http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,294145,00.html

Quote :

"Arizona School Suspends 13-Year-Old Boy for Drawing Gun Wednesday, August 22, 2007 MESA, Arizona — Officials at an Arizona school suspended a 13-year-old boy for sketching what looked like a gun, saying the action posed a threat to his classmates. The boy's parents said the drawing was a harmless doodle and school officials overreacted. "The school made him feel like he committed a crime. They are doing more damage than good," said the boy's mother, Paula Mosteller. The drawing did not show blood, bullets, injuries or target any human, the parents said. And the East Valley Tribune reported that the boy said he did not intend for the picture to be a threat. Administrators of Payne Junior High in nearby Chandler suspended the boy on Monday for five days but later reduced it to three days. The boy's father, Ben Mosteller, said that when he went to the school to discuss his son's punishment, school officials mentioned the seriousness of the issue and talked about the 1999 massacre at Colorado's Columbine High School, where two teenagers shot and killed 12 students, a teacher and themselves. Mosteller said he was offended by the reference. Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the crude sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," and that threatening words or pictures are punishable "

this is so fucking stupid. I drew hundred's of guns when I was a kid...BECAUSE I WAS A FUCKING YOUNG BOY. Why not start charging the football team for assult if they hit someone too hard??

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 9:10 AM. Reason : .]

8/23/2007 9:09:52 AM

wow... That is fucked up. I drew bombs, guns, people getting killed - and that is in elementary school.

People are fucking morons.

8/23/2007 9:13:42 AM

i used to draw assault vehicles with spikes on tires, turrets coming out of the roof, etc in ELEMENTARY SCHOOL... because I was a KID.


This is fucking ridiculous. And I blame the liberals.

8/23/2007 9:19:50 AM

that's ludachris

8/23/2007 9:19:52 AM

I would have been suspended for most of the school year

8/23/2007 9:21:59 AM

When i say draw, draw

......


......






......

DRAW!

8/23/2007 9:22:11 AM

I for one am offended by this child's actions. If I were in class and someone drew a picture of a gun (no matter how much it resembled a mailbox) I would automatically assume that it meant that they were trying to kill me.

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 9:23 AM. Reason : ]

8/23/2007 9:23:21 AM

5x^ You would blame liberals first. Too bad not all liberals are the boogeymen that you would like to make them out to be. Not to say I had a political persuasion when I was in the 5th grade but I used to use thunderstorms as the subject when I had to write those annoying "descriptive essays". To illustrate the intensity of such storms I would reference a body count and that seemed to draw the unwanted scowl of disapproval from my teacher. Maybe she was a liberal. She was black after all.



[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 9:26 AM. Reason : .]

8/23/2007 9:25:54 AM

heh

8/23/2007 9:26:34 AM

I used to draw nuclear weapons.

8/23/2007 9:29:00 AM

Hell, if anything I would blame the neocons for instilling a state of fear that there is a turrist around every corner and is likely to come after our white women at anytime. Or maybe it was the fundamentalist, conservative, branch of Islam that decided to give the neocons the chance by flying planes into buildings.

8/23/2007 9:29:52 AM

^ wtf are you talking about?

Anyway, like almost every other 10 year old boy I doodle random and unrealistic guns, knives, etc. This is utterly stupid.

8/23/2007 9:39:40 AM

A 13 year-old drew that?

really?

His art teacher should be suspended.

8/23/2007 9:42:27 AM

not to sound against everyone, because i do agree its very stupid that he got suspended for a drawing. But most of us were in elem/middle school before school shootings and stuff happened, so it wasn't an issue back then, and they werent paranoid at the time that some kid is gonna pull out a gun and start cappin everyone.

8/23/2007 9:45:03 AM

This is utterly ridiculous. It's not like the boy drew anything gratuitously violent, and even if he did that doesn't warrant punishment in and of itself. It's a DRAWING, for crying out loud! I swear that I hear more and more of these kinds of stories every day. I don't know what the hell is wrong with people, but this knee-jerk reaction to anything that anyone, anywhere finds even remotely offensive has got to stop.

Quote :

"Why not start charging the football team for assault if they hit someone too hard?"

Be careful what you wish for. In this day and age somebody might decide to ban football altogether because it's "too rough and insensitive."

Quote :

"But most of us were in elem/middle school before school shootings and stuff happened, so it wasn't an issue back then, and they weren't paranoid at the time that some kid is gonna pull out a gun and start cappin everyone."

But haven't school shootings always been a problem? Granted that they don't happen frequently, but have they still not occurred throughout the history of public schooling nonetheless? The only reason everybody's up in arms about it today is because the media has over-sensationalized it. Columbine and VT were tragedies, don't get me wrong, but the way they were reported you'd think that somebody set off a nuclear weapon in one of those schools.

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 9:52 AM. Reason : blah]

8/23/2007 9:47:37 AM

Quote :

"not to sound against everyone, because i do agree its very stupid that he got suspended for a drawing. But most of us were in elem/middle school before school shootings and stuff happened, so it wasn't an issue back then, and they werent paranoid at the time that some kid is gonna pull out a gun and start cappin everyone."

I disagree. According to wiki:

Quote :

"University of Texas at Austin massacre - Austin, Texas, United States; August 1, 1966 Orangeburg Massacre - Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States; February 8, 1968 Kent State shootings - Kent, Ohio, United States; May 4, 1970 Jackson State killings - Jackson, Mississippi, United States; May 14-15, 1970 California State University, Fullerton Library Massacre - Fullerton, California, United States; July 12, 1976 Brenda Ann Spencer, Cleveland Elementary School - January 29, 1979 Parkway South Junior High School shooting - Saint Louis, Missouri, United States; January 20, 1983 Stockton massacre - Stockton, California, United States; January 17, 1989 University of Iowa shooting - Iowa City, Iowa, United States; November 1, 1991 Simon's Rock College of Bard shooting - Great Barrington, Massachusetts, United States; December 14, 1992 East Carter High School shooting - Grayson, Kentucky, United States; January 18, 1993 O. Henry Middle School shooting - Austin, Texas, United States; February 5, 1995. Richland High School shooting - Lynnville, Tennessee, United States; November 15, 1995. Frontier Junior High shooting - Moses Lake, Washington, United States; February 2, 1996 Pearl High School shooting, Pearl, Mississippi, United States; October 1, 1997 Heath High School shooting, West Paducah, Kentucky, United States; December 1, 1997 Jonesboro massacre - Jonesboro, Arkansas, United States; March 24, 1998 Thurston High School shooting - Springfield, Oregon, United States; May 21, 1998 Columbine High School massacre - Littleton, Colorado, United States; April 20, 1999 Heritage High School shooting - Conyers, Georgia, United States; May 20, 1999 Santana High School - Santee, California, United States; March 5, 2001 Appalachian School of Law shooting - Grundy, Virginia, United States; January 16, 2002 Rocori High School shootings - Cold Spring, Minnesota, United States; September 24, 2003 Red Lake High School massacre - Red Lake, Minnesota, United States; March 21, 2005 Campbell County High School - Jacksboro, Tennessee: November 8, 2005 Platte Canyon High School shooting - Bailey, Colorado, United States; September 27, 2006 Amish school shooting - Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, United States; October 2, 2006 Weston High School shooting, Cazenovia, Wisconsin September 29, 2006 Henry Foss High School - Tacoma, Washington, United States January 3, 2007 Virginia Tech massacre - Blacksburg, Virginia, United States; April 16, 2007 "

granted, there are more now than before, but it was still a problem.

8/23/2007 10:01:01 AM

i think the proper response to this might have been a trip to the counselor's office, not a suspension.

8/23/2007 10:01:35 AM

I still blame the liberals. The NRA is all for this boy drawing guns.

8/23/2007 10:03:18 AM

How about just blaming the fucking school administration for stupid knee-jerk reactionary policies?

8/23/2007 10:12:45 AM

Quote :

"A 13 year-old drew that? really? His art teacher should be suspended."

that's what i was thinking, the horror the horror

8/23/2007 10:15:05 AM

^

8/23/2007 10:36:11 AM

Quote :

"But most of us were in elem/middle school before school shootings and stuff happened, so it wasn't an issue back then, and they werent paranoid at the time that some kid is gonna pull out a gun and start cappin everyone."

as Drovkin pointed out, this isn't necessarily true.

I think this perception can be attributed to several factors though
1) when you were young and in school, you didn't pay attention to the news, so even if there was school shootings (and there was) then you probably weren't paying attention enough to know. Plus, that was a long time ago and you've forgotten
2) (biggest factor) CNN and Fox News either weren't around or didn't make BREAKING NEWS out of every fucking thing that happens. Not to say news wasn't sensationalist, but it's gone to new levels in the past 15 years with so many 24-hour news channels
3) People in general weren't so hypersensitive or PC about these issues, which again as been fueled by #2

i mean, it's like saying there's been a huge increase in mining accidents and deaths in the past 5 years, when in fact mining deaths have been decreasing steadily for over the last 100 years. There were probably plenty of mining accidents in the 1980's, but to hear about them, you would have to watch the national Nightly News for maybe a blurb on it if someone died or something, or read about it in the "around the country" section of a newspaper. Now, though, every time 3 or more people are trapped in a mine for more than 2 hours, we have to have news channels parked 24 hours a day at the mine entrance monitoring the situation to make sure the public doesn't miss any "crucial information".

8/23/2007 11:05:47 AM

this is pitiful

8/23/2007 11:11:02 AM

Yeah, that is a crappy drawing. At the age of 9, I was drawing ninja turtles with guns, huge muscles, swords, nunchaku, and other various deadly weapons. I even dreamed of being a ninja turtle. At 13 I had moved on to Dragon Ball Z.

8/23/2007 11:17:57 AM

this is absurd

8/23/2007 11:20:17 AM

this is utterly retarted. About the only reason I might agree with the administration is if he had a stick figure labeled with another students name in front of the gun.

I think I am sending my children to private school

8/23/2007 11:21:03 AM

8/23/2007 11:21:42 AM

i drew ninja turtles when i was a kid

cus my parents wouldn't let me watch it on tv

8/23/2007 11:25:59 AM

Quote :

"wow... That is fucked up. I drew bombs, guns, people getting killed - and that is in elementary school."

no shit right, if they had my stories n drawings from school today, they think i was the next columbine/VT kid. i think they are being a little too paranoid now

8/23/2007 11:44:56 AM

2 incidents in the 60s
4 incidents in the 70s
2 incidents in the 80s
12 incidents in the 90s
10 thus far in the 00s

Yeah, kids in elementary school now are dealing with the issue much more that I did when I was in elementary school.

Quote :

"i mean, it's like saying there's been a huge increase in mining accidents and deaths in the past 5 years, when in fact mining deaths have been decreasing steadily for over the last 100 years."

And this is like saying that there's been a huge increase in school shootings in the past 10 years, when in fact school shootings have been increasing steadily for over the last 100 years.

Just saying, but that said this was a huge overreaction.

8/23/2007 11:47:01 AM

we've got some real geniuses running our schools today...apparently this picture might've hurt someone's feelings and we all know sensitivity is the most important thing in the world

hell when i was in school we'd make those guns out of a couple sheets of notebook paper where you could actually kind of pull a slide back...but nobody cared...cause its fucking made of paper

[Edited on August 23, 2007 at 12:05 PM. Reason : .]

8/23/2007 12:02:04 PM

Quote :

"i think the proper response to this might have been a trip to the counselor's office, not a suspension."

bullshit, the proper response for this was to ignore it, its a fucking doodle. I used to doodle naked women and all kinds of shit in high school, nobody gave a fuck

8/23/2007 12:06:46 PM

thank goodness he didnt make one of these or he might've been expelled for being a ninja

8/23/2007 12:09:36 PM

A ninja wouldn't put up with that kind of bullshit.

8/23/2007 12:18:31 PM

Quote :

"bullshit, the proper response for this was to ignore it, its a fucking doodle."

Exactly. He's just a kid and this is very normal for a boy of his age.

8/23/2007 12:21:14 PM

Chandler district spokesman Terry Locke said the crude sketch was "absolutely considered a threat," because at 13 he was already smarter than the entire school administration combined.

8/23/2007 12:21:55 PM

when i was in 5th or 6th grade, i made this very detailed painting of a WWI soldier having his chest cavity exploded by 50-cal machine gun rounds while simultaneously being disemboweled by barbed wire and decapitated by heavy strafing from an aircraft's gun.

my art teacher probably should have sent me in for counseling, but instead she gave me a "C" with the comment "that's disgusting!"

I was fucking pissed. the shit took me a long time to paint, and it was extremely detailed and graphic.

so much for fucking art class.

8/23/2007 12:28:06 PM

lol

8/23/2007 12:41:00 PM

heh, simpsons did it...

when they split the school into the boys side and the girls side and lisa sneaks over to get real math and science at the boys school... she asks Nelson what he's drawing, and he shows her a plane made of guns shooting a building made of guns with bullets made of guns... something along those lines...

I mean this is ABSOLUTELY rediculous... I had BB guns growing up, and I have airsoft guns now, I've hunted and I shoot skeet on thanksgiving day... I like guns, and if I as a kid just wanted to draw a picture of a gun, then hell I should be able to...

of course that drawing reflects more of an 5y/o artistic ability than a 13y/o... it almost looks like a road with a turning lane more than a gun

8/23/2007 12:48:23 PM

haha no shit joe schmoe

I used to draw vietnam war scenes all the time

little asian dudes with rice picking hats on shooting AKs against american troops with M16s

with B52s flying over head and F4s dropping napalm

8/23/2007 12:49:37 PM

I think we should all draw pics of guns and send them to that stupid school, then maybe theyd freak out.

8/23/2007 12:50:52 PM

thats the ugliest MAC10 I've ever seen


and they are hideous irl

8/23/2007 12:54:39 PM

Quote :

"hell when i was in school we'd make those guns out of a couple sheets of notebook paper where you could actually kind of pull a slide back...but nobody cared...cause its fucking made of paper"

OMG!!! nostalgia!!!

8/23/2007 1:29:39 PM

that barely even looks like a gun to me.

8/23/2007 3:21:14 PM

Ridiculous? Yeah. But part of the reason the schools have been pushed into that corner is because parents suck these days. More than a few friends of mine, who have gone into teaching, have complained or quit due to apathy or antagonism on the part of the parents of these little shits.

8/23/2007 3:23:13 PM

to me it looks like the drawing is turned sideways and its actually a building with the AHU on top and a baloon tied to the bus stop covering on the sidewalk

8/23/2007 3:26:05 PM

He should have been like "Gun? What gun? Thats a picture of my mailbox fool."

8/23/2007 3:26:49 PM

Quote :

"granted, there are more now than before, but it was still a problem."

you also have to consider that there are more schools and more students today. the increase in shootings is likely proportional to the increase in schools and students (just assuming based on common sense, i haven't done the math).

8/23/2007 3:43:58 PM

I missed the "13 year old" part earlier. It IS messed up for such an "old" kid to be drawing childish stuff like this, but it still only warrants a trip to the office/verbal warning/art critique

I mean sure, I drew the occasional war scene for fun, etc.. but I definitely grew out of it by ~6th grade. To be doing it at 13 is indeed creepy.

Oh and I drew way cooler guns when I did draw them. And I put them on Kilrathi and Terran warships

8/23/2007 3:54:18 PM

One of my friends and I used to draw rabid butterflies with big pointy teeth in the 7th grade. We had all these scenarios where they were attacking people.

8/23/2007 3:56:30 PM