Scouts and Fixed Blades; New viewpoint

[Stosh]

4 hours ago, Col. Flagg said:

In this case, @Stosh, it was blade length. There were several BSA pocket knife and Swiss Army blade lengths at the time 3", making them illegal in this state.

@Col. Flagg out of all the knives I have that are considered pocket knives, only one was a bit over 3".  When confronted by it, I stuck it in a crack in the counter and snapped off the point to make it legal.  Now I have a pocket knife that doubles as a screwdriver.  The only reason it was over 3" is because the person measuring the length measured from the handle to the tip rather than the actual cutting edge.  It was a 3" knife.

Edited December 6, 2017 by Stosh

[Col. Flagg]

18 hours ago, perdidochas said:

Locally, the schools have a rule about such situations--it's called safe harbor, and basically, if a child realizes that they accidentally have a knife or lighter on them, if they turn it into the teacher as soon as they realize it, it will simply be confiscated until a parent can come pick it up. However, if they show it off to another child, or if it slips out of their pocket, then punishments will be enacted for the contraband. It's a pretty reasonable rule.  

Wasn't there an Eagle Scout that had a pocket knife in the flat bed tool box of his pick-up truck who was suspended under a zero-tolerance rule?

Edit: Found the story. Silly rule, poorly applied.

Edited December 7, 2017 by Col. Flagg

[perdidochas]

8 minutes ago, Col. Flagg said:

Wasn't there an Eagle Scout that had a pocket knife in the flat bed tool box of his pick-up truck who was suspended under a zero-tolerance rule?

Edit: Found the story. Silly rule, poorly applied.

Each school system is different.  Just relating what the local school system does.  My wife used to be an assistant principal, and she actually had to use the rule. 

[Col. Flagg]

2 minutes ago, perdidochas said:

Each school system is different.  Just relating what the local school system does.  My wife used to be an assistant principal, and she actually had to use the rule. 

Understood. My brother-in-law is a cop, my sister a dispatcher and my wife a teacher, so I get that rules need to be applied...even rules like this. But a two inch knife, obviously used for emergencies, kept in a car far from use and owned by a kid that is obviously honest and forthright, and to suspend him for 20 days!!!??? 

Good thing they didn't look for the tire iron, the lug wrench or the baseball bat in his back seat. He might have been expelled.

Just like the trooper that pulled our bus over, discretion must be used. He could have tossed our entire bus looking for "violations", but he decided that we were honest with him and making an obvious attempt to comply with the law -- a law that only applied to us for a few hours while we drove through his state.

[Eagledad]

12 minutes ago, perdidochas said:

Each school system is different.  Just relating what the local school system does.  My wife used to be an assistant principal, and she actually had to use the rule. 

The rule is appropriate for a specific application. The problem is zero tolerance doesn't allow judgment of application. We had a local situation where the student was punished for a butter knife that fell out of his lunch sack. Mom had put it there to spread the condiments on his sandwich.

I honestly do not understand why schools feel the need for "zero tolerance" anything. 

Barry

[TAHAWK]

Such rules allow escape from personal responsibility - "I was only following orders."  Some of us put our children in the hands of such people.  Others vote the entire Board out at the next election.

[perdidochas]

52 minutes ago, TAHAWK said:

Such rules allow escape from personal responsibility - "I was only following orders."  Some of us put our children in the hands of such people.  Others vote the entire Board out at the next election.

The rule I'm speaking of is a safe harbor  rule that allows the student to turn in the knife (or lighter, etc.)  when they realize that they accidentally left a knife in their coat pocket, or backpack, etc.  This is the opposite of zero tolerance.  

[perdidochas]

3 hours ago, Col. Flagg said:

Understood. My brother-in-law is a cop, my sister a dispatcher and my wife a teacher, so I get that rules need to be applied...even rules like this. But a two inch knife, obviously used for emergencies, kept in a car far from use and owned by a kid that is obviously honest and forthright, and to suspend him for 20 days!!!??? 

Good thing they didn't look for the tire iron, the lug wrench or the baseball bat in his back seat. He might have been expelled.

Just like the trooper that pulled our bus over, discretion must be used. He could have tossed our entire bus looking for "violations", but he decided that we were honest with him and making an obvious attempt to comply with the law -- a law that only applied to us for a few hours while we drove through his state.

It's silliness.  My sons both got emergency took kits to keep in their cars.  We had to remove the utility knives from the kits, at least while they were in high school.  It's just the way of the world.  

[Stosh]

4 hours ago, Col. Flagg said:

Wasn't there an Eagle Scout that had a pocket knife in the flat bed tool box of his pick-up truck who was suspended under a zero-tolerance rule?

Edit: Found the story. Silly rule, poorly applied.

It's how we teach our kids intolerance today.

[TAHAWK]

4 hours ago, perdidochas said:

The rule I'm speaking of is a safe harbor  rule that allows the student to turn in the knife (or lighter, etc.)  when they realize that they accidentally left a knife in their coat pocket, or backpack, etc.  This is the opposite of zero tolerance.  

Good.  Makes sense.

 

The rule I was speaking about - I thought obviously -- was the type of rule most of use are questioning - the zero tolerance [reasoning] rule.

But you remind us that communication can be hard.  I should have been clearer.

[perdidochas]

13 hours ago, TAHAWK said:

Good.  Makes sense.

 

The rule I was speaking about - I thought obviously -- was the type of rule most of use are questioning - the zero tolerance [reasoning] rule.

But you remind us that communication can be hard.  I should have been clearer.

This is sometimes a hard way to communicate.  I wasn't as clear as I should have been either. The local school system got    rid of zero tolerance rules a few years ago.  

[NJCubScouter]

I think most people who THINK they favor "zero tolerance" don't really understand what it means:  No exceptions, no consideration of circumstances, no discretion, nothing.  I would bet there are people who favor "zero tolerance" who, if you told them the story of the Scout who had a small knife safely locked away in an emergency kit in his car and was suspended from school for it, would say, "Oh, THAT is going too far."  In other words, they would consider the circumstances - which means they are not really for zero tolerance.

[Eagle94-A1]

2 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

I think most people who THINK they favor "zero tolerance" don't really understand what it means:  No exceptions, no consideration of circumstances, no discretion, nothing.  I would bet there are people who favor "zero tolerance" who, if you told them the story of the Scout who had a small knife safely locked away in an emergency kit in his car and was suspended from school for it, would say, "Oh, THAT is going too far."  In other words, they would consider the circumstances - which means they are not really for zero tolerance.

Or the Tiger Cub with a plastic spork with a cutting edge who was suspended for having a "weapon" at school. Then again, someone at my work said I was "armed" because I had a P-40 can opener on my keyring.

[NJCubScouter]

5 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Or the Tiger Cub with a plastic spork with a cutting edge who was suspended for having a "weapon" at school. 

That's ridiculous.

Don't kids still use plastic knives to eat lunch in the cafeteria?  Is that a weapon too?

[NJCubScouter]

8 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Then again, someone at my work said I was "armed" because I had a P-40 can opener on my keyring.

Someone could probably get a paper cut (actually I guess it would be a plastic cut) from the supermarket frequent-shopper cards that I carry on my keyring.  Am I armed too?