NJ threatening to take boy from parents - for twirling a pencil in class

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

when we missed the first day of deer season, we would be excused with "buck fever".

In the school district that I attended in PA, we got the first two days of buck season off and the first day of doe season as planned vacation days.... many of our teachers hunted too.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

when we missed the first day of deer season, we would be excused with "buck fever".

Hasn't opening day in Texas always been on a Saturday.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

when we missed the first day of deer season, we would be excused with "buck fever".

When I look back on those days I kind of feel like I was living in some kind of Andy Griffith rerun, but that is really pretty much what it was like. Things were so much different then, and I know all older people say that about their childhood.... But I think things did dramatically shift the other way not long after you or I graduated. Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken more time to enjoy it.

I often wonder what people who grew up in the city think when they read posts like these. It's just the way it was back then and it never caused a problem.

Que Edith Bunker singing "those were the days" and fade to black.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: trollz

I have a question for everyone who has replied so far :

" do you believe you have all the facts of the case and have responded rationally" ?

Sadly they don't need them, they're just here to backslap and re-enforce their world view and political leaning.
All they need to know is that some liberal a-hole somewhere is trying to take their guns and they're angry about it.
Never mind the fact that this is a story from the MSM, you know, the very same MSM who lie and twist things all the time, fabricate truths in order to fit an agenda.... but oh no, not when it's something you agree with or disagree with strongly, then it's 100% accurate and little timmy really was beaten by police for twirling a pencil.

You see it on so many threads on ATS.

It's pathetic.

a reply to: blupblup

No. This is far more important than guns. These are our children. Children that are being taught to obey regardless of what is asked of them. No matter if it's over the top, ridiculous, right, wrong, etc. no questions asked blind obedience is what this is coming to. We are talking about kids in grades as low as preschool getting into trouble for chewing his pop tart or chicken finger into the shape of a gun here. I mean come on.... can anyone say in all honesty that that is a reasonable thing to do? Is it a reasonable expectation of a 5 year old to not be able to play cops/robbers or cowboys/Indians on the playground?

That's what this is about. There is no issue of gun rights here, as children can not own guns. It is an issue of the government using the public school system to groom blind, loyal, and above all.... obedient adults for the future.

There is gray in all aspects of life. To expect a child to never venture into the gray area is asking far too much. To turn around and punish them for it is even worse IMO.

I'm all for zero tolerance when it comes to having actual weapons, drugs, alcohol, threats of physical harm etc. but we need to use a little gray matter when it comes to these issues. If the folks making the decision can't do that adequately, then they should find someone who can.

If the boy had bought a real gun to school at his age... actions should and would have been taken. Twirling a pencil "like a gun" then having the teachers screaming for psych evaluations and CPS... is beyond overboard.

Others may see it as a gun rights issue. I am a mother... I see it as an overreach by our government and those in charge at the school on children and their parents. Nothing more. Nothing less.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe


Well with the amount of school shootings the US has, I suppose it's a fine line, ignore the "potential threat" and another school gets shot up, act on it and investigate and then you're accused of being PC gone mad or Police state or whatever...

I don't know of anywhere else that has these issues.

I guess the bed's been made.... time to lie in it.

When twirling a pencil is a "potential threat" of gun violence, someone in authority has short circuited. If a person can't see it, my condolences.

a reply to: blupblup

I will be the first to admit that I don't have any good answers when it comes to fixing this whole mess. But I don't think the pencil twirlers and pop tart eaters are the ones that need the "extra attention". Most of these kids get in trouble for doing simple things that many of us did and there was never anything wrong with it until people decided they wanted to start shooting up schools.

I truly do not feel like these kids are being punished because somebody somewhere really and truly felt like they could be a real threat to themselves and others. I do feel it is to ingrain in them to do exactly as they are told exactly when they are told to do it. If less time were spent on watching what preschoolers were fashioning out of their food, then maybe they could focus more on others that may truly have an issue that needs to be looked into.

We definitely have not made ourselves a cozy bed to sleep in, but I do think we could address the real issues more often if small crap like this wasn't blown up into some huge catastrophe waiting to happen when it's just a pencil.

originally posted by: Kangaruex4Ewe
a reply to: blupblup

I will be the first to admit that I don't have any good answers when it comes to fixing this whole mess. But I don't think the pencil twirlers and pop tart eaters are the ones that need the "extra attention"

But see.... this is why I made my original post, It wasn't for "twirling a pencil" it was because another boy (a supposed bully) shouted out to the teacher that the twirler was making shooting signs and threatening and she should send him to jouvie.
It's not that the teacher saw a kid twirling a pencil and decided to kick him out of class.

The misinfo and ridiculousness of this thread is what made me post in the first place.

This should be titled

Should kids be able to get other kids temporarily banned from school and investigated just because they feel like it

It has nothing to do with pencils really.... but those with an agenda make it so and don't bother reading the story.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

Is there an update somewhere?

Has the school etc. been inundated with fitting outrage?

Has there been a press conferences with stammering disingenuous rationalizations?

Has there been a march on city hall? The Governer's office?

Are the sheeple just taking it in the rear and wimpily shuffling along?

Where is the story now?

This is beyond guns, for sure. It is about turning the kids into cogs in the great globalist machine quite away from and apart from parental teaching, influences, religion etc.

And it is about tyrannical bureaucracy mushrooming into the amoeba that ate the planet.

originally posted by: ignorant_ape
a reply to: trollz

I have a question for everyone who has replied so far :

" do you believe you have all the facts of the case and have responded rationally" ?

Yes. You wanna know why?
Because I was treated with similar ridiculousness when I was in high school.

How do you twirl a pencil like a gun?
How do you twirl a gun? Like Lone Ranger style?

I can't do that with a pencil. Can you?

a reply to: roadgravel

Not when i was in 8th grade. RE: typically...i don't know. "State regulations" mean something different when you have a population density as low as we have out here in the desert.

originally posted by: NarcolepticBuddha
He should thank his lucky stars he didn't do a 'rubber pencil' trick. Who knows what that could have been misinterpreted as!

When I was in the 1st grade, some chap actually stabbed me in the eye with a sharpened pencil. It missed and struck me just below in the fleshy part of the eyelid. I walked to the nurse's office trailing blood. After all was said and done the principal just told him to apologize to me.

I bet that kid would have been locked in Juvie until 18 had we lived in this new world of Draconian rules and hyperbole reaction. It's just getting more ridiculous every day.

Oh yeah. And once this kid actually brought a friggin' machete (I'm not joking) in his backpack to elementary school. I told the teacher because he was showing it off in the playground. He was just asked not to bring it back.

Things are weird. We went from extreme laxity to extreme fascism.

I work as a teacher, and last year I was working a job teaching what would be called the 'bad' kids. Many of these students had been kicked out of mainstream schools. One of my students (who I got on quite well with) pulled a machete out of his bag, in class, and believe it or not, started sharpening a pencil with it.

I said to him,'why did you bring a machete to school?''

He informed me he was going to 'cut someone's arm off', after school. This student's father was Sergeant-at-arms for a bikie gang, and I have no doubt he was capable of doing exactly what he said.

were they armor piercing pew pew noises?

and what the pencil fully automatic?

How did the kid even get hold of such a dangerous pencil? i blame the parents.

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: roadgravel

Not when i was in 8th grade. RE: typically...i don't know. "State regulations" mean something different when you have a population density as low as we have out here in the desert.

Hmmm, state law based on how many want to follow it. Sounds right though.

a reply to: Kangaruex4Ewe

not picking on you in particular - but are you freaking serious ????????????????

you have heard ONE SIDE of the tail - that is NOT " all the facts "

originally posted by: roadgravel

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: roadgravel

Not when i was in 8th grade. RE: typically...i don't know. "State regulations" mean something different when you have a population density as low as we have out here in the desert.

Hmmm, state law based on how many want to follow it. Sounds right though.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

How many laws are on the books that are ignored? So the State can ignore laws it feels are not worth their time, but peons can't?


ETA: i think that is the premise of the way people are objecting to the new Connecticut gun law.

a reply to: ignorant_ape

Is there something about this specific story, of the hundreds of other stories carried every day here that really tripped your trigger? I mean, I'm honestly curious here. You landed in the thread in attack mode to the idea anyone even commented on this story (I'd been one of those comments, so it got my attention)

If you have more context or information to correct the story as it exists in the public record today? By all means! I'm interested....otherwise? I'm confused by the extreme flash of passion here?

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan

originally posted by: roadgravel

originally posted by: bigfatfurrytexan
a reply to: roadgravel

Not when i was in 8th grade. RE: typically...i don't know. "State regulations" mean something different when you have a population density as low as we have out here in the desert.

Hmmm, state law based on how many want to follow it. Sounds right though.

Isn't that the way it's supposed to work?

How many laws are on the books that are ignored? So the State can ignore laws it feels are not worth their time, but peons can't?

ETA: i think that is the premise of the way people are objecting to the new Connecticut gun law.

I don't think picking and choosing which laws to follow is a good idea over all. But there is the fact of jury nullification that can be used to prevent someone from being convicted of idiot laws.