Brickbat: Chekov's Gun

Officials at Center High School in Texas have barred Avery Tindol from attending the prom after they caught him with a prop gun from the drama department. Tindol and some other students were cleaning out the prop room when one of them handed him the fake firearm. A teacher spotted him with the weapon, and the school also suspended him for three days.

Brickbat Archive

Comments

[Bill]

Can never be too safe. They need to arrest the whole drama club and charge the director w/ terrorismimial behavior.

[invisible furry hand]

If that's the quality of the teaching staff, getting suspended looks like a lucky break for the kid

[John]

Only through years of indoctrination at education schools can produce people this retarded. You really have to respect the education establishment's ability to not only attract stupid people but to also rub out any sense of humanity or common sense they might have had.

[niobiumstudio]

"rubbing out" anything is a 9 day sexual harassment suspension with possible legal repercussions. Don't you know what "0 tolerance" is!

[Bardas Phocas]

The proper response of the students would be, on sight of the offending object, to scream like little girls and run to the close authority figure and report the icky-icky thing?

I'll just be sitting over there, weeping for my nation.

[John]

That is the idea. I swear the Soviets would have been lucky to have such dedicated apparatchiks.

[Pound. Head. On. Desk.]

Eddie the Eagle says,
STOP!
Don't Touch.
Leave the Area.
Tell an Adult.

Any of my kids would unload, field strip, clean and lube it, check the ammunition for signs of age or contamination, then chastise the teacher for keeping it in such unreliable condition.

[Heroic Mulatto]

Considering it's a prop gun, I'm pretty sure the barrel is plugged.

[invisible furry hand]

Just curious - is a prop gun simply an object in the shape of a gun, or could it ever be made into a working one with a bit of fiddling?

[Heroic Mulatto]

Some prop guns are regular guns with the barrel plugged. A gunsmith could unplug it, but unless you have a licence it possess that firearm, you're breaking the law.

[Isaac Bartram]

I don't believe you need a license to posses any kind (except machine guns which are a special federal class) of firearm in Texas. You certainly don't in Florida.

That said there are age restrictions and normally high school kids (those under eighteen anyway) would be barred from possession without adult supervision.

[Randian]

Given that this is a high school, likely lacking money to buy a real de-milled gun, I bet it was probably wooden or a toy or something.

[Isaac Bartram]

There are quite realistic looking plastic replicas on the market for use as prop guns. They are capable of firing quite authentic sounding blanks.

I doubt that this one was capable of firing anything, though.

[Brett L]

"The Center, Texas school board told Tindol that he would not be allowed to go to prom because of what happened in October. Tindol was suspended for three days while administration investigated. Tindol's name was cleared following the investigation.

But a rule in the high school's handbook says after suspensions, administrators can decide what school activities a student can participate in. 'I was shocked, I figured they would be on my side,' says Tindol."

So now we know who gets the tar and feathers.

[fried wylie]

So now we know who gets the tar and feathers.

The real question is, can the tar and feather industries bring this economy around? With our supply of braindead officials, elected or otherwise, I think it's more than likely. If not, we can always start importing worthless pieces of shit from other countries to tarfeather;.

It's a severely untapped market.

[Brett L]

I'm going into the tar business. Two for one 55 gallon barrels, for situations like this. Get it while its hot!

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Tar and feathers sounds good. That's what we're missing from modern society.

[niobiumstudio]

There was a time when we'd take a guy like you in the back and beat you with a hose. Now you've got your God-damned unions...

If only the principal was a non-union guy!

[Whiterun Guard]

The Gods gave you two hands, and you use them both for your weapon... I can respect that.

[BMFPitt]

Clearly the school itself supplied the "weapon." They are arms dealers and should be sent to Gitmo forever.

[BarHoJo]

Why why why are people allowed to use their authority to abuse individuals,to make a point. This was the schools fault for having it their and it starts with the principal,not the child. If I were the parent #1 I would be having a strong one-on-one conversation witht the principal #2 My attorney would be having this conversation if no satisfaction was met for my child. For educators to use this against a child - when it is there fault is not education. It is telling the child that we as adults do not see our responsibility - that we are just there to blame someone else - plus THIS WAS A TOY GUN. What would they do if he raised up a ruler like a knife or an eraser like a handgrinade. WOW I bet he would be suspended for life.

[sarcasmic]

What's the point in having the power to bar the kid from attending activities if it's not used?

Arbitrary punishment is arbitrary.

[SugarFree]

If these people wanted to use critical thinking skills and good judgement they wouldn't have gone into education in the first place.

[Adam330]

The only question here is why the principal hasn't been fired for permitting a dangerous firearm to be stored on campus.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

What the fuckity fuckity fuck?

What is wrong with these people?

[Rich]

Center school administrators say they cannot comment on the disciplinary actions against Tindol.

Oh, surely they can squeak out a "FYTW!"

Would one of the resident legal experts *kindly* explain this? Don't the suspension and prom-barring themselves count as "commenting"? What law prohibits administrators from further commenting? The PTSA meeting about this episode should be interesting.

[John C. Randolph]

If it can't chamber and fire a round, it's NOT A GUN. It's a facsimile of a gun, and anyone too stupid to make that distinction is far too stupid to have anything to teach to a child.

I keep saying it, and it's still true: we'd only have to tar and feather a handful of these idiot bureaucrats every decade or so to make the rest of them cut this stupid shit out.

-jcr

[Isaac Bartram]

Hey, your expecting logic from people who are punishing kids for drawing pictures of guns.

[buntpunt]

The whole idea sounds kinda crazy to me dude.

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