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Thursday, March 7, 2013

Senate Bill 1058 - Pop Tarts aren't guns

Senator J.B. Jennings of Harford and Baltimore Counties just submitted SB1058, titled "The Reasonable School Discipline Act of 2013", for consideration by the Maryland General Assembly.

Since this bill was submitted after the regular bill submission deadline, it has been assigned to the Senate Rules Committee for consideration.  If the Senate Rules Committee approves the bill, it will be reassigned to the appropriate regular committee for discussion.  

The synopsis of the bill is:
Prohibiting a principal from suspending or expelling a student who brings to school or possesses on school property a picture of a gun, a computer image of a gun, a facsimile of a gun, or any other object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose; prohibiting a principal from suspending or expelling a student who makes a hand shape or gesture resembling a gun; authorizing a principal to suspend or expel a student who performs a specified action as a direct act of violence against another student; etc.
EFFECTIVE JULY 1, 2013
The bill was submitted following several recent incidents where young students were suspended for "offenses" such as chewing a pastry into the shape of a gun.

9 comments:

  1. Isn't it sad that we have to spend so much time on this specific issue. What happened to common sense?

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  2. Looks like the key provision is actually "a facsimile of a gun, or any other object that resembles a gun but serves another purpose". This might allow for example realistic imitation guns on campus. Bad idea. I would add that in some schools a "hand ... gesture resembling a gun" can be a death threat. Bottom line: this is gun-lobby legislation, and it is bad for our schools.

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  3. Alan, so this bill is a bad idea across the board? How many elementary school kids use their fingers to play "cops and robbers" versus the number of kids in high school (what you are probably thinking of) that do that in a threatening manner? Certainly their has to be more than a hand gesture involved there. The BOE doesn't want our adminstrators to think, so we create "zero tolerance" which makes sense to few people. The Gun-Lobby? Really? Fingers and Poptarts are now protected by the NRA? I'm all for this bill.

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  4. That terrible gun lobby always pushing legislation to sell more poptarts. I think Chris is right and the bill sets different standards for k-8 than high schoolers.

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  5. All this started from concerns from Columbine which had NOTHING to do with cap guns, cigarette lighters, or BB guns.

    Children shoot each other after LONG patterns of abuse that went unaddressed by lax discipline.

    Maybe make-believe is worth regulating if putting a stop to actual violence doesn't do the job.
    This kind of nonsense makes one think of the mess we have from concerning ourselves with drugs. Now children can't have a bottle of ibuprofen in their locker.

    Can we consider walking a few bad laws back rather than adding new ones?

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  6. If you oppose this bill, please write to our Annapolis Delegation. While it is interesting to read everyone's comments, it is better for the word to get to our elected delegation.

    Here are the emails: house@montgomerycountydelegation.com, and senate@montgomerycountydelegation.com.

    For the list of all the individual emails, go here: http://www.montgomerycountydelegation.com/contact.html

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  7. The Sunday Washington Post magazine cover is a perfect example of how the media gets students in trouble. If a student took that magazine cover into school and pointed it at someone, that would be a "threat". No doubt, the Post and the school would blame the parents. Yet, the Post puts that cover on a magazine that contains puzzles that students can, and do, solve. Are parents irresponsible for subscribing to the Washington Post? Should students be punished for reading the Sunday paper?

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  8. Seriously? It's so very sad that it has come to this. Our kids cannot even be kids anymore for fear that the school employees are watching. Good lord, a pop tart got a child suspended! People is the fear that powerful that we allow the deranged and misinformed to dictate how our children will be able to eat and play in school? This is totally insane. If a child has an object resembling a gun, a picture of a gun, little toy Army men carrying guns, THEY ARE NOT GUNS. There are ZERO grounds to discipline a child for any of those things. Maybe our teachers should go through counciling and deprogramming classes instead of harassing the children. It seems they are the ones with issues and mental instability.
    And yes, I have kids.... Yes I support firearm ownership.... And no, it's not the schools business or anyone else's business IF I own a firearm, what kind of firearms I own, or where I keep them.

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