A Missouri lawmaker is pushing a bill that would require parents to report the guns they own to any schools their child attends so that it can be noted in the child’s record. Somehow, putting a mark in the records of the children of gun owners is being framed as “encourag[ing] gun safety in the community and in the household.”
Except the bill doesn’t seem to do any of that based on the report. The only thing they say that is mandatory under the bill is for the schools to act as registration offices for guns. It simply puts a spotlight on those kids to be targeted by school officials to overreact to any little instance of minor trouble, regardless of any actual or perceived threat. A minor misbehavior that might get a kid of non-gun owning detention could result in in-school suspension for the child of gun owners out of fear that they need to be watched & kept away from other students in case they get upset by the punishment.
While the media report does highlight that the chance of this passing is “slim-to-none,” I would repeat Glenn Reynolds channeling Buffy the Vampire Slayer here: “[home schooling is] not just for scary religious people any more.”
I’m glad laws like that are introduced from time to time, because they provide us with endless fodder for propaganda. It’s somewhat surprising the people who introduce them have such tin ears for the issues that they don’t seem to get that.
I’m not sure, but I think there are already “privacy” laws in some states, directed specifically at what public schools can ask about and record, and those things are fairly limited.
Heh….my 12 year old has already told her class that she shoots guns and has shot a machine gun. I wear gun related t-shirts to her school. Especially my blogger shoot, LuckyGunner shirt from the machine gun shoot. It says, “I shoot at cars for target practice.” The best part….not one teacher blinks. I love Virgina.
No surprise, many lawmakers think they just have to “do something” whether it works or not. Republicans have firm majorities in Missouri house and senate, this will go nowhere.
Super-majorities now, in fact. Forget about the only slightly reformed gun grabbing Democratic Governor; if they can keep their caucus together they can pass anything over his veto.
Still have a Democrat for Secretary of State, so I guess no Missouri Plan reform for another 4 years; the last attempt was abandoned after the entirely dreadful last member of an old political family crafted some really wicked ballot language, which of course the self-interested judiciary found OK. There are of course many reasons Soros focused on Secretaries of State beyond just the counting of ballots.
Pretty bad when a self-perpetuating ruling class can control so much by legislating from the bench, e.g. nullifying our crystal clear Castle Doctrine.
Can we get some little yellow pistols made out of cloth to sew on to our kids’ clothes?
Any parent who leaves a child in government schools is guilty of de facto child neglect. Pull the kids out and do everything possible to starve the beast.
Indeed! I wrote columnist Leonard Pitts who ranted in a column against the impracticality of NRA’s armed guards in every potential place where a mass child shooting could occur and told him my solution was to homeschool and protect my children with the vastly superior firepower available in my personal arsenal. One of his minions wrote to thank me for my comment. :-)
I haven’t found anything on an analogous situation, but the ACLU has been very active with issues involving privacy in public schools, generally being very favorable to student/family privacy. They have a surprisingly good site for kids on school privacy issues.
Don’t discount the ACLU as an ally on this issue, just because guns are involved. The PA ACLU was very helpful to us with an issue regarding our desire to conduct firearms appraisals in front of a municipal gun buy-back. The ACLU was sufficiently vicious about our First Amendment rights that the municipality decided it was easier just to shut down the buy-backs.