I must say…the Progressives have been quite patient in their efforts to “change our attitudes” for certain things. One of the big moves they have made in the last few years is the Zero Tolerance policies in schools across the nation with regard to guns (or weapons of any kind).

It’s really quite ingenious actually…if it weren’t so stupid. From the time our children first enter school, they are taught that any kind of weapon is bad, but guns in particular are very bad. They are to be feared at all cost. Anyone who owns a gun is a “bad” person. If their mommy or daddy owns a gun, they should go home that very day and tell them to get rid of it.

Who needs to abolish the Second Amendment, when they can just train the next several generations that guns are “bad”, and that only approved government agencies should have them? When these children become adults, they will call for the abolishment of the Second Amendment as a matter of course.

Heck…they don’t even teach in schools any more that the Second Amendment was put into the Bill of Rights to protect the citizens of this country from a tyrannical, overgrown, big government trying to take away their God-given rights.

There was a story just yesterday in Examiner.com about a teacher handing out a workbook to seventh grade students at Grant Middle School in Springfiled, IL that said: “Amendment 2 (1791): Right to Bear Arms. This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison. The founding fathers included this amendment to prevent the United States from acting like the British who had tried to take weapons away from the colonists.” {emphasis added}

Wow…the condescending way this is written to kids who are 7th graders aside, about the only thing that paragraph got right is that the Second Amendment is a part of the Bill of Rights. You would think, after the uproar this raised, that the school would pull this patently false material, right? Nope. According to an interview with the Superintendent on 970AM WMAY yesterday, he said that the workbook is not the only resource that provides a definition of the Second Amendment, and argued that the interpretation found in the material teaches students, “what happens with the right to bear arms in the context of 2014.”

“In the context of 2014”…why should the “context of 2014” play into an accurate description of the Second Amendment? The superintendent argued that many states do require that citizens register their firearms, therefore it’s okay. But, that’s not what the workbook says. It is providing an absolutely, 100 percent false definition of what the Second Amendment says, and why it was included in the first place.

But I digress…this is a post about the Zero Tolerance policies and how they are seemingly devoid of any intelligence or common sense.

I was able to easily find 9 stories just going back to the beginning of last year (and there are sooooo many more) about students being suspended from school for “violations” of the Zero Tolerance policy in some way, shape or form.

#1 – On March 4, 2014 the Columbus Dispatch had a story about a 10 year old boy who was suspended for three days for committing the cardinal sin of….making a “gun” with his index finger and thumb and pointing it at another student. This is worth a three day suspension, which will go on this child’s record, and follow him from school to school for the rest of his life.

#2 – On February 24, 2014 a Clarksville, TN high school student was suspended when “officials found a knife inside his father’s car” according to NewsChannel5.com. The knife was found during a “random lockdown” where “his car was chosen to be searched.”

Before I continue, may I just ask: What the hell is a school doing making random searches in the cars driven by their students without a search warrant? This is not the first time I’ve heard of this being done. Are the Constitutional rights of students suspended when they set foot on a school campus?

Back to the story: The student gave permission for the car to be searched because “he had nothing to hide”. His father, a commercial fisherman, had apparently left the knife in the car unbeknownst to his son. When the young man protested that it was his dad’s car and his dad’s knife and he had no knowledge of it being there, he was told, “it doesn’t matter…it was in your possession anyway.” A side note: No, it was not in his “possession”. It was in a car he was not occupying at the time. What the vice principal said in reaction to the uproar about the 10 day suspension this young man received really sums up what these students are forced to go through: “Unfortunately, that’s the way it is now: Guilty until proven innocent. It’s part of this Zero Tolerance policy.”

#3 – A 10-year old Pennsylvania boy (are you seeing a pattern here…little boys acting like little boys) was suspended for a day and threatened with expulsion for shooting an imaginary “arrow” at a fellow classmate using nothing more than his hands and his imagination according to The Rutherford Institute on December 4, 2013. As reported, “…and during his walk back to his seat, a classmate and friend of Johnny’s held his folder like an imaginary gun and “shot” at Johnny. Johnny playfully used his hands to draw the bowstrings on a completely imaginary “bow” and “shot” an arrow back. Seeing this, another girl in the class reported to the teacher that the boys were shooting at each other. The teacher took both Johnny and the other boy into the hall and lectured them about disruption. The teacher then contacted Johnny’s mother, Beverly Jones, alerting her to the “seriousness” of the violation because the children were using “firearms” in their horseplay, and informing her that the matter had been referred to the Principal.”

Can anyone say overreaction?

#4 – In a story on the Fox Carolina website on November 13, 2013 an autistic student at Hillcrest Middle School was suspended for bringing a picture of a bomb to school. According to his mother, “her son had made the hand-drawn picture of the bomb during the weekend at home. [He] is a fan of the video game Bomber Man and drew the cartoon-ish like explosive.” Apparently he decided to take the picture to school, and that’s when things exploded.

Sorry…couldn’t resist.

#5 – Click Orlando reported on September 30, 2013 that an 8-year old boy was suspended for using his hand as a play gun in a game of cops and robbers with some friends. His mother, understandably upset about this, made a very good point that applies to all of these kids: “They took a child that has never been in trouble before and went to the extreme,” said his mom. “A child that has no history of violence is now classified as a violent offender.”

#6 – NBC 10 in Rhode Island had a report about a 12-year old boy who was suspended for three days from Coventry Middle School for bringing a small gun keychain to school. The keychain (which is slightly larger than a quarter) was in his backpack, and fell out. A classmate picked it up and started showing it around to other students. A teacher confiscated it, and before he knew it he ended up with a three day “vacation”.

#7 – In one of the more infamous stories that made the rounds at the time, Fox 45 reported on March 2, 2013 about a 7-year old Park Elementary School student in Baltimare who was suspended for two days for making a gun out of a pastry. The kicker…the young man was actually trying to make a mountain by nibbling around the edges of the pastry. It was the teacher who decided it looked like a gun, and took him to the principal.

#8 – This one was really outrageous. On September 25, 2013, The Blaze reported on three students who were suspended for a YEAR for playing with Airsoft Guns on private property. Yes, that is correct…they were NOT on school grounds…not even near school grounds. The boys were playing with the guns while waiting for the school bus to arrive. That bus stop is 70 yards away from where they were playing. The boys said they never took the toy guns to the bus stop or to school, but “that didn’t stop the school from suspending them for “possession, handling and use of a firearm. However, the offense was altered to change the wording to ‘airsoft gun’ instead of ‘firearm.’” How generous of them.

#9 – This last story isn’t about “weapons violations”, but is once again an example of Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence. In a story out of Colorado today on KUSA TV, an 11-year old girl who shaved her head to show solidarity for a classmate and friend fighting cancer who had lost her hair was suspended for violating the school’s “dress code policy.” According to a statement from the school board of directors, “Caprock Academy does have a detailed dress code policy, which was created to promote safety, uniformity, and a non-distracting environment for the school’s students. Under this policy, shaved heads are not permitted.” So, wouldn’t that mean that the child fighting cancer should also have been suspended? Granted, she didn’t shave her head, but losing it because of an illness would be much more distracting than shaving it to show support for a friend. It would seem if you’re going to uphold it for one, you should uphold it for the other.

I realize this post was rather long, but it seemed important to me to point out the absolute stupidity, and cruelty, that is being perpetrated against our children in schools. Most of these stories are fantastic illustrations of how they are trying to “program” our kids to fear any kind of weapon. But, mostly, they show that there is a systemic problem in our education system that must be addressed at every level.

If the parents in this country don’t stand up, start going to the school board meetings, and vote for people who show common sense, it’s only going to get worse. As it is in nearly all things, it is up to us to disrupt our very busy lives to affect the common sense changes that are necessary. And, then we must be ever vigilant that we don’t fall into complacency and let it happen all over again.