Yes, Virginia, There Are Clear Thinkers!

Common sense prevails!

A Columbia Falls, Montana teen was expelled from school after officials found a unloaded rifle in the trunk of her car. The .243 caliber rifle was inadvertently left in the trunk after a hunting trip the previous weekend. Link it:

http://dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_96a4baac-073d-11e0-a8e8-001cc4c002e0.html

Here are the details: when school administration announced that a contraband sniffing dog would be conducting a search and the school was locked down, the student immediately remembered the rifle being left in her trunk. The student, a high performing honor roll cheerleader, went to the front office and notified the secretary. About 15 minutes later, the student was being escorted out of the school by an administrator and was told she would be expelled. After a large outcry from the public and a huge attendance at a school meeting, the student was to have her expulsion modified. She has returned to school, and is now making up her work to get back to her usual 3.0 status.

Okay- I am all about protecting kids from violence, especially in schools where they are a captive audience and a barrel of fish to any lunatic with a gun and a mission. That being said, there needs to be a common sense application to the zero tolerance philosophy. Yes, we don’t want weapons in our schools, but a forgetful student who left an unloaded rifle with no ammunition is sight is not grounds for labeling them a potential danger.

If you have a weapon on your person inside the school buildings or directly outside on the grounds, game over. You get the book thrown at you and a special place in the local lock up. If you make an honest mistake and own up to it like the student in this story did, there should be a mechanism to ensure that your mistake doesn’t become fatal.

Knives in pockets are one thing. Empty rifles from weekend trips are another. BB pistols in school bags are one thing. Unloaded, lawfully purchased, and properly secured owned long guns in a truck mount are another.

Regarding the search, I’m all for them. Anything we can do to make a school even 1% safer is worth it. The Supreme Court did us a favor in New Jersey vs. TLO (495 US 325, 1985) where a teenager who denied smoking in a restroom ended up having her purse searched to disprove her story where the administrator found marijuana and the proceeds and records of sales of same. The Court of Appeals and New Jersey Supreme Court said the administration had no right to search her purse, but the US Supreme Court disagreed. We’re talking about kids. Even the possession of cigarettes which by itself was not illegal was considered totally relevant to the reason to search since TLO denied smoking at all. The administrator obtained the right to search in this instance since smoking in school was a violation of school rules.

Rules are only good if they are enforced, and enforcement is only reasonable if based on common sense and the totality of circumstances. We don’t want concentration camps just as much as we don’t want a free-for-all. The big picture tells the story, and it’s more than 1000 words.

Chip Grefski