[familyop]

"I know for a fact that most students carry a pencil, and many carry a pen. I can’t see someone who really doesn’t want his hair to be cut just standing there crying and letting it happen. I’ve been poked with a pencil or pen too many times to take it as entirely harmless.

Not to mention that I’ve taken weapons away from people more than once."

...as have I. He was probably taught that self-defense is not a good option for Sikhs in the USA. ...not yet, anyway. Most Americans assume that they are Muslims. Some of them were randomly shot after 911, and one was recently feloniously assaulted by a bad cop on the southeast coast.

[Old Student]

In so far as I know, most Muslims abandon the turban as soon as they arrive here. Sikhs wear it as a religious devotion, along with the kirpan and iron bracelet. I can’t imagine a young man (IIRC, this kid was 17) not having been trained to use such a thing, and taking scissors away from an attacker seems to me sufficient proof of self-defense. So would using a pencil to stab him after he forcibly removed the turban.

I know there are people who have feces for brains here in the US who can’t tell the difference between a Muslim and a Sikh. That doesn’t mean he’s not allowed to defend himself.