Laura Timoney fumes after son Patrick, 9, is busted for bringing 2-inch-long toy gun to PS 52

Laura Timoney fumes after son Patrick, 9, is busted for bringing 2-inch-long toy gun to PS 52

www.nydailynews.com

An irate Staten Island mom blasted a grade school principal Wednesday for treating her son like a pint-sized Plaxico Burress after he brought a 2-inch-long toy gun to school.
...
Patrick and a friend were playing with Lego figures in the school cafeteria on Tuesday when he pulled out the faux machine gun and stuck it in the hands of his plastic police officer.

(visit the link for the full news article)

Seriously?
No, seriously?

This lady is in charge of an entire school? We have people that think a 2-inch plastic toy is a weapon deciding what kids learn in our schools? Hell, even a pencil is more dangerous. Should we suspend students that sharpened their pencils a little too much too?

Imo, the principal is obviously unfit to run a school and she needs to be ousted.

www.nydailynews.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Zero tolerance = zero intelligence on the part of teachers and administrators.

You can put the blame for this where it belongs, on the lawyers. These policies are put into place to protect the schools from being sued into oblivion.

She and people like her are the result of generations of kids being brought up gun-ignorant. Should be considered abuse to leave your kids mindless and dumb about a thing so potentially serious.

And here they are passing their stupidity and ignorance on to even more children.

dear god, everyones so concerned about being so politicaly correct that their not even aware that their becoming completely useless.

you can't scratch your azz without enraging some pro rights group. Fruitful times and malaise have given rise to all these people who think they know how everyone else should run their lives.

and their winning !!

America needs to grow a pair again.

The boy's 2 inch toy gun was clearly a threat to the pricipal because she has a two inch toy brain.

At least you guys aren't this freaking retarded.

Your posts give me hope for a better future world...

Your progressives have not invaded this thread to tell you of the underlying dangers of allowing your children to play with toy weapons will net you one psychopathic, homicidal, raving, right wing, neo-con parasite.

I have no faith in the world anymore, people are so damn scared of everything, and have no common sense to take a step back and actually look at a situation.

This case is obviously blown way out of proportion.



Oooh look at my avatar WEAPONS!!!

[edit on 4-2-2010 by Doom and Gloom]

Ahh, the Daily News

Gotta love a paper that includes "Tiger's porn star mistress shares 100 steamy texts" as one of it's Editors Picks

So, I'm one of those liberal gun-control freaks, and I'm gonna say it sounds from this story like the principal totally overreacted. Assuming that the mom's description of the kid as a math-loving straight-A boy with no disciplinary history is true, I don't see why the toy wasn't just taken away and returned to the boy at the end of the day with a warning that that particular toy shouldn't be brought back to school. No big deal, no signing papers in the principal's office, no near-suspension.

Even if there was some history there (the boy had previously been warned not to bring toy guns to school, for instance), it sounds like the principal overreacted.

Unfortunately, I'd not be surprised if the mom is milking her day in the papers for all it's worth, and I'm a little wary about accepting her word that her child is a saint. Maybe he is, maybe not. I just wonder about people who seem so eager to get their kids in the newspaper.

Originally posted by muzzleflash
At least you guys aren't this freaking retarded.

Your posts give me hope for a better future world...

AMEN!!!

Second line.

Happens in Australia too.
Couple of years ago my 11 year old grand son was busted for taking to school a 3 inch crossbow he had made for his soldier in a school project.

Absolute lunacy.

PQ

edit to add, it didn't even work, it was just a model !

[edit on 4/2/2010 by PennyQ]

reply to post by americandingbat


Why should the TOY be taken away? I do not understand this.

It's a bleeding TOY, FFS!

I do not understand your thinking here. Please elaborate as I can see no logical reason, whatsoever, to take a tiny plastic toy away from a child unless he/she is trying to eat it.

Let us also hope this lady loses her job. Anyone who so obviously is lacking any common sense should not be in charge of a school.

Just another example of how we have lost our country.

Originally posted by TheLoony
reply to post by americandingbat

 

Why should the TOY be taken away? I do not understand this.

You did see the "and returned to him at the end of the day," right? I'm assuming that the school in question has a rule against bringing toy guns to school. Along with any number of other things that kids shouldn't bring to school, that the teacher will take away during school hours and return to the child later.

What makes this story even worth raising an eyebrow at is that this was not what we usual call a "toy gun" -- i.e. a toy designed to look like a gun and be held by a child to play with. This was a Lego gun designed to be held by a Lego man, and there's no way that it could be perceived as possibly real even by someone who knows as little about various kinds of firearms as I do.

The reason I think it's reasonable that even such a miniature toy gun not be allowed at school is basically for simplicity's sake. Instead of getting into specifics of what toy guns are and aren't okay, just say none of them are okay (in school, obviously, I'm not talking about what toys are okay for kids to play with at home or elsewhere).

It's a bleeding TOY, FFS!

So are larger toy guns that may even appear to other children to be real guns. I don't think that prohibiting children from bringing toy guns to school is a gross violation of their rights.

I do not understand your thinking here. Please elaborate as I can see no logical reason, whatsoever, to take a tiny plastic toy away from a child unless he/she is trying to eat it.

I hope that my elaboration helped. It's not about the toy, it's about the rule, and making sure that it's easy to understand and follow. Why do kids need toy guns at school?

this is all getting WAY out of hand. Has anyone here seen the documentary "the war on kids"? it has a lot of discussion about issues like this, including a boy who was punished at school for holding a breaded chicken strip like a gun and saying "pow!" i highly recommend that documentary, its just crazy the things that kids are getting in trouble for these days.

when i was in the second grade i tried to take a small pocket knife to school to scare some kid, and i didnt get in hardly any trouble at all. i just got a good lesson, and i never did that again. thats what needs to happen...educate children about *why* these things are bad...you cant just tell them its bad and expect them to understand why.

[edit on 4-2-2010 by devilishlyangelic23]

Originally posted by muzzleflash
At least you guys aren't this freaking retarded.

Nope, but the principal sure did go "full retard" on this decision.

Pretty sad. Guess a neighborly game of Cowboys and Indians would be guaranteed expulsion these days. Excuse me, I meant to say, "cruel land stealing white people and earth loving Native Americans."

Zero tolerance = zero intelligence on the part of teachers and administrators.

Almost right. It should read zero tolerance=zero room for judgement on the part of teachers and administrators.

I agree, it was a HUGE over-reaction on everyone's part. But that's what zero-tolerance is about. No ifs, no buts, no wait a minutes.....just if you bring a toy gun to school, its outta there.

I can see another viewpoint here...say another child witnessed the kid playing with his little leggo gun, went home and had a nightmare about the school getting massacred. Now you've got that kid's parents suing the school for mental health damages and dereliction of duty for not enforcing the zero-tolerance policy. Yep, that's an extreme example, but if you are familiar with the sue-happy state of mind that prevails in America right now, then you can see its plausible.

I'm a teacher.....and although it would get me in a LOT of trouble to officially say this....when something like this occurs I tend to look the other way and not report it to the administration. Simply because I know if its reported, it becomes 'official' and something has to be done. Much better if I just handle it myself. The majority of teachers I work with do the same thing. My guess is perhaps someone in authority witnessed this and was 'forced' to do something.....

Either way, its a sad day when a child is punished for playing.

The kids are being indoctrinated to believe that guns are bad. That is the goal of zero tolerance rules.

While my daughter has done as I have asked and during 5th grade "tattled " on a kid that decided to bring his dad's buck knife to school because a kid was screwing with him...this is stupid. It may be becasue of the overall hysteria of parents trying to protect children or more likely the paranoia of school officials afraid of lawsuits. Either way...common sense has to rule at some point. Jeebuz frakkin Krimeney.