An elementary school in Edmonds, WA, came under fire recently when several boys were suspended for bringing nerf guns to school which, they claimed, had been with the permission of their teacher for a “class probability project” that involved the effects of shooting the guns 100 times.
But the youngsters never got the chance. Seattle television station KOMO—the regional ABC affiliate— noted that “12-year-old boys, being what they are, decided to ‘try out’ the guns before the school doors opened.” The incident got national attention when it was headlined on the Drudge Report, and locally, KVI’s conservative morning talk host John Carlson zeroed in on the story, heaping it with ridicule.
Pacific Northwest Firearms rights advocates held the story up as yet another example of “zero tolerance” being a substitute for common sense.
The incident coincided with another case clear across the country in Maryland, also headlined on the Drudge website, involving the suspension of an 11-year-old who mentioned guns on the bus ride home. According to WMAL News, that boy, a student at Northern Middle School in Owings, said, “I wish I had a gun to protect everyone.” His father, identified as Bruce Henkelman of Huntingtown, reportedly explained, “He wanted to defeat the bad guys. That’s the context of what he said. He wanted to be the hero.” The Edmonds case raised concerns that a disciplinary action against the youngsters might stay in their school records and create problems years over the horizon. Some in the firearms community were reminded about the 2010 incident in Columbia Falls, MT, when then-16-year-old Demari DeReu, a student at Columbia Falls High School, was suspended for admitting she had inadvertently left a hunting rifle in the trunk of her car following a family trek.
She had hunted over the Thanksgiving weekend with her family. When the school was notified that a drug dog was being used in a sweep of the parking lot, she remembered the unloaded, cased rifle in the trunk of her car and then reported that to school authorities.
That case also created a furor, and hundreds of Montana residents deluged the school district with telephone calls and e-mails. Ultimately, the school board resolved Ms. DeReu’s case, but the same clear thinking may not have prevailed in Edmonds. The story on KOMO’s website got hundreds of reader comments.
