Ridiculous goings on at St. Albans

[Anonymous]

Anybody here about the bb gun incident today? Could it be more inane?

[Anonymous]

yes. old news. see thread http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/100529.page.

[Anonymous]

Talk about overreaction -- one boy lead out of hearst in handcuffs another arrested in StA. Understand the initial carefulness.. but really? Dopey boys. Very typical dumb boy stuff. Hope they figure this out.

[Anonymous]

What exactly happened? I have sons who have airsoft guns. I feel certain they know better than to take them anywhere in public, let alone to school, but this sounds like it could be a helpful cautioary tale.

[Anonymous]

This is the classic "Oops, I forgot it was in my car" incident. The bb gun was apparently on the back seat of their Jeep, which was parked on STA grounds.

We read about these zero-tolerance cases all the time. A boy scout is found with a pocket knife in the trunk of his car, and he's expelled. Hopefully, not being a public school will exempt STA from the insanity that is zero-tolerance and the school will be able to make a reasoned judgment of whether discipline is warranted.

[Anonymous]

I heard two stupid women talking about this incident this morning at the Georgetown Starbucks. The reason I noticed is because the women were basically SCREAMING to each other in such a strangely self-conscious way to make sure everyone on line could hear them. People were looking up from their newspapers, perplexed.

They were saying that WTOP got the whole story soooo wrong, etc. Anyhow, more than the story itself, these two pathetic attention-seekers made me really worry about having my own children in private school.

I did hear on WTOP, however, that one of the boys had the bb gun outside of the jeep, which wasn't that smart. But maybe the St. Alban's yoga mommies know better than WTOP.

[Anonymous]

I think its serious (not HUGELY serious, but serious). They had the gun in their car on school grounds. Anyone could have broken in and taken it and done all sorts of threatening things with it. And they didn't know why the boys had the gun (or even, at first, what kind of gun). I think after Columbine all schools have a drill for this and they would rather take it seriously than not.

I don't know i it is legal to own a BB gun in DC, but it really is something that should not be on a school campus. Period. My guess is that the prosecution of this will be minimal. But given the lack of concrete information at the time, over reaction seems better than underreaction.

[Anonymous]

I bet GDS kids don't have BB guns. Too violent.

[Anonymous]

I have the real story....two boys were arrested after officals observed a gun on the back seat of a jeep. Schools were on lock down for 90 minutes and boys were arrested. I don't think this was an overreaction as we should always err on the side of caution. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. Parents need to feel that their children are safe.

[Anonymous]

Hear, Hear!

Anonymous wrote:I have the real story....two boys were arrested after officals observed a gun on the back seat of a jeep. Schools were on lock down for 90 minutes and boys were arrested. I don't think this was an overreaction as we should always err on the side of caution. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. Parents need to feel that their children are safe.

[Anonymous]

PLUS - BB guns look so much like real guns now a days - who is to say it was not a hunting shot gun or the like. I think the school operated under the assumption a real gun was on campus and I feel much better knowing that they went into lockdown. If nothing else at least the adults in the community had a "real feeling" lockdown rather than one they knew was a drill, so in case of a crisis they will be better prepared.

[Anonymous]

Good grief. Thanks for reminding me why we chose to live in VA with the rednecks instead of in DC with the crazies. Just last week I transported my son's friend's airsoft gun -- across state lines no less (from MD to VA) -- so that they could play after school in our woods (yep, we have woods in VA). Had I gone to DC for an errand and a police officer looked into the back of my SUV (which already appears highly suspicious in DC because it sports a pro-life bumper sticker), I guess I could have been arrested, too. I understand why parents living in DC would not want their sons playing with BB guns, because most people do not have yards big enough to allow safe play. But since some of us in MD and VA do, and some of us feel this is much healthier recreation than socializing with strangers on facebook or sitting in front of a giant screen playing Guitar Hero, DC law enforcement obviously needs to take into account that this is a metropolitan area and not arrest teenagers, who presumably had a MD license plate on their car, for forgetting to take the BB gun out of the back seat!

[Anonymous]

What is an "airsoft gun?"

[Anonymous]

An airsoft gun, my sons tell me, is like a BB gun but shoots little plastic pellets that are softer and less dangerous, which is why I agreed to them. Maybe BB guns shoot metal pellets? I don't really know. The kids still wear protective eye gear or face masks when they play with airsoft. The guns are available with different "velocities," so as long as they don't buy really powerful ones, and are old enough to play responsibly (ie not shoot at each other in the face or up close), they can play paintball type games with them or shoot at targets without getting hurt. From a distance the guns can be made to look very realistic, which is probably why they are banned in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't think this was an overreaction as we should always err on the side of caution. Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. Parents need to feel that their children are safe.

You are exactly what is wrong in this country. We pay school administrators big dollars for their professional judgment. Zero tolerance means zero judgment. We might as well hire a chimp to perform the administrator's job.

And, as for parents' need to feel their kids are safe--our kids are safe, and they are no less safe because police find a bb gun in the locked back seat of a jeep. We live in a frickin' city, where there is a murder a day and guns and knives are wide-spread. Never mind that the city is a target for terrorists. Arresting two kids for the bb gun gives you a *false* sense of security, because the only thing that has happened is easy-picking--kids who made a mistake--while the more difficult, and deadly, threats are still out there.