Detroit schools allow Christian students to bring guns to school
I know, it’s hard to believe isn’t it?
A Detroit-area district says it’s allowing Christian students to wear a small, religious revolver to school, MyFoxDetroit.com reports.
The decision by the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools reverses a ban put in place in December after a fourth-grader at a Canton Township elementary school was found with an unloaded six-shooter.
The six shooter represents a commitment to fight evil in the Christian tradition. The revolver is a religious symbol that baptized Christian males are expected to carry.
Oh, wait, I read that wrong;
A Detroit-area district says it’s allowing Sikh students to wear a small, religious dagger to school, MyFoxDetroit.com reports.
The decision by the Plymouth-Canton Community Schools reverses a ban put in place in December after a fourth-grader at a Canton Township elementary school was found with a dull, 3- to 5-inch kirpan.
The kirpan represents a commitment to fight evil in the Sikh tradition. The dagger is a religious symbol that baptized Sikh males are expected to carry.
No, I don’t advocate that Christians should be allowed to bring guns to school…just the opposite; I don’t think that anyone should be allowed to bring a knife to school, no matter that the blade is dull. We suspend students for bringing toy soldiers to school, but somehow wearing a ceremonial knife is harmless. Sure, a Sihk student probably wouldn’t harm someone, but there are bullies in school who could make good use of someone else’s knife.
Like Old Trooper wrote when he sent the link to us, “I guess a zero tolerance rule only applies to some students.”
Guess it’s time to join the church of Alvis.
…and the martial artists should be able to bring their staffs, and cowboys should be able to bring their lariats, and if there are any lion tamers in the class they should certainly have their whips and chairs…
Somebody stop the world. I’m dizzy and I want to sit down for awhile…
It opens the door to defining what items are truly religious in nature. For example, a bomb-vest is absolutely essential to reaching heaven for many Muslims.
Snark aside, it does mean that T-shirts with Christian logos, Crucifixes, and other jewelry can now be worn openly – no more being sent home for doing book reports on the Bible and the other nonsense endured for the last forty years. The principle of separating church from state does not carry to separating church from person.
Well, the whole thing is a contradiction of epic proportions. First; you have the whole knife thing. Schools pride themselves on their zero tolerance policies towards weapons, yet are making an exception here. Second; you have the exception being based on religious beliefs. Wait a minute; I thought schools were no religion zones, as we have been told many times and I have actually been in a battle about here in MN.
Old Trooper: it’s only a contradiction if the rule wasn’t meant to be enforced in the first place. Our Nation has spent an inordinate amount of time trying to remove religion from people.
It wasn’t all that long ago the Army had a prohibition on knives over 3″. Top brass and NCOs were extremely concerned that rambo knives would hurt soldiers, or turn them into aggressive thrill-seekers wanting war or something like that… mostly that the knives would hurt soldiers.
Slight aside: Our new MTOE for 2012 still has us using M-16A2s. We still don’t have any equipment with which to perform our primary mission, so we have to keep stealing it from active duty units to do training.
But we have bayonets now. Assigned by MTOE.
Until recently the company training NCO, I was trying to line up instructors to come out and make us wise in the ways of the bayonet. If they’re going to issue them to us, we ought to know how to do something with them. (I was at sick call that morning at Basic.) I had trouble even finding a current TM, as I recall…
DaveO; The rule, I’m sure, is being enforced, but only on certain students. Do you think a kid carrying a pocket knife with a cross on it could get away with it? We both know the answer to that. Our nation ahsn’t spent a lot trying to remove religion from us, just where we can display any of it. Schools are supposed to be a religion free zone, according to the ACLU back when it was all about Christian prayer. So, that’s fine, we will have to abide by that. Then, the muslims wanted special areas for prayers during Ramadan, so schools quietly set up rooms for the muslim kids for prayer, completely ignoring their tantrum about prayer when it was the Christian students. Then it was “we can’t use public funds for any specific religion”, in order to not have nativity scenes built during Christmas….I mean Winter Holiday. Ok, then there were funds used at my alma mater in order to put in muslim foot baths in the latrine for the muslim students (public college, not private)? That’s not supposed to happen; right? Now we have this, which violates 2 tenets of the zero tolerance policy in one move.
That’s the contradiction.
But, but, if we just join hands and sing Kumbaya, things will be wonderful, right? Michigan has a very specific law regarding weapons and schools. There is definitely zero tolerance for weapons, period. Unless, I guess you’re in a non-Christian religion, then you can bring your knife to school.
I’ve known of students suspended for having ammo in their cars, during hunting season. No weapons, just ammo. There was also a piece a while back about an elementary student sent home because mom packed a plastic knife in his lunch, for whatever reason.
DaveO, may I share part of your comment:”The principle of separating church from state does not carry to separating church from person.”? It is such an excellent point!
Wow, yet an Oklahoma teacher places a student under citizen’s arrest for having a Sharpie.
Am I in the Twilight Zone?
No one can mention God or even say anything nice about the Bible, but sikhs can have daggers and the muslims can have whatever they want in public school. WTF?
#9 Richard Lee: please, be my guest.
#7 OT:
It’s not a contradiction. If the rule is anti-Christian in its application, that doesn’t make it anti-Muslim or anti-Sihk, only anti-Christian. So there’s no contradiction there when school officials use public space and public funds in the furtherance of practicing any non-Christian religion.
On a side note, is the age and maturity of the student at the center of this. My doc at the VA was Sihk (I moved, hence the “was”). He didn’t wear the ceremonial blade. Part of it is zero tolerance at the VAMC, and part of it is one’s maturity in their faith. As a gentleman in his middle age, he presented himself as fairly certain of his faith. So it’s fair to believe the youngster was a little immature in this matter. Certainly the lawyer got rich. That the kid wants to fight evil always – I’m behind you kid. You’ve opened Pandora’s Box and it’s going to suck for a while.