Zero (Intelligence) Tolerance Strikes Again

The gang that brought us a ban on Little Green Army Men at kindergarten show-and-tell and suspensions for 7-year olds who were using sticks as "guns" to "shoot each other" on the playground and who put an entire high school on lockdown and called in the SWAT team after someone spotted an unloaded, legally-encased squirrel gun in the back seat of a pickup truck in the parking lot are back again with another lesson on the stupidity of "Zero Tolerance" policies on weapons in schools.

This time, the idiocy is just a few miles down Highway 45 in New London, where administrators are not allowing high school boys to submit yearbook photos featuring themselves in hunting camo and holding their bows and arrows.  Superintendent Kathy Gwidt defends the ban saying "We're living in very challenging times, and if there is in any way going to be an opportunity to connect something 'negative'--whether through weaponry or another prop that is in question--those guidelines are going to be set."

So what is the "negative connection" to bow hunting to which Superintendent Gwidt is referring?  Did I miss an incident where someone brought a bow and arrows to school and shot a bunch of students?   Is there an "archery gang" going around threatening to put a "field point" in someone's a**?  Until recently, archery was a common offering in high school physical education curriculum.  I know it's hard to believe kids, but we used to give teens bows and arrows and allowed them to shoot them....in school!

We all know that this over-reaction to a simple picture of a bow is part of the Liberal education agenda to teach kids that any type of firearm or weapon is incredibly dangerous that it can never be used or handled safely--so they grow up to be gun-fearing adults who will support efforts to take away firearms from law-abiding citizens.  We also know that if the bowhunting guys' pictures are banned, then school officials can't be accused of "profiling" when they don't allow the wannabe gang-banger from submitting a picture flashing his tats and his silver 9-millimeter--or the pasty Emo kid wants to be shown in his black trenchcoat with his dad's semi-automatic rifle.

What I find ironic, is that the same people making every effort to keep these kids from expressing their interest in a completely-legal sport are the same folks that tell us at every School Board and PTO meeting that we need to "celebrate the unique talents of every child" and that "kids should be encouraged to follow their passions" (even if it guarantees they will never hold a self-supporting job, Mr Poetry Major).  Well here are some guys who are passionate about bow hunting and are probably better at it than many of us--but they are being told that cannot be "celebrated" in their senior picture.

The good news for the kids is that after next summer, nobody will ever look at your senior pictures again (leading your parents to question why they spent so much for them) and the yearbook in which you will not be appearing is just going to sit--untouched--in a box in your parents basement for the next 40-years.