"Because Guns are Bad, Mmm-Kay?"

By Chris Karr in News on Dec 15, 2006 4:39PM

While Chicago churches are trading computers for guns, one suburban kid found out that turning in a pellet gun gets you expelled, instead.

In Plainfield, a thirteen year-old boy allegedly discovered a pellet gun in the boys restroom of Troy Middle School and turned it in to an assistant principal, only to be kicked out of school. Several local news groups are covering the incident. The kid's parents are protesting the expulsion and they took their case to the media. The school has remained mum on the incident, citing their responsibility to respect the privacy of the boy.

We're finding it really hard to not sympathize for the kid and view the school board as a collective of idiots. We don't know the rules and regulations of that particular district, but we suspect that the school was put in this position by a zero-tolerance policy for weapons in the school. They can enforce the policy as written and interpreted, resulting in the mess they have now, or they can choose to ignore it, resulting in a more-than-zero tolerance stance on guns in school. In their defense, the school has said that the media (that would be us) should not speculate on the incident as the full report has not been made public. The parents have a copy of the report, but have declined to share it, because it "wouldn't be to [their] son's advantage". This sounds rather fishy to us, so we're going to withhold judgement at this moment.