Posted on 09/26/2004 5:58:44 PM PDT by greydog
A New Hampshire teen is taking a ``Live Free or Die'' lesson to his own teachers, threatening to sue his school if it won't allow him to appear in a yearbook photo with a shotgun on his shoulder.
``I don't see anything wrong with the picture,'' Londonderry High School Senior Blake Douglass said yesterday. ``I enjoy shooting trap and skeet, and I believe you should stand up for what you believe in.''
School administrators have rejected a photo submission from Douglass that shows the smiling senior on one knee with a trapshooting shotgun over his shoulder.
Trapshooting, a sport offered in some high schools, involves firing at clay pigeons launched into the air.
School Superintendent Nate Greenberg said the photo submitted by Douglass is inappropriate given the epidemic of school violence that has swept the nation in recent years.
``Considering all that has occurred with guns in schools, this is not the most appropriate message we want to send,'' he said. ``Skeet shooting is a fine hobby, but there is a time and place.''
Douglass said, however, that a school policy that allows students to select their own yearbook photos does not allow administrators to take away that freedom whenever they wish.
And he's hired a lawyer to help prove it - even if he has to go to federal court.
``Hopefully, the school's attorney will advise them that they're going down a silly path,'' Douglass' attorney, Penny Dean, said yesterday. ``This could easily cost a hundred grand, and that's not a good use of taxpayer money.''
She said school officials will be fighting an uphill battle in the ``Live Free or Die'' state, especially given the number of rod and gun clubs that dot the New Hampshire countryside.
But Londonderry school officials say it takes more than a tough-talking lawyer to force them into submission.
``The attorney seems to be harping on (money) as a reason for us to change our mind,'' Greenberg said. ``We'll wait and see, but we're prepared to defend our position at this point.''
But if it was something lefty that was equally controversial, like something pro abortion or pro gay, it would be the fault of the people who found it offensive, and not held against the one who wanted it included.
True enough.
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