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Apr
1
Idaho school district shows common sense by allowing kids to shoot
April 1, 2009 | Tagged Colorado, Culture War, Second Amendment, Students practice gun safety | 4 Comments
Tim, an Idaho school teacher, commented on his school district’s approval of a field trip experience that involved his students shooting under the supervision of a local sheriff’s department. (See my post: “Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence,” under the Category: “Guns in schools.”) The post referred to the hoplophobic response by the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado to a student leader who had simulated drill team rifles made of wood and plastic in her car in the high school parking lot.
It’s great to hear that at least one district in Idaho has allowed kids to have a positive experience with shooting and to learn some gun handling and safety rules. Again, I ask the question, “If sex education saves lives by preventing sexually transmitted diseases, why doesn’t every school in the country require classes in gun safety?”
Def Mech
Comments
4 Comments so far
Your uninformed reporting of the incident is typical of the kind of knee jerk response of which you accuse the Cherry Creek School District. In that incident, Colorado law left the school district with no other option than to take the action it did, a fact confirmed by the student’s own attorney: “The district had no choice other than to do what they did,” said attorney David Lane. “If they didn’t, they would have been in violation of the law.”
The Colorado state legislature also agreed and is working on a change to law that would allow school districts to take the circumstances into account in such incidents and to determine what, if any, discipline is warranted. You have a right to your opinion, just try to base it on facts once in a while.
I didn’t say the school district had a choice. I said the response was hoplophobic. Cherry Creek appeared all too ready to throw the book at the Young Marine leader before Denver Talk Show Host Peter Boyles got her legal representation.
I sat in the committee hearing at the State Capitol, while the Creek administrators and the Democrat majority on the committee spent at least an hour and a half trying to come up with language that would limit to the greatest degree possible the ability of students to possess anything resembling guns in locked vehicles in Colorado school parking lots. The Creek administrators and many of the Democrats on the committee seemed to consider guns to be demonic objects that all decent people should loathe and fear.
The bill in question gives school districts narrowly defined discretion in an area where, in my opinion, abject paranoia is the norm. I applaud the bill as a good, tiny, first step in reducing the superstitious dread of firearms. I stand by my opinion that the position of the Cherry Creek School District was hoplophobic, as opposed to the common sense approach taken by the school district in Idaho.
Def Mech
[...] defmech put an intriguing blog post on Idaho school district shows common sense by allowing kids to shoot …Here’s a quick excerpt(See my post: “Zero Tolerance = Zero Intelligence,” under the Category: “Guns in schools.”) The post referred to the hoplophobic response by the Cherry Creek School District in Colorado to a student leader who had simulated drill team … [...]
We did it again! That same Idaho school district allowed us to shoot handguns again this spring under the guidance of the local sheriff’s department. I had more kids this time AND the deputies brought 2 SWAT shotguns and … get ready for this… 2 full-auto 223s. You should have seen the smiles on the faces of those kids when they rattled off 30 rounds in about 10 seconds. It’s no surprise that the state of Idaho supports the rights of gun owners.
Tim