Brickbat: The Pen Is Mightier Than the Sword

The family of a 7-year-old boy, identified in court documents as G.B., has sued Pennsylvania's Derry School District for suspending him for four days for bringing a novelty ink pen to school. The pen emits a small shock when the cap is pressed, and school officials contend that made it a weapon.

Comments

[Suthenboy]

Homeschool.

[Snark Plissken]

From the same paper:

A 14-year-old boy has been charged with carrying a TEC-9 assault pistol into the same Germantown charter school where a police officer's gun discharged during a show-and-tell last month, grazing a student in the face.

[Snark Plissken]

This is the article on the 'accidental discharge' from 2002.

[Cdr Lytton]

Sounds like he had a valid reason to want self protection.

[Live Free or Diet]

a TEC-9 assault pistol

As a person who has owned, carried and trained with firearms all my life, I was going to make a comment that the kid should be charged with carrying a jam-prone piece of crap. Then the coffee woke me up enough for it to occur to me:
What the fuck is an assault pistol?

[Snark Plissken]

Like a normal pistol, but much more assaultier.

[Live Free or Diet]

Oh, I feel so much more... informed.

[Ted S.]

It's a gun shaped like a pistol that for whatever reason looks extra scary to a leftie.

[Bardas Phocas]

It's black.

[WTF]

But does it have "the shoulder thing that goes up"?

[PM]

It's got an extended high capacity retractable assault magazine clip.

[SomeGuy]

it has a mag with more than 6 rounds?

[Cdr Lytton]

Thank god! It's been almost nine hours since the last HyR post and I feared it was part of the shutdown. Late night links must be non-essential.

[Ted S.]

Why should anybody give a shit about the commenters in the Pacific Time Zone? 😉

Seriously, though, I remember a couple of summers ago there was some big road work project scheduled for a weekend in LA, and one of the columnists (Welch?) did an entire series of posts on it, as though the rest of us were supposed to give a shit.

[googles it]

Actually, it was Mr. Cavana Ugh who wrote most of the columns. There's also a Reason TV video, and an article on Tim's appearance on local TV. I didn't check how many of those articles having Tim plug whatever his latest book at the time was, however.

[UnCivilServant]

Reason, esp hit and run is just a book ad feed with a news aggregator attached.

[Auric Demonocles]

I remember those. It was about interstate 5 if I remember correctly.

I really liked some of Cavanaugh's late night posts, because I think he might have been as drunk as the commenters for occasionally.

[Fist of Etiquette]

Prop comedy is never funny.

[H. ReardEn]

We used to shock each other with cigarette lighter igniters.

[Ted S.]

If the pen is so mighty, why the fuck isn't it writing any alt-text?

[UnCivilServant]

Oh it did, it just doesn't get off the monitor and through the internet.

[H. ReardEn]

Using this logic, a rubber band is a weapon. And the teacher's desk is full of them!!!!!

[H. ReardEn]

Don't even think of bringing this to school.

[Snark Plissken]

A spitball gun could put an eye out.

[Rich]

And *paper clips* and *staples*!

Why do we even bother with school metal detectors in the first place?

[l0b0t]

HA!! Wifey is a high school English teacher in Brooklyn. She has several of these novelty shocking pens, she gives them to students who ask to borrow a pen so as to remind them that they are supposed to bring their own pen to class every day. Who knew it was such a fearsome weapon. Also, assault pistol? WTF?!?

[invisible furry hand]

You realise a drone strike has probably been ordered on your terrorist spouse who endangers children

[Zakalwe]

You know else shocked people by asking them to press their button?

[H. ReardEn]

Stanley Milgram

[Rich]

Miley Cyrus?

[Rich]

"A sharpened pencil is probably a more dangerous item than this pen was," [the boy's attorney] said.

Why do you think schools are mandating *tablets*, DUH?

[Auric Demonocles]

Alt-text is mightier than either.