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To: imardmd1
This was not Naziism -- it is following the rules or the law. In America, if we instituted a law or rule that is not satisfactory or commonly agreed, we change it. Ignoring or disobeying the rules or the law, or flouting it, is lawlessness. In my Bible, it is the word "Sin."

Deliberately, or unintentionally, the boy disobeyed the rule, hence the penalty: (1) partly to fix the rule in his mind; (2) partly to emphasize the rule in the minds of other students, their parents, and the staff; and (3) demonstrating the cost that to make rules stick, the consequence must be at least a bit more expensive than the cost of consequences from the unacceptable activity.

Whoa, hold it. You're starting with a bad premise: that this 'rule' is legitimate.
Here in America we have Constitutions which are the supreme laws of the jurisdiction to which they apply (US Constitution for federal government, State Constitution for state government).
So let's see what the State's Constitution says:

ARTICLE I, SECTION I, Paragraph VIII. -- Arms, right to keep and bear.
The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed, but the General Assembly shall have power to prescribe the manner in which arms may be borne.
So, the state cannot infringe the right to keep and bear arms, and by claiming the pellet-gun was a 'gun' they are admitting that it is a weapon and therefore arms.

Further, the federal constitution says:

Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
There is a lot of smoke, lies and misdirection about this amendment, mostly because it's very simple and following the simplicity would erode a big chunk of power the government has amassed for itself, in short: the government may not restrict people from owning, storing, or using weapons. (The results of using weapons is different because it's the action that's punished; i.e. using a weapon doesn't make murder, manslaughter, etc worse.)

Note also the use of the passive voice, this is used when the actor is irrelevant and the action is the important element. If the actor is irrelevant than it applies not only to the federal government, but the states, counties, and cities as well.

Lastly, let us turn to the Supreme Court to see what they have said on the issue:

Marbury v. Madison, 5 U.S. (1 Cranch) 137; 2 L. Ed. 60 (1803)

This original and supreme will organizes the government, and assigns to different departments their respective powers. It may either stop here, or establish certain limits not to be transcended by those departments.

The government of the United States is of the latter description. The powers of the legislature are defined and limited; and that those limits may not be mistaken, or forgotten, the Constitution is written. To what purpose are powers limited, and to what purpose is that limitation committed to writing, if these limits may, at any time, be passed by those intended to be restrained? The distinction between a government with limited and unlimited powers is abolished if those limits do not confine the persons on whom they are imposed, and if acts prohibited and acts allowed are of equal obligation. It is a proposition too plain to be contested, that the Constitution controls any legislative act repugnant to it; or, that the legislature may alter the Constitution by an ordinary act.

Between these alternatives there is no middle ground. The Constitution is either a superior paramount law, unchangeable by ordinary means, or it is on a level with ordinary legislative acts, and, like other acts, is alterable when the legislature shall please to alter it.

If the former part of the alternative be true, then a legislative act contrary to the Constitution is not law: if the latter part be true, then written constitutions are absurd attempts on the part of the people to limit a power in its own nature illimitable.

Certainly all those who have framed written constitutions contemplate them as forming the fundamental and paramount law of the nation, and consequently, the theory of every such government must be, that an act of the legislature, repugnant to the constitution, is void.

So then, your entire argument is null and void because the very law wherein he is accused prohibits that very accusation from being legitimate.

37 posted on 10/28/2012 9:02:28 AM PDT by OneWingedShark (Q: Why am I here? A: To do Justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with my God.)
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To: OneWingedShark
Whoa, hold it. You're starting with a bad premise: that this 'rule' is legitimate.

Sorry, your premise is wrong. An eight-year-old child is not fully and accountable as a citizen until reaching majority; the parent is in charge, able to impose all sorts of infringements (with his/her rules to be obeyed). The school acts in place of the parent and for the government, with its own rules clearly understood and accepted by the parent placing the child into the school's care.

This particular child was clearly not to bring a pellet gun to school, which is a gun regardless of propellant; and presumably he was not with the implicit permission of the parents, either. Furthermore, his conscience (correctly) told him he was wrong. So he confessed without attempting to hide or misdirect attention to his error, admitted it before being "caught," suffered the just consequence, and moved ahead from this with a clear conscience toward a later age when his circumstances and/or the law would change.

All your talk about the Constitution (and I know it pretty well) only serves to set the background. The situation does not find the Constitution wrong. The premise is that the rule was the same as when I went to grade school about 70 years ago, and with the community I lived in, who elected the school board, operating under county and state laws, and included the parents who governed my behavior and expected community standards to be observed.

Please do not think the Constitution excuses one from lawful limitations, especially to those imposed by the child's authorities. I took my hits at that age, and learned thereby.

You seem to just be attempting to use the Constitution to excuse infringing the right of a parent or his/her agent, the school, from governing a minor child however they see fit.

You may add to this a couple of side notes: (1) my first play gun was a broken-stock old octagon-barreled .32 single-shot dropping block rifle (we had no money for cap-gun toys); and (2) I learned how to shoot well in junior high school with Crosman .22 CO2 guns, under adult supervision (no one ever imagined that it would be permitted to bring a Daisy BB gun to school}, the guns being locked up when practice was over.

Again, if you don't like it, change the laws and rules the Constitution permits. Under it, the right of a minor child to have and carry a gun is going to be infringed, like it or not.

40 posted on 10/28/2012 12:33:47 PM PDT by imardmd1 (An armed society is a polite society -- but dangerous for the fool --)
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