Armed man fatally shot at Tennessee high school

BLOUNTVILLE, Tenn. — An armed man was fatally shot by deputies Monday at an east Tennessee high school after he went inside and pointed a gun at the principal’s head, a sheriff said.

Well done, deputies!

But there’s another interesting tidbit:

[The gun man] Cowan entered the school with a .380-caliber semiautomatic and a .25-caliber handgun in his back pocket, Anderson said. The sheriff said that after Cowan grabbed the principal, Melanie Riden, and pointed the semiautomatic at her head, student resource officer Carolyn Gudger pulled her gun on Cowan and moved the principal to safety. [emphasis Murdoc's]

What sounds like a bit of a standoff followed, and deputies shot Cowan after he pointed his gun at Gudger.

Not only did an armed individual prevent a school attack, but the deputies didn’t seem to have trouble knowing who the good guys and the bad guys were. We keep being told that armed people in schools won’t help and will just make it tougher for the authorities to do their jobs.

A second-grader made himself a hat decorated with plastic army men after learning about the army from a neighbor.

But the hat ran afoul of the district’s no-weapons policy because the toy soldiers were carrying tiny weapons.

from the Fayetteville Observer

Not surprising, really. From what I understand of some policies in schools around here, this banning is perfectly in line with the rule. That doesn’t mean that the rule makes a lot of sense.

Uncle has a message from SCCC: Number of Colleges Allowing Concealed Carry on Campus Doubles

Colorado:

The Colorado State University Board of Governors today rescinded a system-wide ban on concealed weapons, citing a Colorado Court of Appeals ruling that struck down a similar ban at the University of Colorado.

Today’s move indicates that any more court challenges to state law allowing concealed weapons on campus would be unwinnable, said Fort Collins attorney Terry Ryan.

This seems unbelievable to me:

A Montana superintendent of schools said his replica black powder muzzleloader accidentally fired off a round while he was showing the weapon to a class.

The superintendent was giving a demonstration with a replica of a Civil War era gun. how on earth do you forget you loaded that sort of thing?

Then there’s this from the story:

The administrator said he dismissed the class after the students calmed down and immediately called the school board and the parents of the students to explain and apologize for the incident.

“None of them were upset with me,” he said of the parents. He said one father laughed until he cried during their phone conversation.

If you call me to tell me that you negligently discharged a firearm in my kid’s class, I’m not going to laugh.

Officials hail math teacher as a hero for preventing ‘a more tragic event’

Good on math teacher David Benke for putting a stop to a guy who ‘has problems.’

Firing over marksmanship program protested: Supporters want former blind training center director reinstated

The program, conducted in a wooded ravine behind the Oakland Drive facility beginning last September, was canceled in November and [Christine] Boone was fired Feb. 4 for allowing firearms on state property.

“It’s a safety-work-rule violation, a serious work-rule violation,” Mario Morrow, director of communications for the Michigan Department of Energy, Labor and Economic Growth, said last week of Boones’ firing.

Big brouhaha over New Dorp boy’s tiny toy gun

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — A 9-year-old New Dorp boy earlier today learned there is no wiggle room in the Department of Education’s “no toy gun” policy — even if the toy gun is just two inches long.

Patrick Timoney, a fourth-grader at PS 52, South Beach, was nearly suspended after playing with LEGOs during his lunch period because one of the action figures was carrying at toy machine gun.

He and his friends had planned a playdate with their respective toys, and were sitting around the cafeteria table when the principal walked in and saw the action figure carrying the fake gun.

While the action figure was a standard LEGO policeman figure, the brand of the gun could not be determined.

The brand of the gun could not be determined? Um, it’s not a gun.

It’s not even one of those life-sized replicas. It is one of those tiny things for Lego action figures. Similar to this:

The principal told the parents that she considered the little piece of plastic suspension-worthy, but a call to a security administrator resulted in only the little piece of plastic being confiscated and given to the boy’s parents.

A message left for Principal Evelyn Matroianni was not returned. However, Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the DOE, said there is a no-tolerance policy when it comes to fake guns because they are considered harmful to the school community.

If someone put this in a movie about public schools it would be dismissed as a fiction. (Hat tip to the reader who sent this in.)

UPDATE: Comment on the NY Firearms board about the uncertainty over the brand of gun:

What about the year of manufacture, lots of potential laws broken here, hard to tell from the pic, but if that thing is not pre-ban, the student is looking at some felonies for sure.

Hilarious.

At first glance this Willows, California, story seems reasonable: Student expelled for having unloaded shotguns in truck

The board voted 4-0 Thursday to expel junior Gary Tudesko after the weapons were discovered via scent-sniffing dogs on Oct. 26.

Zero tolerance means zero tolerance. You bring guns to school, you’re out of here, mister.

But let’s look at that first sentence again:

The Willows Unified School District board of trustees has expelled a 16-year-old for having unloaded shotguns in his pickup parked just off the Willows High School campus.

Not on school property. Busted anyway.

The school’s principal says that since the area is used mostly by students, he considers it part of the school’s jurisdiction. He also says the school is responsible for students while they travel to and from school.

Does school insurance cover students who get into a traffic accident while on their way to school?

Well, probably not that responsible. That would be crazy.

Now, I’m not really defending this kid for leaving a couple of hunting guns in his car on the street while he went to school. That’s not something I probably would have done. But this school is using dogs to search student cars parked off of school property and enforcing school rules based on what they find.

One thing the principal brings up is the 1995 Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995 which bars possession of firearms withing 1,000 feet of a school. But non-concealable weapons on private property are perfectly legal. The students truck, I believe, qualifies.

For the sake of argument, let’s say we agree with the 1,000 foot limit. What if students commonly park on a street 1,010 feet from the school? Does that vehicle suddenly pop into the school’s jurisdiction, too? There are limits to jurisdictions for a reason. You can’t just decide to expand your coverage.

Student Suspended Over Show-And-Tell Souvenir

Des Moines, Iowa:

Jazmine Martin, 12, brought an empty shotgun shell to school on Monday, a souvenir from a summer vacation to South Dakota. The shell was empty and had the word “blank” written on the front…”This young lady brought a bag of shell casings and shared them with other kids,” said Randy Gordon, Brody Middle School principal.

Gordon said that even though they were empty, the shell casings are considered ammo, which violates the school’s weapon policy.

Martin was suspended and it will go onto her permanent school record.