Posted on 02/07/2009 4:53:46 AM PST by Clive
The 12-year-old boy who allegedly took a gun to his Bloor West Village school was ‘‘at his breaking point’’ after being bullied for years, a prosecutor said.
The boy, who was granted bail today, brought a bayonet and deactivated gun to his Grade 7 French class at Runnymede Junior and Public School yesterday morning, and waved them at the teacher and his classmates, Crown attorney Barbara Ferns told a judge.
‘‘I wasn’t planning on hurting anyone — I just wanted to scare them the way they scared me,’’ the boy said in a statement, City News reported.
The teacher convinced the boy to put down the gun, which was owned by his father and legally registered. The barrel had been welded shut.
The boy, described as bright, cried after putting the gun down. Ms. Ferns said the boy was diagnosed as depressed and anxious after being verbally and physically bullied for several years.
‘‘Shortly after the school day began, a student in Grade 7 who was very upset made serious threats to others in his class.
Fortunately, the situation was contained very quickly and no one was injured,’’ principal Amelia Dennis said in a note sent home to parents.
‘‘I would like to thank our students and staff for the way they handled the situation. It was a difficult morning and everyone remained calm and poised throughout.’’
The mother of another student in the class said the kids first thought it was a joke.
‘‘I think the knife came out first and then the unloaded gun, so I think that was the very scary part. The teacher was outstanding,” the mother told City News. She added that there was a lot of compassion for the boy.
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(Excerpt) Read more at network.nationalpost.com ...
In those inner cities, even pulling a gun or a gunlike replica on a mugger would be considered “1rst degree aggravated assault”. Our system is broken because of these liberals and it’s time for some real change.
Absolutely right, these amoral morasses must be permanently shut down, not glutted with ever increasing supplies of our tax dollars; if you can’t teach right and wrong, just what are you teaching these kids.
“Cease, my son, to hear the instruction that causeth to err from the words of knowledge.” Proverbs 19:27
“And if the blind lead the blind, both shall fall into the ditch.” Matthew 15:14
> Instead of examining how the schools are run, the response will be to ban adults from owning knives and already-welded and useless guns.
That would be about right. The Barney-fication of Society is nearly complete.
Weapons and self-defense SHOULD NEVER be necessary for modern, civilized Societies to function: it is true.
Sadly though, this is an IDEAL situation, not the REAL situation that we find ourselves in.
Thus the difference between Idealists and Realists.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of Barney is for Good Realists to let Idealists run the show.” -DieHard the Hunter-
It was especially wonderful the way the teacher allowed this child to be bullied to the breaking point. Isn't there some kind of government award for this level of outstandingness?
> Our system is broken because of these liberals and it’s time for some real change.
What you’ve got instead is “Change you can Believe In”. Let’s hope that Obama makes everyone thoroughly sick of this Barney-the-Purple-Dinosaur world that the Liberals have crafted, and maybe in 4 years time we can go back to being a Polite Society run by Realists, rather than Idealists.
“The only thing necessary for the triumph of Barney is for good Realists to let Idealists run the show.” -DieHard The Hunter-
I don’t doubt the law identifies it as such. My point was that it’s not a firearm at that point. If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?
The post was mostly tongue-in-cheek, poking fun at how as a nation we have managed to abandon common sense.
I understand a chain is only as strong as it’s weakest link, but I prefer the conservative approach of dealing with that single weak link rather than making all the other links as weak as that one.
The sad part of the story to me is that this poor kid’s life was made miserable by bullying. I had that problem for a couple of years at my school. Eddie Clay terrorized me at every opportunity. My father was livid when he found out, not at Eddie the bully, but at me for letting myself be bullied. I think I still bear the scars of that short period 50 plus years ago.
This news doesn’t surprise me much. I’ve come to the conclusion that either public schools, it’s administrators and teachers all enjoy the bullying, fighting and lesbian bathroom rapes, allow it to happen and may get some sort of sick pleasure out of knowing it happens or they’re too scared of lawsuits brought on my enabling lawyers if they try to stop it. I tend to think the first scenario is the more likely one.
Oops, forgot to add the teacher sexual abuse of students to the list of acceptable conduct, till they get reported to the authorities of course.
Kids bully because they can. In our new enlightened era, they tell kids, there is NEVER a reason to fight back, just be a victim. Personally, I don’t believe in that nonsense and I’ve told my kids, stand up for yourself and there has been occasion for them to do so.
“IMHO, if the kid had healthy exposure to firearms, rather than the repressed approach of Canada—or modern America, then he’d know better than to treat the firearm so lightly, threatening like that.”
Couldn’t agree more. When I was 12 my friends and I would get our 22’s and go off in the woods hunting squirrels or rabbits. To us a firearm was just a fishing rod that had to be treated more safely, and it never occurred to us that we could brandish our 22s to make threats, be manly, or be more powerful. If one of the other boys didn’t follow proper safety rules we didn’t need parents to intercede, we just never brought him along anymore.
When I had problems with a bully, I had been threatened with suspension. I went to my guidance counselor who told me if I had to fight to defend my self, he would back me up.
“My point was that it’s not a firearm at that point.”
Yeah, I think the real problem with this is that the kid brandishing the inoperable firearm might have put an armed police official in the god awful dilemma of deciding whether he had to shoot the kid in order to prevent him from shooting his classmates. I’m not sure what the purpose of an inoperable weapon is anyway. It’s not a toy and it’s not a weapon.
I have to admit, though, that most of the violent acts I see kids take so lightly these days are things that would never even cross (or come anywhere near the path of) my mind!
But one of the little-known facts of firearms is that firearm-accident rates tend to go down when the number of guns goes up. The same drop occurs after each war, too. They both indicate one effect of experience and familiarity with firearms.
That’s right.
A few years back, a high-school student interviewed an elderly relative of mine for a class project or something, about what school was like in the old days.
The kid didn't know what mumbledy-peg was, so my relative said, "well,you take your pocketknife, and..." He didn't get to continue, because the kid couldn't believe that anyone could carry a knife to school. The student asked, incredulously, about that...and I don't know who was more shocked, this kid--or my relative, who couldn't conceive of a boy going to school without his trusty pocketknife!
Talk about generational gaps.
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