As far as I know, all school districts prohibit weapons on school property. Most schools have adopted a "zero tolerance" policy in order to avoid any charges of favoritism, arbitrary decision-making, and the lawsuits that follow claims of such.
Zero tolerance has now devolved into zero thinking or zero empathy.
A deaf three year-old preschooler named Hunter Spanjer employs a standard means of hand gesture to display, or sign, his name. The gesture includes crossing his middle and index fingers, a sort of thumbs up position, and the wagging of his hand back and forth.
This was held to be inappropriate and contrary to school/district policy. The gesture was deemed to appear too much like a gesture used to mimic holding a handgun.
There are times in which statements made in defense of people's action may be entertained and those in which justice, truth, and plain reason prohibit such activity. This case falls into the latter. The very act of engaging in debate in matters as ridiculous as this serves only to lend credibility to an argument that by its very nature has none.
The following quote from the link below illustrates by itself the depths to which we have sunk:
Bolding is added.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/nebraska-school-3-year-old-deaf-boy-sign-language-gesture-guns-change-video-article-1.1146024?localLinksEnabled=false
"A school spokesman called the issue a "misunderstanding" and said it had nothing to do with guns or weapons.
The name gesture was "not an appropriate thing to do in school," and administrators were asking Hunter to spell his name out, letter-by-letter, instead of using the sign, spokesman Jack Sheard told the Daily News.
"We want to do what is best for every student in our district, and we care more about that than everything else," Sheard said. "We are working with the parents to find the best solution we can. ' "
In the US we say that its time to put on hip-waders (high latex boots) because the bull manure (lies and false arguments) is getting too deep
Unbelievable.
A three year old kid who can't speak, and for whom communicating obviously already is a more ponderous task than for those of us who can hear and speak, is now supposed to employ sign language to spell out his name letter-by-letter; all this because administrators don't have the courage to do anything else but hide behind a policy that could not by any means be interpreted to have been made with such a unique situation in mind.
Note that the school has now circled their wagons and refused to comment further, citing what else but school policy, that states that speaking about a student violates rules governing privacy issues. Although they have not made any statement to the effect of admitting that they were wrong, they insist that this is all a misunderstanding.
The curious mixture of bumbling, stumbling, contradictions,and denials have left me wondering if some of Obama's White House Staff have left their old jobs and have accepted positions in the Grand Island School District in Nebraska.
If the child were mine, I would inform him that he is to sign/gesture his name in the manner that he has up until now and dare the school to charge him with violating school policy. The gesture is not a weapon, nor is it intended to mimic one, so the gesture is not in violation of school policy. The possible charge that my idea puts the kid in the middle has no basis because the school has already done that for me. This is not a difficult thing for educated people to work out.
Having gone as far as I can stomach in treating the weak-kneed administrators, I must note that part of the blame falls on ourselves and our society which we have created that demands that no one witnesses anything that could even remotely be perceived to remind someone of danger or violence. While people, children unfortunately included, around the world witness or are victims of real violence every singly day, we have decided that our society, one of the safest, will be so safe as to prohibit anything at all that reminds us that we are not immortal.
This is the culture of the sheep.This is the mindset that causes people to insist that their kids will never see a firearm, a deceased relative, or even a dead pet. This is the outlook that renders a people helpless when faced with barbarians who have in fact made inroads into our society.
Schools are terribly violent places in some regions of the US. This of course cannot be tolerated. But when a people who live in what is in all likelihood a very safe community decide that safety in school means the equivalent of the sterile environment of an operating room, we have wrecked ourselves.
OK, I am not done with School administrators. I am reminded of an incident to which I was assigned back in my days as a Police Bomb Technician. A local High School had received a threat. We responded, performed a threat assessment, took measures that we felt were appropriate, and notified the School Principal that were confident that the school could return to its schedule. With the investigation to identify the actor having been turned over to detectives, we went to the main office in order to take some necessary information for our reports. While waiting for the Principal to finish a telephone conversation, we were engaged in conversation by the Vice-Principal. He was a nice enough guy, but his comments betrayed the sheep mentality that too many of us have today. The gentleman remarked that the Principal was not sure, once he had been notified about the threat, whether or not he was going to report the threat to the police. "Because, he was worried about - (Then whispering to us) the guns." (meaning our firearms and those of the local police".
Those who now me personally can imagine how indescribably steamed I got at the thought that a man who is responsible for the safety of his students would be pridefully stupid enough to entertain the possibility of ruling out making notifications to the police. He affected to have a greater concern that the cops would then enter the school while in possession of firearms than he did about the possibility that a destructive device may have been placed in the school. Nothing flips my lid more than a mixture of pride and stupidity gift-wrapped to look like honest concern (Please apply that to the School Officials in the case of the deaf boy). Needless to say, I made no comment and blank-stared the man until he got the hint. I was in uniform and thus representing my employer, so I felt that debate was not appropriate. I saved my anger for the parking lot and the presence of my coworkers.
In closing, we are not supposed to speak ill of religions or political systems that have killed millions and threaten millions more with bondage, but we are to be so black-and-white with the rules as to be unable to make room for a kid to use his hands to communicate his name.
-Excerpts from the essay On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs by Retired Lt, Col. Dave Grossman:
http://www.mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
Bolding is added.
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land.....
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog..........
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. .......
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.........
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision
Unbelievable.
A three year old kid who can't speak, and for whom communicating obviously already is a more ponderous task than for those of us who can hear and speak, is now supposed to employ sign language to spell out his name letter-by-letter; all this because administrators don't have the courage to do anything else but hide behind a policy that could not by any means be interpreted to have been made with such a unique situation in mind.
Note that the school has now circled their wagons and refused to comment further, citing what else but school policy, that states that speaking about a student violates rules governing privacy issues. Although they have not made any statement to the effect of admitting that they were wrong, they insist that this is all a misunderstanding.
The curious mixture of bumbling, stumbling, contradictions,and denials have left me wondering if some of Obama's White House Staff have left their old jobs and have accepted positions in the Grand Island School District in Nebraska.
If the child were mine, I would inform him that he is to sign/gesture his name in the manner that he has up until now and dare the school to charge him with violating school policy. The gesture is not a weapon, nor is it intended to mimic one, so the gesture is not in violation of school policy. The possible charge that my idea puts the kid in the middle has no basis because the school has already done that for me. This is not a difficult thing for educated people to work out.
Having gone as far as I can stomach in treating the weak-kneed administrators, I must note that part of the blame falls on ourselves and our society which we have created that demands that no one witnesses anything that could even remotely be perceived to remind someone of danger or violence. While people, children unfortunately included, around the world witness or are victims of real violence every singly day, we have decided that our society, one of the safest, will be so safe as to prohibit anything at all that reminds us that we are not immortal.
This is the culture of the sheep.This is the mindset that causes people to insist that their kids will never see a firearm, a deceased relative, or even a dead pet. This is the outlook that renders a people helpless when faced with barbarians who have in fact made inroads into our society.
Schools are terribly violent places in some regions of the US. This of course cannot be tolerated. But when a people who live in what is in all likelihood a very safe community decide that safety in school means the equivalent of the sterile environment of an operating room, we have wrecked ourselves.
OK, I am not done with School administrators. I am reminded of an incident to which I was assigned back in my days as a Police Bomb Technician. A local High School had received a threat. We responded, performed a threat assessment, took measures that we felt were appropriate, and notified the School Principal that were confident that the school could return to its schedule. With the investigation to identify the actor having been turned over to detectives, we went to the main office in order to take some necessary information for our reports. While waiting for the Principal to finish a telephone conversation, we were engaged in conversation by the Vice-Principal. He was a nice enough guy, but his comments betrayed the sheep mentality that too many of us have today. The gentleman remarked that the Principal was not sure, once he had been notified about the threat, whether or not he was going to report the threat to the police. "Because, he was worried about - (Then whispering to us) the guns." (meaning our firearms and those of the local police".
Those who now me personally can imagine how indescribably steamed I got at the thought that a man who is responsible for the safety of his students would be pridefully stupid enough to entertain the possibility of ruling out making notifications to the police. He affected to have a greater concern that the cops would then enter the school while in possession of firearms than he did about the possibility that a destructive device may have been placed in the school. Nothing flips my lid more than a mixture of pride and stupidity gift-wrapped to look like honest concern (Please apply that to the School Officials in the case of the deaf boy). Needless to say, I made no comment and blank-stared the man until he got the hint. I was in uniform and thus representing my employer, so I felt that debate was not appropriate. I saved my anger for the parking lot and the presence of my coworkers.
In closing, we are not supposed to speak ill of religions or political systems that have killed millions and threaten millions more with bondage, but we are to be so black-and-white with the rules as to be unable to make room for a kid to use his hands to communicate his name.
-Excerpts from the essay On Sheep, Wolves and Sheepdogs by Retired Lt, Col. Dave Grossman:
http://www.mwkworks.com/onsheepwolvesandsheepdogs.html
Bolding is added.
"Most of the people in our society are sheep. They are kind, gentle, productive creatures who can only hurt one another by accident." This is true. Remember, the murder rate is six per 100,000 per year, and the aggravated assault rate is four per 1,000 per year. What this means is that the vast majority of Americans are not inclined to hurt one another. Some estimates say that two million Americans are victims of violent crimes every year, a tragic, staggering number, perhaps an all-time record rate of violent crime. But there are almost 300 million Americans, which means that the odds of being a victim of violent crime is considerably less than one in a hundred on any given year. Furthermore, since many violent crimes are committed by repeat offenders, the actual number of violent citizens is considerably less than two million.
Thus there is a paradox, and we must grasp both ends of the situation: We may well be in the most violent times in history, but violence is still remarkably rare. This is because most citizens are kind, decent people who are not capable of hurting each other, except by accident or under extreme provocation. They are sheep.
I mean nothing negative by calling them sheep. To me it is like the pretty, blue robin's egg. Inside it is soft and gooey but someday it will grow into something wonderful. But the egg cannot survive without its hard blue shell. Police officers, soldiers, and other warriors are like that shell, and someday the civilization they protect will grow into something wonderful.? For now, though, they need warriors to protect them from the predators.
"Then there are the wolves," the old war veteran said, "and the wolves feed on the sheep without mercy." Do you believe there are wolves out there who will feed on the flock without mercy? You better believe it. There are evil men in this world and they are capable of evil deeds. The moment you forget that or pretend it is not so, you become a sheep. There is no safety in denial.
"Then there are sheepdogs," he went on, "and I'm a sheepdog. I live to protect the flock and confront the wolf."
If you have no capacity for violence then you are a healthy productive citizen, a sheep. If you have a capacity for violence and no empathy for your fellow citizens, then you have defined an aggressive sociopath, a wolf. But what if you have a capacity for violence, and a deep love for your fellow citizens? What do you have then? A sheepdog, a warrior, someone who is walking the hero's path. Someone who can walk into the heart of darkness, into the universal human phobia, and walk out unscathed
Let me expand on this old soldier's excellent model of the sheep, wolves, and sheepdogs. We know that the sheep live in denial, that is what makes them sheep. They do not want to believe that there is evil in the world. They can accept the fact that fires can happen, which is why they want fire extinguishers, fire sprinklers, fire alarms and fire exits throughout their kids' schools.
But many of them are outraged at the idea of putting an armed police officer in their kid's school. Our children are thousands of times more likely to be killed or seriously injured by school violence than fire, but the sheep's only response to the possibility of violence is denial. The idea of someone coming to kill or harm their child is just too hard, and so they chose the path of denial.
The sheep generally do not like the sheepdog. He looks a lot like the wolf. He has fangs and the capacity for violence. The difference, though, is that the sheepdog must not, can not and will not ever harm the sheep. Any sheep dog who intentionally harms the lowliest little lamb will be punished and removed. The world cannot work any other way, at least not in a representative democracy or a republic such as ours.
Still, the sheepdog disturbs the sheep. He is a constant reminder that there are wolves in the land.....
Until the wolf shows up. Then the entire flock tries desperately to hide behind one lonely sheepdog..........
Here is how the sheep and the sheepdog think differently. The sheep pretend the wolf will never come, but the sheepdog lives for that day. .......
There is nothing morally superior about the sheepdog, the warrior, but he does have one real advantage. Only one. And that is that he is able to survive and thrive in an environment that destroys 98 percent of the population. There was research conducted a few years ago with individuals convicted of violent crimes. These cons were in prison for serious, predatory crimes of violence: assaults, murders and killing law enforcement officers. The vast majority said that they specifically targeted victims by body language: slumped walk, passive behavior and lack of awareness. They chose their victims like big cats do in Africa, when they select one out of the herd that is least able to protect itself.........
There is no safety for honest men except by believing all possible evil of evil men. - Edmund Burke
Here is the point I like to emphasize, especially to the thousands of police officers and soldiers I speak to each year. In nature the sheep, real sheep, are born as sheep. Sheepdogs are born that way, and so are wolves. They didn't have a choice. But you are not a critter. As a human being, you can be whatever you want to be. It is a conscious, moral decision
If you want to be a sheep, then you can be a sheep and that is okay, but you must understand the price you pay. When the wolf comes, you and your loved ones are going to die if there is not a sheepdog there to protect you. If you want to be a wolf, you can be one, but the sheepdogs are going to hunt you down and you will never have rest, safety, trust or love. But if you want to be a sheepdog and walk the warrior's path, then you must make a conscious and moral decision every day to dedicate, equip and prepare yourself to thrive in that toxic, corrosive moment when the wolf comes knocking at the door.
Some individuals would be horrified if they knew this police officer was carrying a weapon in church. They might call him paranoid and would probably scorn him. Yet these same individuals would be enraged and would call for "heads to roll" if they found out that the airbags in their cars were defective, or that the fire extinguisher and fire sprinklers in their kids' school did not work. They can accept the fact that fires and traffic accidents can happen and that there must be safeguards against them.
Their only response to the wolf, though, is denial, and all too often their response to the sheepdog is scorn and disdain. But the sheepdog quietly asks himself, "Do you have and idea how hard it would be to live with yourself if your loved ones attacked and killed, and you had to stand there helplessly because you were unprepared for that day?"
It is denial that turns people into sheep. Sheep are psychologically destroyed by combat because their only defense is denial, which is counterproductive and destructive, resulting in fear, helplessness and horror when the wolf shows up.
Denial kills you twice. It kills you once, at your moment of truth when you are not physically prepared: you didn't bring your gun, you didn't train. Your only defense was wishful thinking. Hope is not a strategy. Denial kills you a second time because even if you do physically survive, you are psychologically shattered by your fear helplessness and horror at your moment of truth.
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