Monday, April 29, 2013

Words Fail Me

Would someone please explain to me what on God's green earth is so terribly wrong about a kid taking a Swiss Army Knife on a camping trip? (H/T to Moonbattery for the story.)
A 10-year-old California boy was suspended and threatened with expulsion after he brought a Swiss Army Knife on a week-long school school camping trip.
Oh, it happened in California. That explains it.
Tony Bandermann told Fox News that his son Braden was on a science camping trip with his class at Garden Gate Elementary School in Cupertino, Calif.

Bandermann, who was out-of-town on a business trip, said he received a telephone call from the school’s principal informing him that his son had violated the school’s weapons policy. The punishment, she told him, must be immediate and severe.

“She threatened to expel him,” he said. “She kept telling me, ‘you can’t bring a weapon to school.’ A Swiss Army Knife is a tool not a weapon.”
Take a good look at the picture below. It's not even a full-sized knife. It's a mini-Swiss Army Knife. There's no way that thing is a weapon. I think the principal was just pissed off because the knife's corkscrew was too small to open her bottle of wine.


Since he was unable to pick up his son, the principal put the boy in 24-hour isolation at the camp – held in a teacher’s lounge where he was forced to eat and sleep in solitude.

Bandermann said it’s unreal to think that a boy on a hiking and camping trip could get in trouble for having a Swiss Army Knife.
That's not the America I grew up in. Of course, I grew up in TX, not CA - thank God!
Braden is back in school now – but his father is still fuming. He accused the school district of overreacting.

“They’re not teaching critical thinking,” he said. “That’s what she’s teaching these kids – to react on your emotions instead of gathering information.”
Yep, that's how low today's public school system has sunk. Zero tolerance based on emotional knee-jerk reactions, without an iota of common sense.

I weep for the future.

5 comments:

j said...

Damn, we got an atta boy for being prepared with a good knife. I had to talk the folks into buying me the best, 'cause the other kids had them.

The pussification continues.

Toejam said...

PC, emotional reaction to a non-event, the "Liberal war-cry", is trumping old fashion common horse sense!

CenTexTim said...

Ditto, Jeff. If we showed up without our official Boy Scout knife we were dinged for not having the proper kit.

Toejam, these days there is nothing so uncommon as common sense.

PoppaJ said...

I got my first pocket knife when I was 6 or 7 and I've carried one ever since then. Where I went to high school in rural Oklahoma a knife in your pocket or on your belt, maybe a can of cope in your back pocket, and a rifle and/or shotgun behind the truck seat were only shocking when they weren't there; sometimes even for the girls.

CenTexTim said...

PoppaJ - Ditto re: the pocket knife. And I remember the parking lot at my high school being full of pickups with gun racks - and plenty of the gun racks were full. No one ever was shot there, though.