Totally harmless.

By: Chrissie

Chrissie — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 15:00:10 +0000

Considering the fact that he is a young boy (and boys will be boys!) he more than likely was showing it off to his friends and drawing attention to his cool souvenir.
This alone, however, does not warrant this child being suspended and the school causing such a big brouhaha about it. A more intelligent, progressive approach would have been having the child sit down with a guidance counsellor and discuss gun safety.
Perhaps even having a school assembly about gun safety would have been appropriate.
They wanted to make a point – that violence, in any form, is not allowed on school campus – but all they did was ostracize a young child and make themselves look like a bunch of assholes. These people need to open a dictionary and memorize the definition of “tact”!