Boy disciplined after waving gun-shaped pizza slice
Posted: Dec 14, 2011 4:01 PM CST
Reported By Andy Cordan, Reporter - bio | email


SMYRNA, Tenn. -

For the rest of the semester, a Rutherford County elementary student has to eat lunch at the "silent table" for allegedly waving around a slice of pizza some say resembled a gun.

Nicholas Taylor attends David Youree Elementary School in Smyrna, about 30 miles southeast of Nashville.

School leaders say the 10-year-old threatened other students at his lunch table with a piece of pizza with bites out of it so it looked like a gun and when asked about it was initially not truthful.

Nicholas' mother LeAnn calls her son's punishment "absolutely ridiculous" saying he was just playing around and never said anything derogatory or anything about shooting anyone.

"The kid across the table from him said it looked like a gun so he picked it up and started shooting it in the air," she told Nashville's News 2 Investigates.

Taylor said she learned of the incident when the school sent her a note saying her son was threatening other students.

James Evans, spokesperson for the Rutherford County School District, said the boy isn't being punished because he had a piece of pizza shaped like a gun.

He's being punished because "some students reported he was making some threatening hand gestures, that he was shooting other kids at the table and they reported it to a teacher," according to Evans.

He continued, "The student didn't tell him the truth about it so he got silent lunch for six days."

Evans called the punishment minor but said the message is clear.

"I realize some might say we are going overboard but the principal is just trying to use an abundance of caution and send the message that we don't play about guns and it's not something we joke around about," he said.

To that, Taylor said her son knows he shouldn't play with guns.

"We don't have a gun in the house," she said. "He plays with light sabers. He's a big Star Wars fan."

In addition to lunch at the silent table, Nicholas has spent time with the school resource officer learning about gun safety.

Taylor said the school system has made it clear that if her son eats his pizza into the shape of a gun again and there is a similar occurrence, he will be suspended.

http://travel.usatoday.com/flights/post/2011/12/purse-gun-tsa-incident-norfolk/578354/1


This country is going nuts

Seems the school district is doing a fine job of creating tattle tale pinko sheep.

They sure are trying their hardest to make kids into little rats. My 4th grade son was pushed by a bigger 6th grader but when my son pushed back and knocked the little chit on his [Bleeeeep!] the kid told on him.

I told my boy regardless of what the school wants him to do (go tattle-tale to the playground teacher) he responded with the appropriate force and that I was proud of him.

The American school system, a democrap infested matriarchy. What else can we expect but the emasculation of the American male?

Stam--No chit! I was a toy soldier in my 1st grade performance of the Nutcracker (no pun intended) and my bolt action .22 went to school with me and was stored in the coat locker.

It's kinda' cool bringin' your 'bullet gun' to school....

Merry Christmas to you and yours Stam.

I remember building nun chucks in woodshop..circa 1977.

Scary isn't it. The damn nuts are running the asylum. Zero tolerance, whatta Joke.

I think your right, just look at the Patriot Act and the soon to be NDAA, where citizens can be detained indefinitely.

Gun shaped pizza?

We were allowed to bring shotgun shaped shotguns and ammo on the school bus, leaving them behind the driver's seat, and then checking them into the principle's office for the school day so that students could go bird hunting after classes were over. Those days are gone fer sure, but then so is leaving the truck unlocked with the key in the ignition while we were gone for the weekend.

Not in my neighborhood...yet.

As with all good things, that too surely will pass. These days you have to go a little farther to get to the outskirts, where living is simple, but it is still possible.

I grew up in places where locks weren't needed and have been lucky to wind up in such a place again. I like being able to believe in and trust that all people are inherently good, even if my immediate neighbors are a microcosm in the big picture.

Globally and socially speaking, I think we are fukked. People suck and tend to have their own best interests in mind, even if that means stepping on your face to get there. That having been said, on a smaller "head in the sand level" I think we can still find cool little corners of the world to inhabit and quality folks to surround ourselves with. Takes a bit of doing though.

The most disturbing thing is that the above story comes from the Patron State of Shooting Things

Can't afford it.

But have a look at the administration's digs.


A f'n piece of pizza, huh? Zero tolerance = Zero brain used

NO CHIT!

But for some altruistic, sub-conscious reason I still vote for the school levy.

just yesterday...

I'm fixing the doors to a cabinet at home and jonah grabs one of the L shaped pieces of wood and rolls on the floor and comes up shooting. He swears he took out a couple of the "bad guys that are literally hiding all over our house"... his words...

I'm hoping the bb gun he's getting for christmas this year will rid us of a few more of those "bad guys" than he's getting now with the pretend guns

I regularly carried my .22lr and 12ga down the halls of our shool on the way to the auto shop where they were stored until after school when we went shooting for gun club. Loaded 12ga trap loads on a Posness Warren reloader, also in the auto-shop. Many days I took the shotgun, broken down in a duffel bag, on the school bus so I could go hunting after school at a friend's place.

It's crazy that with all the guns floating around back in the day that I don't recall anyone shooting up a school.

That was before Call of Duty and other violent video games that kids are watching starting at age five.

Todays school policies are complete BS. My now 11 year old had his Cabelas catalog taken away from him a couple years ago by one of his liberal teachers because it had pictures of guns in it. Dont even get me started on the "if you punch someone back who punches you, you will be expelled" policy. I told my son, if you are explelled for defending yourself, we are going fishin'.

What a misnomer, "mental health expeert" that is.
My wife's cousin is a shrink and Psych teacher at Logan. He is a riot to
engage conversationally on the subject matter. He maintains that almost every 'mental health expert' and/or shrink and Psychologist has issues. They often become so interested in their own mental issues that they become educated in the area, especially in the area of their abberations, and become the experts.

Mom was an elementary teacher and she always said " never start a fight,
but if some one hits you hit back."
Amen

This thread is a good example of poor educations. The issue never was about a gun shaped pizza according to the article/school it was the fact that the kid lied about it:
"The student didn't tell him the truth about it so he got silent lunch for six days."
Seems like a pretty slack punishment. Can't say for sure but we all know what the situation most likely is.....a kid in bad need of Ritalin who is constantly disruptive and violent and mom thinks he's gold.

The past....Mom and/or Dad say "that's what you get for lying and you'll get worse when you get home".

Now....my little Johnny is the most perfect child there's ever been and couldn't possibly do anything wrong. I'm going to wage a war in the press skewing the facts and maybe file a lawsuit as well.

"Dont even get me started on the "if you punch someone back who punches you, you will be expelled" policy."

That's nothing new. In my day if you fought you were either expelled, paddled or picked up buckets of rocks. They didn't hold court to decide who was at fault. Sometimes you were given a choice and sometimes the principal decided for you.

Also, teachers would throw erasers at you, whack your knuckles with a ruler or slap you upside the head. Lawsuit city these days.

You had one of those teachers too 4th grade "Mrs Shono" Japenese American Lady would throw several erasers a day if you were talking when you shouldn't be. She was really nice but you learned pretty fast. I remember eating rice balls in class that she cooked that were covered in sea weed.

Let's bring back corporal punishment to the schools.

Everyone FREEZE! Too late

mmmmmmmmmmmm --> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew--> Pew
mmmmmmmmmmmm
mmm m
mmm
mmm

That was pretty fun.

I think punishment should start early. Any signs of becoming a RWWJ get's the paddle. The super large one with the holes in it. After all it is supposed to be an education.

The one swat I got for throwing snow balls at the school bus got my attention, if I would have told my Parents they would have said "good" Parent's now days wan't to be their Kid's best friends.

By now standards I had ADD...My father (H.S Science Teacher) cured it with a swift wooden spoon on the butt.

And the ones showing signs of liberalism should be housed at Western State Hospital. :>)

We ain't seen nothing yet, just the tip of the iceburg.

Is that where they recruit Democratic legislators? I always wondered, Taxaholics too.
Your sales tax it araisin. soon

They are called honor students.

You sound just like the bed wetting thumb sucker libtard you are. Merry Christmas!

Too bad so many see video games as reality or life. Used to be the kids
knew the difference between Cowboys and Indians, and when the game
was over they went home and forgot about it.
The psychopath that engineered the Littleton atrocity wasn't a beaten
kid. He was just a nut that was smarter than the lowest common
denominator rules allowed for. He didn't fit and they couldn't find a
slot for him. Seems he was taken to task several times and
yet no real consequences ensued.

VIDEO GAMES!!!!

(before that)

VIOLENT MOVIES & TV!!!

(before that)

BOOKS!!!

You know what the truth is? The world is SAFER now than it's ever been in generations. By any reasonable measure/time window, the rates of violent crime, murder, genocide are HISTORICALLY low even globally. I believe that the fear-mongering (even present in this thread) and media culture we live in alter our *perception* of our own safety. There aren't more children abducted than before, we just know all their names and feel somehow personally connected to their stories now. What has CLEARLY grown is outrage. And to borrow a phrase (link below for people who actually read/care about this stuff) "Percieved Risk = Risk (actual) + Outrage".

There's a reason we don't let kids bring guns to school -- it's because parents of kids that got accidentally (not columbine style) shot demanded those rules. The zero tolerance rules, like ANY rule, seem insane at the margins -- clearly this example is one (if it's a real example -- if the kid was only punished for lying, then it's just a convenient fiction).

So go ahead and blame all things "new" and that you don't value (and are therefore outraged that other people do). But the truth is all that newness also brought you remarkably low crime rates, even though populations have grown by multiples in your own lifetimes.

Pinker on this (From the Wall Street Journal, no less):
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904106704576583203589408180.html

Freakanomics on Risk:
http://www.freakonomics.com/2011/11/29/r...-peter-sandman/

It's not just that post it's most of your posts. Use the ignore button if your candy arse can't hang.

Video games are a small part of it. The breakdown of the family unit is the biggest part imo. Let's legalize drugs...that should help.

Yeah, the War on Drugs has certainly helped things, hasn't it?

You're either high right now, or you're a f'n goat.

Don't take things so seriously, I was being a Facetious. Merry XMAS Dan and have a happy New year.

That sh!t ain't funny, man.



Don't you know that I'm REQUIRED to respond in such a manner here on the Dark Side?

Merry Christmas to you as well.

We's cool....

piss off!

I think a reasonable smack on the arse occasionaly is a good thing .. . . . .. . Open hand, when needed to drive home a point. ... no foreign objects, no excuses. . . .

Too many fukktards have gone to far in this world without realizing there are consequences for their actions. . ... .To put it simply, stupid should hurt ... .

I see no reason to beat kids these days when we can use Tasers.