Anti-Gun Fanatics Strike Again

A student at Traip Academy in Kittery, Maine, has been suspended for bringing a bb gun to school. The school's resource officer spotted a pack of cigarettes (gasp!) inside the boy's car and summoned him for a more thorough search, which revealed the bb gun.

Interestingly, no one has even suggested that the student threatened anyone with the bb gun or that he even brought it into the school. He never even showed it to anyone.

The student is now on a 10-day suspension, but authorities are not resting -- they want to harass this kid even more. For having a bb gun.

According to the Portsmouth Herald, police in Kittery are "reaching out" to a local legislator, State Sen. Dawn Hill (D-York), whose district includes Kittery, "to see if she would file a bill to amend the existing school law" so that it covers bb guns.

Kittery Police Chief Theodor Short is disappointed that he can't completely ruin this kid's life. "We assumed there was going to be a [criminal] charge but the end result is, looking at the law, we couldn't locate anything," he said. 

Poor Chief. What to do?

Hence his decision to try and influence legislators to change the law so that future victims of the Busy-Body Brigade can really have it stuck to them, regardless of whether or not they're actually a danger to anyone.

"This is a gap or a breakdown in law and I think we need to do whatever we can to allow police to take enforcement action," he said. [Emphasis mine] 

No Police State advocate has ever said it better.

What no one in the system is discussing -- or likely even cares about -- is this student's actual motive. The Herald reports that the student said he kept the gun in his car for "protection."

Looked at another way, the school is doing such an atrocious job of protecting this kid while he's in their ever-so-caring hands that he believes he needs to keep a weapon in his car.

That is something people don't like to talk about; many kids carry real guns to school precisely because school security nannies are far more concerned about kids smoking cigarettes than student-on-student violence. This is a trend that extends to law enforcement officials in general: it's far easier to harass someone for smoking pot than it is to actually stop a violent criminal from victimizing an innocent person. Gotta keep those arrest numbers high.

And what about privacy? School security officers routinely act like thugs, running students through metal detectors, searching lockers and book bags, bullying kids "caught" going to the restroom (gasp!) without some authority figure's permission, even patrolling parking areas and searching cars, all so they can stay on the lookout for "threats" -- like cigarettes. Or bb guns.

Schools claim they're just worried about kids' safety, but it really looks like they're running a prison. Maybe they are. And far from helping kids prepare for their role as adults in society, they're preparing them to be sheep in a Dystopian nightmare.

Finally, we have to start telling the police to do their job, and not look for ways to make their job easier.

Law means force; it means compulsion.

Today people mindlessly look to the law to deal with every societal ill, real or imagined. More laws mean more power for government.

More accurately, it means more power for government officials. Like the police.

When cops start lobbying legislators for more power they've moved beyond the "just doin' my job" rationalization -- they're actively, blatantly seeking more power over you and me.

Police officers are members of the executive branch of government; trying to influence legislation is both legally and morally questionable, as it breaches the concept of separation of powers.

In other words, Chief Short needs to shut his mouth.