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