“Level One or Level Two gun? Wait…I’m sorry! It’s just a finger!”
Should Ethics Alarms post on substantially the same ethics stories every time they occur? The news that an Ohio fifth grader has been suspended from school for three days for the offense of making an imaginary gun out of his fingers is just such a repeat. I wrote about a similar no-tolerance episode in Montgomery County a year ago, here and here. What is left to say, and why say it again?
I think you have to say it again, in this case at least, because it didn’t sink in the first time. In Montgomery County, Maryland, the school system was forced to revoke the suspension and even apologized to the boy as a result of the ridicule that showered down on the hapless administrators who inflicted the absurd punishment. Officials at Devonshire Alternative Elementary School, where ten-year-old Nathan Entingh wielded his deadly digits “execution-style,” couldn’t have missed the Maryland fiasco, yet they failed to absorb its lesson, which seems extremely obvious to the reasonable, the fair and the responsible: “This is stupid, cruel and abusive treatment. Don’t do it.”
Why didn’t they heed the lesson? I think one reason may be that such hysterical policies are now less about hysteria than they are about thoughtful anti-gun indoctrination.
The radical gun-hating progressives who disproportionately occupy administrative positions in the schools are willing to endure some ridicule as well as to victimize some children if it helps make guns and gun-related play less attractive, thus pointing to a Nirvana where the NRA is a shadow of its former self, and the only ones who own guns are criminals, the police and the government. The alternative theory is that these administrators are, as blogger Glenn Reynolds suggests, “too stupid to be allowed around children, much less entrusted with any sort of authority over them.” I have written similar opinions to his in the past, but I am beginning to think something more sinister is at work. (Is public school political indoctrination more sinister than the proliferation incompetent teachers and administrators? Yes.)
Still, both theories can be supported by the facts. In Ohio, the school actually stated that Nathan’s hand had created a “level 2 lookalike gun.” I wonder what a level ONE lookalike gun is. Is the distinction the number of fingers a child uses to form the barrel? Is this, as I suspect, just jargon designed to make a harmless gesture seem more threatening than it is, to imbed the message“guns BAD” into impressionable young minds? Or is it, as Reynolds would have it, proof of aggressive idiocy?
From the Christian Science Monitor:
“Since the 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act mandated “zero tolerance” for students bringing guns to school, school officials have expanded that basic notion to include gun play with toy guns, food shaped into guns, and, now, in Ohio, even hand gestures. Recent school shootings, including the Sandy Hook massacre in December 2012, have ratcheted up tensions – and principals’ sensitivities.”
This sounds good if you’re not paying attention, but it is really a series of non-sequiturs. What do toy guns have to do with real guns? Real guns kill people; presumably that’s why they are banned from schools. Toy guns don’t kill people, so the reason for banning them must be something else. Hands aren’t toys. Hand gestures are communication–now the schools are banning references to guns in jest and play.
“…the Sandy Hook massacre in December 2012, have ratcheted up tensions – and principals’ sensitivities” …about what? The dangers of Pop-Tarts and fingers? Tensions have nothing to do with it, unless, as in the Reynolds theory, the administrators are dumber than dirt. A 10-year-old’s finger can’t hurt anyone, unless it is imitating Moe from the Three Stooges. Such a finger does indicate, however, an interest in, appreciation of, and lack of repugnance for guns. Can’t have that.
So they set out to intimidate and a bully those politically incorrect, barbaric, traditionally American ideas out of him, as well as any other children who are paying attention and don’t want to be branded as nascent killers. That, I think, is the real reason the same gun no-tolerance child abuse keeps happening. Just writing it off as stupidity, abuse of power by petty school tyrants, hysteria, and the other descriptions I and others have attached to this phenomenon in the past may be missing the real objective, and the real danger.
That is why we must not stop calling attention to these episodes and condemning them whenever they occur. It is an attempt at political and ideological indoctrination by our educators, and that’s even worse than stupidity.
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Sources: The Blaze, Christian Science Monitor, Columbus Dispatch,
Ethics Alarms 
I would not be surprise if a level 1 lookalike gun would require the school administrator to cut the hands off the perpetrator. “It’s for the greater good.”
Oh wait. To truly disarm a child one must remove the appendage at the shoulder. My error.
Didn’t you watch Grindhouse? Leg guns!
And my guess is that a Level 1 would be an actual toy gun- you know, something that actually looks even remotely like a gun. Level 2 is reserved for fingers and pop tarts. Level 3 is for pictures of guns on computer screens or shirts. Level 4 is for remembering that guns exist.
I thought the level 1 look alike guns were the menacing looking ones with look a like bayonet lugs on the bottom.
This doesn’t even break ground into the more serious assault look-a-like-guns.
No, no, no! All the rules about bayonet lugs and flash suppressors and assault rifles are only needed for ADULTS. You see, there’s still some adults in this country who like guns so we have to deal in shades of gray to convince them guns are scary.
Why introduce details in school? We convince them GUNS ARE BAD AND DANGEROUS AND SCCARY AND NOT NICE AND YOU GET IN TROUBLE and then we don’t ever need to worry about them protesting they should get to carry one, or about explaining how that collapsable stock makes your .22 way more dangerous than this here deer rifle.
Sorry, I still vote “school administration incompetence.”
Or, to be more precise, “persistent school administration efforts to avoid making ANY decision requiring judgment, thought, or common sense if there’s some policy or regulation to point to instead.”
Case in point? Zero-tolerance drug policies at schools.
If there’s a liberal / conservative split on illegal drugs, it’s “conservatives are against ’em, liberals not so much.”
But give your typical school district a no-tolerance drug policy, and you end up with innumerable episodes such as the 13-year-old black female student in Ohio who was expelled for giving a Midol to her classmate (just to name the first example I could quickly Google up).
I don’t think so. It’s a general push on all fronts to condition children away from empowerment and independent thought and the notion that “all things are not allowed, until the central authority grants it” in direct opposition to the American way “all things are allowed, until the central authority stops it”.
I don’t think your example undermines the generalized form of Jack’s assertion, rather strengthens it.
condition them towards* the notion
When kids start being punished for containing items that look like drugs, or mentioning drugs, or shaping other objects in a manner that might resemble drugs, or possessing imaginary drugs – especially in the face of the national ridicule others have gotten for taking exactly the same stance… Then i’ll buy incompetant. Until then, I’m firmly on the side of “this is thoughtcrime.”
Like being suspended for bringing a sandwich in a ziploc baggie (drug paraphenalia),
Or posessing Tic Tacs…
http://gawker.com/nypd-arrests-man-for-possession-of-breath-mints-1476913076
While the punishment is too harsh in my view, I have no problem with the rule itself.
Children passing medications to other children can be dangerous, and schools could find themselves open to wrongful death lawsuits if a child died from consuming medication they obtained from another child at school.
I think the problem is deeper. I was just following orders.
http://americablog.com/2013/12/asthmatic-canadian-teen-dies-school-policy-wont-let-carry-inhaler.html
I believe the problem is compulsory public school attendance laws. There is no more reason for that.
If people can take classes entirely online to get credentials for a real estate license or an insurance license, why can not K-12 public education be taken entirely online?
It is sad, but the indoctrination is working. I’ll point you to a personal experience from a few weeks ago.
My 2 year old was at one of these noisy, crowded mall play areas and there were a couple of older kids pointing (gun) fingers and running around. From time to time one of them would “drop dead” and that caused my young one to laugh. After some 30 minutes only one of the older kids was left and my son decided to play with him. So he would let the other kid point his way and then he would fall down giggling like crazy and having the time on his life. I must confess that it made me feel somewhat uncomfortable, but I stopped to think for a second and decided that it was a stupid thing to worry about – I should be feeling proud that my little guy was joining in social play, an important part of development.
Now, I come from a family that did not own guns, but we did not despise them either. I’ve shot a few times and know how to handle one safely (other cultural differences may apply, but are irrelevant for this issue). Still, the media and culture around us made my instinctive reaction to be one of fear/disgust… One thing is to treat guns as powerful and easily misused tools that require respect, another when a hand in the shape of a gun makes one experience worry and fear. I hope I’m not too far gone, time to go the range to refresh those skills.
My favorite Western, “Shane,” has a chilling sequence comparing gun play with actual gun violence—so does Terminator II. I don’t think adult discomfort with it is new or wrong. It’s worth keeping in mind.
And with that my Netflix queue sits at 471. I’ll never again be bored. (And not to make you feel old, but the only name I recognized there is Jack Palance)
HA! We quit filling our Netflix after about 20-30, because inevitably something else comes along that bumps items out of place and soon we realized that certain shows just were never going to get watched or delivered.
More importantly, in addition to the social aspect of play, play, ESPECIALLY imaginative play, is just a child instinctively rehearsing themselves for adult life. No rational person will deny that opposing bad people with force, when the time comes, is a good thing. When children play cops and robbers, or soldiers, etc, they are instinctively acknowledging that bad people have to be opposed and can be opposed by the common man — that the common man is responsible for keeping good in this world.
I think that is the instinct that the hyper-left wishes to condition out of the children.
Well we can’t have such ‘dangerous behavior’ happening in our public schools. This kind of reminds me of the “Music Man” song in which the con man Harold convinces the folks in River City that “”Ya Got Trouble” since a pool table has been delivered to the local billiard parlor. If I was the parent of this kid in the administrators office, I would be very tempted to show that petty tyrant a different finger and walk out of the office.
It amazes me that someone actually took the time to create a rule against “making an imaginary gun out of” one’s fingers.
Was there not something more productive to do, like dusting the furniture.