News article: Teen wants armor in yearbook photo

[anotheranon]

Rhode Island boy loves Middle Ages, but school cites no-weapons policy.

My opinion - tricky. No weapons at school I can understand, but no photos of weapons (and replica historical ones at that)? But then I think of what if he had wanted to be photographed carrying a gun, and I reconsider.

Thoughts?

Comments

[beckon.livejournal.com]

Why would you be supportive of him carrying a sword and not a gun? Both are weapons, both are designed to kill, both are used by a variety of people for completely different reasons. I believe its more about context. If he's an avid target shooter, hunter, trap shooter. Why should he penalized for a picture depicting him doing something that brings him happiness? Like wise for this kid. He enjoys the middle ages, probably to the extent that his friends see him in that context it makes sense for a submitted picture to depict that.

Schools now a days are so paranoid, so driven by this "zero tolerance" crap. It disgusts me. It doesn't help anything and it just hides problems.

[anotheranon.livejournal.com]

Why would you be supportive of him carrying a sword and not a gun? Both are weapons, both are designed to kill, both are used by a variety of people for completely different reasons.

I think it's because though both are designed to kill, it's fairly obvious that swords in the modern age are an obsolete weapon - the likelihood of a kid carrying a sword to school to attack classmates is almost laughable.

I admit I may be further biased by the fact that guns frighten me because IMHO they're easier for untrained people to use successfully in a heated moment. As such the idea of seeing a picture of a person in their high school year book carrying a gun would give me all kind of uncomfortable ideas about their intentions.

Having said this, a gun that is clearly a hunting rifle or bb gun probably wouldn't create such a visceral reaction, at least for me - it's the mental image of handguns that I find disturbing.

I do agree with you that zero tolerance policies are out of control however.