Stormtrooper Arrested 535
Kexel writes: Nope, not an April Fools joke. A forty-year-old man in Massachusetts bought a Stormtrooper outfit, and then walked through a neighborhood near a school to show his friends. The principal saw his fake blaster and called 911. The man was then arrested and charged with disturbing a school and loitering. A police spokesman said the man "used bad judgment." I guess this shows you what not to do when geeking out on Star Wars.
Lynn, Lynn, the city of sin... (Score:5, Funny)
Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe schools should require some kind of basic course to familiarize kids with real guns, so they don't grow up into these principals who can't tell the difference.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Contrasting it against a white stormtrooper outfit, yes, even if I was some dumbass who didn't know what a stormtrooper was.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrasting it against a white stormtrooper outfit, yes, even if I was some dumbass who didn't know what a stormtrooper was.
The principal may have been a dumbass, but the real problem here is the cops. The principal was somewhat justified in reporting him, since she didn't know if the gun was real or not. But the cops knew it was a toy, and arrested him anyway. As soon as they realized it was not a real gun, and didn't even look like a real gun, they should have said "This is not the stormtrooper we are looking for. You can go about your business."
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
would you be able to distinguish it from a real gun from 100 feet away?
No, and does it even fucking matter? Guns aren't illegal. [wikipedia.org]
This guy's a moron, and maybe it's OK that they ran him in just to make sure he wasn't up to no good, but fuck pressing charges. And the principal? A pussy who has no business being in charge of anyone, let alone our children. And we wonder why kids are growing up so soft...look at these "role models" they see in schools! Nanny-state limp-wrists who soil themselves at the sight of a plastic gun.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Admittedly, I did. I just Googled the school and saw a picture of the principal. It makes more sense now. But rest assured, nanny-statists come in all sexes, races, colors, and creeds.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think open carry is allowed in mass. All permits for handguns atleast are concealed carry as I understand it. So a man carrying a pistol shaped gun openly could be arrested.
That doesn't change the fact that this is incredibly stupid. A toy is a toy and a storm trooper outfit should be a dead give away. Even if the principal fucked this up the police should have had more sense
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
The police don't care. They get to arrest someone so they're happy. Anybody else find it ironic that a guy got dressed up in a storm trooper costume(soldier of a facist, police state) and then got arrested by soldiers of what many would argue has become a fascist police state?
hahahaha.....
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
I must have missed the part where he had an actual firearm. No firearm, no grounds for arrest.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
its legal to open carry a TOY, even in Mass. Ffs the dude was dressed like a storm trooper.
Re: (Score:3)
Ahh, he was impersonating a cop then.. I'm sure MA can get him on that too.
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Have you seen our cops lately?
Re: (Score:3)
So kids playing cowbys and indians or cops and robbers, should keep their "guns" concealled.
There are way too many idiots teaching, voting, judging and in the police force !
Re: (Score:3)
Well, this was Massachusetts; where light-up Mooninite signs are treated as a "terrorist threat" worthy of a city-wide alert; wearing a t-shirt with some blinkenlights on it is "justification" for threatening Course VI students with submachine guns (and then arresting them); and where police, entering with neither warrant nor invitation, accost (black) university professors in their own homes, arresting them for disturbing the peace should they get irate and raise their voice; and all of this goes unpunish
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Funny)
open carry is allowed everywhere. gun laws are unconstitutional and should not be obeyed.
That's very nice. Don't hit your head as you get in the back of the car, sir.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
open carry is allowed everywhere. gun laws are unconstitutional and should not be obeyed.
Next time I see some dipshit open-carrying his rifle into Chipotle, I'm going to sneak up on him in the parking lot and tackle him. At best, I'll be a hero. At worst, I'll be wrong. But the guy carrying might learn a valuable lesson: even if open carry is illegal, it's still not socially acceptable. And I'll have plausible deniability either way.
At worst, you'd get shot.
On second thought, make that at best.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:3)
Rifles do not make you ineffective at hand to hand combat. In fact, the US Army and Marines teach you how to make a rifle lethal in hand to hand combat.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say you scenario plays out perfectly, you manage to attack a gun owner unprovoked in broad daylight and miraculously end up not getting shot. What then? What will you do when the police arrest you and you are staring down a trial and conviction for assault and battery? More over, what defense will you offer up when the prosecutor cites the post you and that other chucklehead made as evidence of premeditation, bumping your charges up to aggravated assault?
Face it, you and your ilk or no different than a bunch of homophobes talking on Facebook about how you're gonna go gay-bashing later. Just because you don't like something does not give you the right to attack others for it. Grow the fuck up, people will do things you don't approve of but no one made you judge, jury, and executioner of what is right or wrong.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Insightful)
At worst you will get shot and he will have a very good case for "Afraid for his life". You might be better off if you tacle him while yelling "Shooter in the Parking lot lets detain him". Then all those individuals who conceal carry have an excuse to be "Afraid for their lives". Its all about making the legalize work for you!
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Informative)
Err, no, that's not how it works. At best, you'll get your ass kicked into the dirt. At worst, you'll end up dead with a largish ragged hole bored into your skull or chest.
Dude is minding his own business - you have no rights at all to commit assault and battery on him, and the act gives your target free rein to respond however he thinks necessary... neither option will end well for you.
But then, I've lost count of the number of keyboard warriors who claim online that they intend to do such a thing, so maybe common sense will hit you right before you decide to run and jump?
Re:Fear of guns (Score:5, Informative)
It may not be the principal's fault. Many schools have "zero tolerance" policies, which is basically PC-speak for common sense and reasoning is prohibited. In my daughter's school, using your fingers to form a pretend gun will get you in trouble.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? What makes him a moron -- the fact that our society has become so ridiculously rigid you can't wear a costume outside? Are we all going to have assume the uniform of loafers, dockers, and a button down shirt?
The morons here are the cops, the principal, and a society that has totally lost any contact with good sense. But then, this is Massachusetts -- home of the city that accepted a total eradication of the 4th Amendment (1) and lost it's shit over a blinky toy (2).
(1) http://poorrichardsnews.com/po... [poorrichardsnews.com]
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2... [wikipedia.org]
Re: (Score:3)
Seriously, what a chain of fuckups. The school should have had the balls to check him out in person, ask him to move along. The cops should have seen he's no threat, and done the same. Unless the real story here is that all of that happened, and the guy was just off his meds (which I'm certainly not discounting as possible), this is exactly the sort of paranoid nonsense that heralds the end of a free nation.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's assume for a moment that the principal spent the last 35ish years off this planet and hence does not know what a Stormtrooper is...
What does he see? A guy in a plastic suit. Why would anyone who has anything indecent in mind put himself into gear that impacts his ability to move and see negatively?
The principal's behaviour is irrational at best. Insane at worst.
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It's a suit of armor and a helmet. Brand recognition doesn't matter if someone isn't familiar with the suit. They don't see a giant nerd walking down the street in plastic, they see someone apparently in full armor with a helmet and weapon. And besides, everyone knows that only Imperial stormtroopers are so precise.
Re:Fear of guns (Score:4, Interesting)
If the blaster was black plastic, would you be able to distinguish it from a real gun from 100 feet away?
I was raised around guns, and also enjoyed the original Star Wars movies when they were popular. So I'm going to say, I could distinguish between a toy and a real gun from farther away than that, even with failing eyesight. Here's a stormtrooper gun [google.com] vs. a 9 mm [google.com]. Which is probably going to be fairly common. How blind would you have to be to not be able to see the difference? Even if you are not very familiar with guns, you'd have to be pretty obtuse to mistake these two. If you can't tell the difference between them, then you probably wouldn't be able to distinguish a gun from a stick.
Probably the most similar weapon you'd see in the US would be a TEC-9 [google.com] But even that would be pretty hard to confuse with a toy blaster. Quite honestly, someone would probably have a better chance of hitting you by throwing the toy at you than hitting you with a TEC-9, unless you are less then a few inches from the barrel, and it doesn't jam.
Apparently the Stormtrooper blaster is based off of the Sterling L2A3 [google.com] But the toy has a lot of extra crap attached to it, so you'd have to be pretty far to mistake the two. Plus, I can't say I've ever seen a Sterling L2A3 in the US. I doubt many people in the US, other than serious gun collectors, have ever seen one.
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You can always recognize a real gun from a prop, my ass. Here's a G11 [nazarian.no], which looks like a goddamn 2x4 someone attached a pistol grip to. Not production enough for you? How about the P90, [wikipedia.org] which looks like it might be part of a comfy chair. There are tons of guns that don't look like normal guns, it's ridiculous to expect someone to be able to identify them all at a distance. The idea that they should saunter out to go check is even more ludicrous, hell half the people in this thread are so damn scared they
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Of course, it's obvious to anyone that a stormtrooper gun is not a standard 9 mm gun. But that's not the point. The question is whether it's reasonable to assume that anyone would be able to tell in an instant that there exists no firearm that looks like a stormtrooper
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Funny)
Of course not. My natural assumption would be that Star Wars was not just a movie, and there was an actual frigging Stormtrooper in my sights! I totally understand the Principal taking this seriously. What baffles me is why the Principal thought the police would be able to do anything about it. Why the hell didn't they call Luke Skywalker?
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Funny)
Besides, a Stormtrooper would be more likely to shoot himself than to hit anyone at even 10 paces.
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Funny)
Not really. The E-11 was pretty damn good, and a DC-15A would have ripped through the entire school easily. Not to mention the police.
The plastoid armor, however, was shit. Too many known weak spots, unwieldy, horrible color choice. The only nice thing about it was the helmet, or rather its technical capabilities. Still, it was a couple magnitudes below the Mandalorian helmets.
But we digress.
Re: (Score:3)
I think you're find that many of the times storm troopers failed to hit anything it could be argued that they were failing to hit anything on purpose. The most obvious instance is when the hero's escape the death star, it's clear Vader knew there were people on board the Falcon and wanted to use it to find the rebel base planet. Their escape was allowed because their ship was already lowjacked.
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Informative)
Would you be able to be sure the black gun shaped thing was a toy from that distance?
Guns. Aren't. Fucking. Illegal. [wikipedia.org]
So tired of light-loafered nanny-statists piddling themselves at the mere sight of a firearm. Go live in North Korea.
Apparently THEY ARE ILLEGAL at a Massachusetts school!! Source >> https://malegislature.gov/laws... [malegislature.gov]
(j) Whoever, not being a law enforcement officer, and notwithstanding any license obtained by him under the provisions of chapter one hundred and forty, carries on his person a firearm as hereinafter defined, loaded or unloaded or other dangerous weapon in any building or on the grounds of any elementary or secondary school, college or university without the written authorization of the board or officer in charge of such elementary or secondary school, college or university shall be punished by a fine of not more than one thousand dollars or by imprisonment for not more than one year, or both. For the purpose of this paragraph, “firearm” shall mean any pistol, revolver, rifle or smoothbore arm from which a shot, bullet or pellet can be discharged by whatever means.
Any officer in charge of an elementary or secondary school, college or university or any faculty member or administrative officer of an elementary or secondary school, college or university failing to report violations of this paragraph shall be guilty of a misdemeanor and punished by a fine of not more than five hundred dollars.
So, if you DON'T report it you can be fined and prosecuted at least for a misdemeanor according to the last paragraph. So the principal is screwed both ways and cannot use common sense like the rest of us would...
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:4, Insightful)
For the purpose of this paragraph, “firearm” shall mean any pistol, revolver, rifle or smoothbore arm from which a shot, bullet or pellet can be discharged by whatever means.
So, now a plastic blaster is a firearm capable of discharging shot, bullets or pellets?
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jeez. When I was in college -- in Canada -- a teacher brought a rifle to class and fired it, multiple times.
He was a physics prof, and he was demonstrating the use of a ballistic pendulum to determine e.g. bullet velocity. Nobody cared. Mind, this same college also had a pistol club, and a range on campus. And no, it wasn't a military college.
Kind of ironic that the state where one of the signal events of the American Revolution (ie, Boston Tea Party) started is now populated by bigger pansies than the United Empire Loyalists who left. "Home of the brave." snort
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:4, Insightful)
I keep a first aid kit handy because bad things happen sometimes. I have insurance because bad things happen sometimes. I carry because bad things happen sometimes. Being somewhat prepared to take some responsibility for your own ass is not crazy, paranoid or illegal (yet).
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:4, Informative)
He wasn't at the school. He was near the school.
Having said that, I hardly think the principal is an idiot for not waiting until the guy crossed the line onto school property with his finger hovering over the final "1" on the phone.
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:4, Insightful)
True but the police should have just checked it out and went on their way. Dressing up a stormtrooper should not be a crime. I wonder if I dressed as a giant Penguin if I would have been arrested.
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:4, Funny)
Only if Happy Gilmore calls it in.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
So, if you DON'T report it you can be fined and prosecuted at least for a misdemeanor according to the last paragraph. So the principal is screwed both ways and cannot use common sense like the rest of us would...
No he's not... There's a world of difference between:
Operator: 911, do you have an emergency?
Overreacting principal: OMG! There's a guy with a gun on campus!!!1!one! Help! I have the school on lockdown!
and
Operator: 911, do you have an emergency?
Reasonable principal: There's some guy wearing a Star Wars costume here. He has what's probably a prop/toy gun, but I'm required by law to report firearms on campus. Can you send an officer to make contact and make sure it's just a toy?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Could you tell a difference at distance? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Yes, spree killers being so well known for their rational behaviour and all. I'm sure no-one would adopt an affectation [wikipedia.org] to commit a massacre [wikipedia.org] when more practical clothing is available."
I have no problem with someone calling the police. The police should have stopped him and asked to see the blaster. When it was shown to be nothing but a toy then they tell him, "cool costume but you might not want to wear it all the time. It can freak some people out. Have a nice day."
End of story.
Re:Maybe we SHOULD fear guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe we SHOULD fear guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Hmm, a bit of a hoplophobe, I see...
Why should you be familiar with guns? Well, how about because you're much less likely to do something stupid with one (like treat it as a toy) if you know something about them?
Also, you're much less likely to wet yourself at sight of one if you know something about them.
Keep in mind that we have no problems giving 15-year-olds access to automobiles (in some States. 16 in others), which are MUCH more dangerous than guns. Note that there are probably more guns in the US than cars, yet more people killed by cars than by guns.
Plus there's the old "we fear what we do not understand" thing. Knowing something about guns will be more likely to lead to less panic over the things....
Re: (Score:3)
We just need [to] LOVE guns more.
But not in public, and certainly not on school grounds. That will definitely get you arrested.
A != B (Score:3)
You added the "and serve no other purpose" onto the original statement:
Everything you listed DOES serve another purpose.
BUT none of them affect the operation of the weapon. I spent 7 years in the Army and I can shoot a weapon with a carrying handle as effectively as one without a carrying handle.
Goddamnit (Score:5, Funny)
This is why TK-421 isn't at his damn post.
A police spokesman said the man "used bad judgment (Score:5, Insightful)
O_o
And the police used what? Not to mention the principal! About the only sane person in the middle of all this seems to be the poor guy that got arrested!
Real Headline (Score:5, Insightful)
Idiot Principal Wets Himself, Calls Cops on Guy in Stormtrooper Outfit with a Fake Gun
Hoplophobia is just a natural extension of zero tolerance (a.k.a. zero common sense) that has infested the school system.
Re: (Score:3)
My school system defined a "weapon" as something that could be used to hurt another person.
Despite that, I always walked into schools wearing shoes with shoelaces, with coins and pens in my pockets, not to mention keys. Fortunately, they never noticed how heavily armed I was.
Charges (Score:5, Interesting)
Those charges make no sense. Perhaps there is missing information here, but how exactly is walking by a school loitering, and it sounds like the principle did more to disturb the school than the storm trooper. After all, we all know that walking by a school with a plastic laser rifle is totally equivalent to shooting up a school.
I guess this is what we get in a society where everything must be punished.
No Recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
Those charges make no sense.
Yet the individual arrested now has a record, misses work, possibly loses their job, and if prosecuted by the DA, has the expense of defending himself against the charges. All without recourse.
Re:No Recourse (Score:4, Interesting)
He can sue the police, which is the recourse available everyone should exploit for being wrongfully arrested.
Re:No Recourse (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No Recourse (Score:4, Insightful)
He can sue the police, which is the recourse available everyone should exploit for being wrongfully arrested.
Possibly, but not likely. Police generally have qualified immunity [wikipedia.org], which basically will prevent their being sued unless there's proof of serious and unreasonable violation of Constitutional rights. This was just upheld again by the Supreme Court last year [npr.org].
Read that last link to see how far "qualified immunity" goes -- guy gets pulled over for broken headlight, then takes off in the car after cops ask him to get out of the car for no apparent reason. Cops set off in high-speed pursuit, fired three shots at the car, and AFTER he finally crashed, the police fired 12 shots into the vehicle killing the guy and the (completely innocent) passenger... for no apparent reason.
Supreme Court ruled unanimously that cops have qualified immunity in that case. There's basically NO CHANCE they'll be able to be sued for arresting a guy carrying something that looked like a gun near a school in a state where carrying guns near schools is illegal.
Re:No Recourse (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently, the reason the cops asked him to step out of the car was because the windshield was broken and there was fresh glass on the hood. And, contrary to the NPR report, apparently the 3 shots were fired while the car was basically "boxed in" by the cops, though apparently he wasn't really trapped, since he escaped and then the cops fired 12 more shots during his flight.
Very different account from what NPR says.
In any case, police still usually have "qualified immunity" unless their actions are clearly illegal or unconstitutional, as well as "unreasonable" given the circumstances.
Which Stormtrooper is it... (Score:2)
Well, if he had been an actual Nazi stormtrooper, that's kind of frightening. Except that he would have to be pretty old by now.
A guy in a costume from a 1977 movie, though....
Re: (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:as a school administrator, i can explain. (Score:5, Funny)
The stormtrooper was easily and clearly observed brandishing a blaster (obviously a danger to people.)
Apparently you haven't seen the movies. Stormtroopers with blasters are about the safest group that you can have shooting at you.
Re:as a school administrator, i can explain. (Score:4, Interesting)
But of course, that is too intelligent an idea to credit George Lucas with, so it was probably just a coincidence.
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We do know that their ability to make military vehicles is somewhat less than the US in WWII. My best calculations about swinging logs come up with energy and momentum far below a medium 75mm gun in the earlier Shermans, and while they could slide into bad positions they would not explode, and a tank recovery vehicle could pull them out. At least the Imperials could probably have wiped the floor with the Marines from Avatar.
Really, I like science fiction military forces to be better equipped than armie
Charges? (Score:3)
Re:Charges? (Score:5, Informative)
They can bring anyone in on anything they want. The question is whether the prosecutor has enough to believe that they can bring a successful case.
Disturbing a school:
You need to prove that he intentionally [malegislature.gov] sought to disturb the school. Maybe he did... maybe he didn't. It sounds weird that he was there, but then again "bad judgment" is not the same thing as having an intent to disturb the school.
Loitering:
You need to prove that someone in authority asked him to leave [uslegal.com]. In most of the US it's not loitering simply because you don't have a good reason to be there. The story doesn't say that he refused any instruction to go, so this is actually the more curious charge of the two to me.
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Weird that he was there???
I walk past two schools every morning for routine exercise. A hell of a lot closer than this clown got.
I walk past a third school about once a week, just because it happens to be on one of my alternate routes.
No, I didn't plan the
They did the right thing (Score:4, Funny)
It's easy to criticize the police over this, but what if this had turned out to be an authentic Stormtrooper? That blaster would have packed serious firepower that would outclass our current military capabilities. Even if the Stormtrooper had no bad intentions, I'm sure that Federal authorities would want to dissect that weapon to find out how it works and keep it out of the hands of the terrorists and/or unfriendly countries.
Re:They did the right thing (Score:5, Funny)
I don't think Storm Trooper blasters can actually hit anything, judging by the movies.
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This all depends, if it was a standard E-11 BlasTech sidearm then of course, but if it were the much more scary-looking DLT-19 skirmish rifle then you are obviously crazy.
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No. If this had been a real stormtrooper, he would not have been a threat to anyone, as he would not have been able to hit the ground if he aimed for it.
Re:They did the right thing (Score:5, Funny)
But what if the school uniform was red shirts? What then?
Re:They did the right thing (Score:5, Funny)
The red shirts would be immune to the missing stormtrooper fire but would nevertheless be killed by other incidents and accidents. I would send in Ewoks to handle the storm troopers, hopefully there are many useful trees in the neighborhood. Ewoks are a budget friendly resource, instead of pay one just tells them to "do it for the trees".
Wha?!? (Score:4, Insightful)
Free Candy (Score:5, Funny)
Did he have "Free Candy" written on the side of his TIE Fighter?
Not as bad as... (Score:3)
Batman getting pulled over in Lamborghini.
http://jalopnik.com/5895956/im-batman-getting-pulled-over-in-a-lamborghini/ [jalopnik.com]
Principal did the right thing (Score:2)
The stormtrooper could have posed a threat to the younglings and Padawans at the school.
The 501st Rule (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Yes, but you have to use the right version of the song. Star Wars Rebels did a take on the Imperial March that is an upbeat, brass band version that is perfect for a parade (and indeed that was the scene it was used in).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vV5Cckw_fKo [youtube.com]
point proven (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
You don't watch much Star Trek, do you?
Race Baiting (Score:3)
I'm just waiting for the media headline: "How Would the Police React if the Stormtrooper Was Black?"
The Real Reason He Was Arrested (Score:3)
The real reason he was arrested? A friend of his left a few Android devices for him to pick up. He found someone else's Android devices and took them instead
Those weren't the droids he was looking for.
*ducks the rotten tomatoes thrown at me*
Things have changed (Score:3)
"The principal saw his fake blaster and called 911."
When I was growing up, people thought the school principal and teachers were the smartest people around. They don't anymore.
Re: (Score:3)
I don't know how it is in Lynn, but down here in Texas, weapons are banned in school zones. Walking through a school zone with a real gun, or even having one in your car while parked on school premises, is grounds for an arrest, last I checked. There are obvious common sense reasons for why those sorts of laws are in place (i.e. "think of the children!"), but I won't claim to understand the legal basis on which they are founded, nor will I assert that they are in any way constitutional.
Even so, he didn't ha
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"There are obvious common sense reasons for why those sorts of laws are in place"
"Unobvious common nonsense" would be more accurate.
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I don't know how it is in Lynn, but down here in Texas, weapons are banned in school zones. Walking through a school zone with a real gun, or even having one in your car while parked on school premises, is grounds for an arrest, last I checked.
Here's a handy link so you can check again :) [texaschl.us]
I have a Texas CHL; if I am called in to pick up my daughter at school (sick, whatever), I can have my gun in my car, but I must lock it in the car.
Re: (Score:3)
From what I understood the guy was not on school grounds. So, legally define the area of "outside schools"? The middle of the woods is "outside schools"...
Re: Gun Rights (Score:5, Informative)
Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 prohibits firearms within 1,000 feet of public, private, or parochial school grounds.
Re: Gun Rights (Score:5, Informative)
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Oh, everyone's noticed. That doesn't make it OK, there, Champ. If everyone walking down the street for the past few days has been kicking you in the nuts, does that make it perfectly fine if it just continues to happen?
Re: Gun Rights (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm pro gun. I'm anti idiocy.
I'd just wish everyone who wants one has to spend a week with my old drill sergeant. He had some rather ... graphic ways of showing you just WHY guns are no toys and why these things deserve your respect. He taught us certain rules and procedures that, if used properly, make sure you CANNOT harm anyone you do not want to harm. And I think he's got to do something right, in his whole career not a single soldier he trained got wounded by a bullet while under his command.
He retired last Fall with 70.
I think fewer people would get hurt by guns if they had to go through such a training. And FAR fewer idiots like that principal would litter the streets and our courts with idiotic panic reactions like that.
Panic reactions is one of the things that kill people, btw. With or without guns.
Re: Gun Rights (Score:4, Funny)
The cops would ask the stromtrooper to take his helmet off and make a split-second decision.
Re: (Score:3)
No, but the farce is strong in that story. What the fuck has this country come to? We're putting people in charge of our children who have exactly ZERO common sense!
No wonder that the people they teach have none. I'll never complain about youth without a hint of common sense anymore. Apparently they have to drop it to get through school.
Re: (Score:3)
Makes this spring to mind: