Winnacunnet High School, Hampton, N.H. - Some members of the school board want to pull the ROTC program. Why? Because it has an air-rifle range that students in ROTC can practice shooting skills. Some members of the school board, in emotional hysteria, have decided that this absolutely has to go, because it sends a "mixed message" to the children - that air-rifles (or other guns) aren't allowed in school, but these kids can use air-rifles because they're in the ROTC program. And it makes the other children "uneasy" that the ROTC cadets drill with ceremonial, nonfunctional weapons, according to one parent. Fortunately, saner heads prevailed, and the ROTC program will continue. Quoth board member Paul Kelley:

"Where should we draw the line? How about getting rid of our archery program too, because a bow and arrow is a very dangerous weapon? What about baseball bats? They can be a weapon. Maybe we should use badminton rackets out there. I think you have to use some common sense and I think these people have myopic vision on this issue, and they don't see ROTC as a good program."

Three cheers for the state of Texas - they passed an bill dealing with REAL school safety. Namely, once a year the schools hold an assembly to offer the Eddie Eagle program of gun safety for kids, run by the NRA.

From the articles on the Zero Tolerance...

Part of the insanity is fallout from the idiocy over the Columbine shooting - specifically, the idea that the teachers should have forseen Klebold and Harris's assault, and acted ahead of time. The school was sued for allowing "behavior" like theirs, and so the other schools across the nation decided to "suitproof" themselves by censoring all kinds of "violent acts" - even thoughts, drawings, and dreams! In this lawsuit-happy land, I guess we reap our crop now. Draconian overlegislation and good ideas carried to absurdity, to keep from being protected. Common sense is no more...as such. Now the list of Horrible Child Offenders:

Hunter Marner, sophomore in highschool in Eufaula, Alabama. Good kid, his father is a family-practice doctor, the boy is a member of the National Honor Society, and will be applying to the Naval Academy after he graduates. Well, that was the plan anyways. Dr. Marner, his father, removed the broken mirror I mentioned earlier and accidentally left the scraper and pocketknife in the car. During a "routine" drug search of the boy's car, the scraper and knife were discovered. Hunter Marner, good kid, honor society student, and future US Navy officer, was suspended from school, will be forced to take 45 days of "alternative school" this next semester, was barred from all extracurricular activities at school, has been thrown out of the National Honor Society with no possibility of readmittance, and now will not have a chance to get accepted at the Academy. Oh, and, no drugs were found in the car.

Again, the search and seizure laws may apply to this case. Yes, the boy was a minor, and his car was parked on school property. However, how many SOPHOMORES in highschool (either not quite or just barely 16) can get their own insurance and car loan? The parents often have to sign on the car as well - making it partially theirs. This extends constitutional protection to the vehicle, which could theoretically jeopardize the school's whole "drug search" program. And how would the police react? The father of the son admitted a moment of carelessness in leaving the knife and scraper in the car, and it was not the son's doing. The father's a well-known member of the community, a doctor, and the son is not a kid with any kind of record or bad past. At best, the cop would rub the dad's nose in it a bit and chide him for leaving the knife in the car, then let them both go without anything. Not throw the kid out on his @$$ and destroy his future.

The other one I mentioned earlier - Lindsay Brown, a graduating senior honor student with scholarship to college currently attending Estro High School in Ft. Meyers, FL, had a kitchen knife fall out of a box into the back of her car while moving. When a search came to her car and found the knife, she was kicked out of school, arrested for felony posession of a weapon, kicked out of the honor roll, was not allowed to graduate with her class, and will lose her scholarship to college.

Let's not forget the treatment of the unnamed third grader in Monroe, LA who drew a picture of a soldier (quite possibly his uncle in the army) with a knife and canteen, and a fort in the background with a list of all the different weapons there. Poor kid was suspended for the drawing, because the principal was frightened by it. This weak-kneed pansy told the local newspaper the following:

"It had hand grenades, knives, and guns. We have zero tolerance for drawings with guns. We can't tolerate anything that has to do wtih guns or knives."

Once this story hit the major news, there was an angry nationwide response. The school never apologized, and the Director of Child Welfare and Attendance for Ouachita Parish School System told the newspaper that he was concerned about copycat drawings of armed soldiers! He went on:

We have some other students doing the same thing, if you put one in in-house suspension for doing it, you have to put all. It's only fair. You can't be inconsistent."

And also, go look for a little research paper called "The Dark Side of Zero Tolerance: Can Punishment Lead to Safe Schools?" Authored by Russ Skiba and Reece Peterson for Phi Delta Kappa, international teacher association. Some quotes follow.

"Indeed, the popularity of zero tolerance may have less to do with its actual effects than with the image it portrays.... Writing in the Harvard Educational Review, Pedro Noguera argues that the primary function of harsh punishment is not to change the behavior of the recipient, but to reassert the power of authority."

"Virtually no data suggest that zero tolerance policies reduce school violence, and some data suggest that certain strategies, such as strip searches or undercover agents in schoo, may create emotional harm or encourage students to drop out."

"Whether such policies work or how they affect the lives of students may be less important than providing harsh punishment for offenders as a form of generalized retribution for a generalized evil."

And have these zero-tolerance policies had any effect? None whatsoever. Zero Tolerance didn't keep the recently-sentenced Brazil boy from shooting and killing his teacher, nor did any of the federal laws about a) youths posessing firearms, b) firearms within 1000 feet of schools, c) concealed carry, d) assault with a deadly weapon, e) murder. Didn't stop that 13 year old catholic schoolgirl from doing the same to her classmate last year. Damn well didn't stop the two shootings in my old hometown at the two highschools I (fortunately) didn't go to. So, three cheers for the Zero Tolerance program, as effective as a corpse in a football game - just getting in the way and causing a horrendous stink.

What did we do before Zero Tolerance? We had kids that carried guns to school, daily. And learned how to shoot them and operate them safely. Ever hear of any mass school slayings from students back in your parents day? The nation was safe. Our kids were safe. They were smart. Howdy Doody, Roy Rogers, and John Wayne were heroes of this nation. NOW who do we have for heroes? Who do we have to look up to? The generation of the hippies and peaceniks and flower-power have taken their reality-denying ideas and grown, now attaining places of leadership where they can influence the next generation to hate the military, hate violence, all of us getting along in happy enforced peace, while they - the ones who spoke out against an authoritarian government a generation ago - stare at us and try to control all last aspects of life to keep their fantasy vision of a Safe World on track. Ignore history. Ignore our past, for violence is a bad thing and this country had a violent history. Vilify the founding fathers as warmongering fools. Deny the evils and horrors of war, even if the last of those great wars truly reshaped the world to what it is today. Deny HISTORY. A generation conditioned in their youth to accept an overbearing government striving for more power. And then what happens to their children? George Orwell might have been a little off in his date, but still might end up being proved right.

So, what is it they want to keep kids safe from? Let's examine the school shootings, the true lie behind it all, and find out just how prevalaent this "siege against our schools" is. On average, there's 52 million students in school any given year. Assuming they all go 4 years, this would estimate 74.5 million students since 1996. Since 1996, 20 of them have snapped and begun school shootings. Since 1996, only 40 people have been killed, including some of the 20 shooters. This total of 40 includes all adults shot and killed as well, the number of students is lower. Where did the NRA get this figure from? A pair of Justice Policy Institute papers titled "School House Hype". In the rampages in Pearl, MS, West Paducah, KY, Jonesboro, AR, Edinboro, PE, and Springfield, OR, all copycat sites after Columbine, at a grand total of 11. Out of nearly 75 million. Lightning claims more than twice as many as that a year, do we have Zero Tolerance against thunderstorms? And yet, with those microscopic numbers, 40% of parents believe that another one WILL happen to their kids - because of the media hype these killings - and their copycats, from other people who want all the attention - gather.

What about the victims of Z-T? Do the math. Hunter Warren, Lindsay Brown, the third grader in Florida, the fifth grader in Oldsmar Elementary led off in handcuffs after he was found drawing guns and was later apparently expelled from the school, a boy who carried a steel ruler to shop class and was thrown out of school, the girl expelled for using the 1" nail file on a fingernail clipper, the tiny keychain toy that got a Michigan youth suspended, the infamous illegal chicken-finger gun that got a Jonesboro, AR elementary school student suspended, a Virginia girl expelled for carrying scissors to class. Plus a host of other kids for "finger guns" - pointing their finger and saying bang, paper guns, all of which had no criminal intent. All of them with an expulsion for "violent/criminal activity" on their permanent school record. How about THIS for a mixed message, hmm? It's good to watch this sort of stuff on TV and movies, but simple play is bad and wrong? Or anything that might resemble famous murders - trenchcoats are popular, and always have been. Yet they were banned from many schools after the "Trenchcoat Mafia" bit was run across the media. Anything vaguely reminiscent of a shooting - anything that poses a threat of a lawsuit because of "unsafe conditions" - is crushed.

MAKE SURE you know where your children are going. Make sure you know what they're learning. Get involved in their lives, and show them the truth. For it is who we are - wars and peace alike, violence and passiveness alike. Your children are the future, and so are their successive generations - defend sanity, defend freedom, and fight back against the lunacy going on in this nation. Those schools are PUBLIC - their money comes from your taxes. They are responsible to you, the citizen, as an organ of a government that is also ultimately responsible to you. Do not believe the lie. FIGHT IT!

Sgt. Stedenko passes on an excellent quote to remember about respecting your armed forces who put their lives on the line for you. "There will always be an army in your country. Either your army or some other country's army. Which would you prefer?" - Unknown