We’ve highlighted The zero-tolerance war on kindergarteners, in which kindergarten and elementary school administrators enforce “zero-tolerance” gun policies against young children who bring “look-alike” items to school, including a gun-shaped breakfast pastry, a pencil pointed like a gun, a Quarter-size Lego piece, a clear plastic toy gun, a Lego Gun, and a toy cap gun.
Beyond that, children who merely talked about a Bubble Gun and Nerf Gun faced discipline.
In the latest insanity, a child was suspended for bringing a toy Nerf gun to school with the teacher’s permission:
In what amounts to self-parody, an elementary school in California will hold a toy gun exchange — similar to the real gun exchanges run by police departments for real guns — in order to remove the, er, threat of toy guns at school.
Via Rebecca Parr of Mercury News:
Hayward school to sponsor toy gun exchange
HAYWARD — An elementary school will hold a toy gun exchange Saturday, offering students a book and a chance to win a bicycle if they turn in their play weapons.Strobridge Elementary Principal Charles Hill maintains that children who play with toy guns may not take real guns seriously.”Playing with toys guns, saying ‘I’m going to shoot you,’ desensitizes them, so as they get older, it’s easier for them to use a real gun,” Hill said.At Saturday’s event, called Strobridge Elementary Safety Day, a Hayward police officer will demonstrate bicycle and gun safety, and the Alameda County Fire Department is sending a rig and crew to talk about fire safety….Every child who brings a toy gun will get a raffle ticket to win one of four bicycles, Hill said.Hill said he got the idea for the toy gun exchange from a photographer, Horace Gibson, who takes students’ school pictures and who expressed concern about the spate of shootings of young people by police in Oakland.Hill said police are rightfully fearful of being shot when they encounter so many armed suspects, and there have been cases nationwide where police mistook a toy gun for a real one.
Guess who else is a big fan of toy gun exchanges. The future Senator from the State of New Jersey.
When only kids have toy guns, only … oh, never mind, I lost my train of thought.
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