The Second Amendment Shuffle

The American Spectator ^ | 10.31.08 | Patrick O'Hannigan

[neverdem]

Less than a week ago, before my nine-year-old daughter scampered down a school hallway and into her classroom, I passed a BB rifle to her through my car window. Neither one of us was accosted by security guards, reported to emergency system operators, or met with fearful stares from the teachers helping children open car doors that morning.

I'd like to think that the handful of people who witnessed our exchange know the difference between a BB gun and a so-called "assault rifle," but I must admit that their collective poise had more to do with remembering an assignment to re-enact the Battle of the Alamo on the playground than anything else.

An intrepid fourth-grade teacher trying to make the last exploits of Jim Bowie, Davey Crockett, and William Travis more vivid for children with few ties to Texas had asked her students to bring toy weapons to school. As a "teachable moment," the re-enactment was a rousing success. Jane couldn't wait to tell me afterward that she was "the last American alive, even though we all had to die." She also reported that 200 Alamo defenders had fought 6,000 attackers, and when she switched to the Mexican side and got "shot," she died exclaiming "Ay, caramba!" That she learned that expression from Bart Simpson rather than from her Mexican uncles, and that the re-enactment lacked the solemnity of a Ken Burns documentary, are trifles I'm willing to overlook.

He who has minions to run background checks on plumbers who question his tax policy would not be as sanguine about playacting military history. Worse, in the opinion of those coastal Democrats who think the world of Barack Obama, I accelerated a slide into redneck culture that same night, by taking my ten-year-old son to a Scout troop meeting where boys...

[AnAmericanMother]

The story mentions Bertrand R. Brinley's Mad Scientists' Club, a very good book. Especially good for boys who aren't keen on reading as a general rule.

[stevie_d_64]

I am surprised that this was even allowed to occur, seeings how the Texans were wrong in wanting their independence from Mexico...How we stole the land from La Raza and all that...

Much less commemorate the battle that was the battle cry that finished the war for the most part...

I remember many stories where students were being expelled or sent to aternative schools for wearing a t-shirt (with a gun or gun related stuff) or drawing a picture of a “gun” in school in recent years...

And to think they let the kids bring “toy guns” to school...

This will probably be the last time this happens.../sarc