knife spin off

[Proud Eagle]

This thread was spun from another thread.They world is full of morons. I am not talking about Eamons son either.

 

Why in the world do we live in a country where a Boy Scout that accidentaly takes a knife to school gets suspended for 3 days? There is no rational argument for that.

 

It isn't that different from my apartments weapons ban. Obviously every apartment contains at least a knife or two that would qualify as weapons. Who in their right minds wold stock a kitchen and not include a good size knife? Fortunately they don't really inforce the weapons ban, though I am sure a gun would recieve a different response.

 

I remeber when I was in high school they banned laser pointers. There were several teachers that would "confiscate" them and then return them at the end of the day without ever reporting it like they were supposed to. I even knew one teacher that did this with knives and lighters if the student asked them to. If they reported it those students would have all gotten in deep trouble do to a zero tolerance policy on contraband items that included knives, lasers, and lighters. (oddly it didn't include tobaco, so those people smoking in the bathroom every day got a slap on the wrist, even though they were also violating a state law making it a crime to smoke on school property, go figure)

[Fat Old Guy]

We've had two Scouts hauled off in handcuffs by the police for accidentally taking a knife to school. No charges were filed but it was embarassing and aggrevating. Considering how far the schools will go to not make the stupid feel stupid and embarassed by their lack of intelligence, it is interesting that they will embarass a kid by having him dragged off by the police.

 

 

[packsaddle]

Three days suspension? Accidental? I'd say he got off lightly. Taking a weapon to school is serious. The penalties depend on the state and local school regs but around here it could mean expulsion, depending on history of offenses. No sympathy here. He just got a cheap civics lesson in the 'obedient' point of the law.

[hops_scout]

OK, try this one. We had a kid who "had a knife" in the locker room. That was two years ago, but I still dont believe it belonged to him. He seems to be somebody who would, but I just dont think it was his.

 

Anyway, he didnt get anything.

 

As requested...

 

His jeans were on the floor. Somebody kicked them (he isnt very well liked) and they spun around. When he picked them up, there was a small knife on the floor. I dont believe it was his because if it was, it would have been deeper in the pocket and wouldnt just fall out that easily.(This message has been edited by hops_scout)

[packsaddle]

Hops, you didn't give us much to work with there.

Edited part: Thanks, the edit helped.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[Zahnada]

I'm curious as to how these weapons are being found. Are these stories about kids getting suspended and punished for having knives at school taking place in schools with metal detectors or searches?

 

Having a knife in a backpack from a camping trip is completely believable. However, if the student just keeps it in the backpack, unless he's searched, nobody would ever know and he could remove it once he's home.

 

I hate to not give the kids from these stories their due credit, but I assume the only way it was discovered they had weapons was because they were telling people or pulling them out and showing people. In such cases, I lose my sympathy for the kids in question. Otherwise, I don't know how anyone would ever find out they had a knife at school.

[Fat Old Guy]

"I'm curious as to how these weapons are being found. Are these stories about kids getting suspended and punished for having knives at school taking place in schools with metal detectors or searches?"

 

In the two cases that I mentioned, the Scouts found it in their jacket pocket and foolishly removed it. In both cases, a "friend" immediately ratted them out.

 

It is all foolishness. The kids who are the ones who are likely to use the knives aren't the ones getting punished.

 

 

[Sturgen]

By the technical standards schools use I was armed with a deadly weapon every day of my junior and senior year. I carried a small Swiss Army knife daily, I wasnt dumb enough to pull it out and show it to my friend, or try to start a fight with it. I started carrying by accident, where I would just forget to take it out of my pants pockets before I headed to school, but eventually I gave up on caring. Guess what, your kids schools are filled with weapons, guns, switchblades, butterfly knives are everywhere in schools. On top of that pens, pencils, rulers, and the average math textbook make great deadly weapons. As a scout I felt, and feel today that it is my responsibility to be prepared for any emergency that may happen at that school. And as any scout knows, a good sharp knife is the most important tool you can ever carry. (Incidentally I also carried a small first aid kit with a swisscard in my school backpack so I guess I had two knives at school. Naughty, naughty me.

[Fuzzy Bear]

As a Shop Teacher a few years ago, I had students in my class that used and needed knives for some projects. There was a ban on all weapons and a Zero Tolerance policy. Needless to say, some brought them anyway citing that the rule could not possibly apply to a person in a shop class. It did apply and I gave them each one opportunity to correct their behavior. We had a discussion about it and if they returned with it a second time, the knife was taken up and the student was sent to the office.

 

Generally, most accepted the correction and abided by the policy but some persisted and I had to act, in spite of my mixed feelings. Then one day, a young man brought a gun to school hidden in his backpack. Of course, he could not resist the urge to show it to his friends but not to use it. Since he was in my first period class, word got back to me during third period. By then, he was off in handcuffs to the jail.

 

I was glad someone had not simply taken the gun up and given it back to him at the end of the day.

 

FB

 

[fotoscout]

The answer is We cant have double standards. We teach our scouts to be responsible with their knives. That responsibility includes knowing when and where it is acceptable to carry a knife. School property is simply not an acceptable place to carry a knife. There is no doubt that some kids, like Eamonns son, make inadvertent mistakes. Fortunately the school has rules, but in order for them to enforce those rules on the bad guys they also have to enforce them on the good guys. Beyond that, Im sure that #1 son is a fine upstanding young man and not a moron.

 

 

And speaking of blind ignorance, I did whittling chip with my boys in the public school that we normally meet in. Maybe I should tell the school, then they can suspend 18 boys and have the 19 parents arrested.

(This message has been edited by fotoscout)

[packsaddle]

I understand the frustration of seeing rules change and worse, seeing them applied unequally. I carried a pocketknife to school every day back in the 'old days'. Lots of students did. On more than one occasion I saw them pulled, on one occasion one was stuck into my back and I had to deal with it. The no-weapons rules for school today are much better than the way it was then.

Today where enforcement involves judgement, we must fight poor judgement. Where punishment is mandatory, we must apply it equally. None of these approaches are perfect and I sympathize with efforts to make improvements.

 

I still carry my pocketknife (not the same one) but I honor (as I do with my CWP) those places in which such are prohibited. I trust that I will pay the price if I don't.

[Fat Old Guy]

" Fortunately the school has rules, but in order for them to enforce those rules on the bad guys they also have to enforce them on the good guys."

 

What a brave new world attitude.

 

Discretion has always been part of enforcing rules. Cops make decisions about who to arrest daily (at least they used to). DA's make decision about who to charge on a daily basis as well. Also, as New Jersey Dude will likely tell you, there has to be an intent to break the rules, I think that the lawyers call it mens rea.

 

Common sense has left the building.

 

 

 

 

[Fat Old Guy]

"I still carry my pocketknife (not the same one) but I honor (as I do with my CWP) those places in which such are prohibited. I trust that I will pay the price if I don't."

 

I carry my knife in schools on a regular basis. The only places that my knife doesn't go are the courthouse (metal detectors) and the airport (even more metal detectors).

 

 

 

 

[le Voyageur]

My take on this subject is the exact opposite of these current zero tolerance standards. The problem with this concept is that teenagers are being punished for their natural tendencies toward aggresive behavior. Let's put boxing, the martial arts such as kendo, and akido, as well as shooting programs back into schools to let males learn to be males within the boundries of sportsmanship, and fair play. Enough of the Oprahfacation of the male gender, time for some balance....

[Proud Eagle]

One must remeber that in most places a standard pocket knife is not considered a weapon, and is very rarely considered a deadly weapon. (Though anyone with a brain can figure out how to kill someone with just about anything. Schools are filled with nasty weapons: lunch trays (especially when broken, produce very sharp, hard edge, saw someone get cut up very badly by one), forks, spoons, dinner knives, anything made of glass, hammers, saws, scissors, power tools, toxic chemicals, flammible liquids, flammible gases, books, rocks, chairs, string, wire, baseball bats, hockey sticks, musical instruments, and all sorts of stuff. That is just the legal stuff in the classroom. Then there are the razors hidden in select volumes in the library, the guns in the courtyard greenhouse, the various drug related items such as needles that a person could get stuck by just for rubbing against someone in the crouded hall. There are also all sorts of fun things in peoples cars, trucks, and trailers in the parking lot. There is the kid running the lawn service business with his mowers, edgers, weed eaters, and chain saw. The kids going hunting after class with the shot guns in the tool box in the pickup. Plus all sorts of people have tools, knives, saws, axes, hatchets, road flares, shovels, spades, or other various and sundry items in their trunks.

 

I remember I freaked out once because I realised I had a troop set of wood tools in my car one day. That afternoon when I saw the lawn service guys truck and trailer in the lot I realised I probably had nothing to worry about.

 

What I am getting at is that at most any school there are all sorts of very dangerous items on hand. Many of those things are much more dangerous than a knife. So all the bans on knives may sound like good policy, but who do they really help? If someone is planning on stabbing you they are going to sneak in with their knife, and the first time anyone will know it is in the building is when they stick their target with it. On the other hand the Boy Scout who left the knife in the backpack gets caught somehow.

 

Probably the most dangerous things of all in a high school are there as part of school equipment. Oxi-acetalene torches can make a pretty good IED in the right hands. In chemistry class we made contact explosives with simple chemicals. There are all sorts of nasty acids and bases in concentrations that a spoon full could cause permanent injury. The components needed for several types of artificial drugs are also on hand. The worst is the fact that someone that knows what they are doing (or has really bad luck) could conjure up poison gas in most high school labs.

 

The point I am trying to make isn't that we should have an anything goes policy in our schools. Rather, the policies should be made with some common sense. Also, the enforcement needs to be done in a logical way. If they find a Boy Scout with a pocket knife on the same day they find a guy with a record of fights drug use, who should get the greater penalty? Anyone with a head knows which one is the greater danger. However, many of the policies (the school system policies, not so much the laws) require that they both be treated the same. I know at my school the only option the principal would have would be a one year suspension. (They would get sent to the "alternitive" school, a place notorious for lax inforcement of every rule, with minimal educational capacity, and a student body whose primary occupation is teaching each other how to commit crimes and get away with it.)

 

OK. I am done with the rant for now.