Okay, for the binary thinkers here I will concede that this was a teachable moment requiring intervention and some further "consultation." Many a "felony" has been successfully resolved by a trip to the principals office and a call to the parents. But Jeeeesuzzz H. Enough already. Pointing a finger gun lands 12-year-old Johnson County student in handcuffs https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/crime/article235891762.html
You have to understand the environments in schools with school shootings. They are extremely sensitive and scared since they are impossible to prevent in today's environment. That being said, the kid conducted an action no different than if they wrote a text saying they were going to shoot up the school. Intervention is needed to address the issue not just classify it as a crime. I think the handcuffs were to scare the kid to not do stupid shit. Being soft on any kid who thinks it is a joke to point a gun or pretend to kill friends and himself is not delivering effectively the message. Let him be scared straight being hauled to jail for a few hours until he realizes how stupid it was what he did. the student was released not long after to her mom and I am sure charges will not be filed though school discipline can be taken. good teaching moment to the school in an assembly that guns and schools are not for joking or even pretending to kill classmates. if they don't get it, make them visit the graves of kids shot in school by a fellow student who thought nothing of killing other kids and then himself.
But what about the "school to prison" pipeline that Obama was concerned about? So we have a situation where there is zero tolerance for pointing your finger but you can beat up teachers and other students and no one dares complain or call the cops? I have to admit that I am beginning to doubt that just giving tons more money to the educational establishment is the answer. Hard to believe.
Should schools take the same actions over pretend drug or alcohol use? Most violent crime in the US stems directly or indirectly from substance abuse. How about bullies? Handcuff them too? How about kids making screeching sounds with pretending to hold a steering wheel? After all, thousands of times more people die in car accidents than in school shootings. It seems we have so lost our way as a culture, it looks like it is going to take a epic national or global disaster for people to regain proper perspective again. Using our schools as a substitute parent would be appalling to almost all, say half a century ago. After all, that is what TV and the media was for. So single parent households plus TV and interest screws our kids up and our schools are fix them? Interesting child development program we have in the US. As a bonus, our ever dysfunctional Government has even more influence in our lives. I have the sense that having a system that is effectively controlled by a big Government is inherently unsound and unstable. A strong culture that respects honesty, character, and hard work is the only way. The one way for us to return to a strong culture is enforcing reasonable standards upon our media. These standards could include reducing or eliminating violence in the media, laughing when someone dies or something gets blown up in our movies, making drug use look cool, etc. Perhaps a few news “reporters”, movie writers, and game creators being led away in handcuffs will be enough to “scare them straight”.
The kid should not get punished at all.... wow never thought the party of law and order would say let bygones be bygones and not punish a kid even with suspension for joking about school shootings. Hypocrites...
/ Nice loaded statements and discussion influencing technique you have there. From “Not get punished all....” to “joking about school shootings” while at the same time attempting to redirect my argument from addressing the influences of children’s behavior. Are you an attorney or a political hack? You seem too smart to be in the media. Once you identify a real problem, you move on to identifying the immediate and underlying cause of the problem. Then you can reasonably look for solutions. Followup comes after implementing a proposed solution to ensure it is working. The preceding statement is an example of a problem solving methodology. I’m sure Leftists fear efforts in anyone looking for underlying causes for many of our problems in our society because these problems are rooted, directly or indirectly, in the bad policies of the Democrats. These bad policies include attempts to discredit the church, creating dependencies on Government support, and promoting dissension by characterizing the other side as racists, etc. What we need is a strong society, not a strong and overreaching Government.
You are living in fantasyland. Those days of "having the proper perspective" are gone forever. When I was like 8 years old or whatever, I knew what candy cigarettes were for...EATING, not SMOKING.