Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Law and Order Fair or Not: 16-Year-Old Girl Charged With Possession of a Weapon on School Property
Posted by Brantley Hargrove on Wed, Apr 29, 2009 at 10:59 AM
The sad truth is we live in a post-Columbine age where, right or wrong, every gun is a threat to the safety of the entire student population, as well as the faculty. But I had to scratch my head on this one and ponder, 'Is this going a tad too far?'
A 10th-grade girl was charged on suspicion of possession of a handgun at Hillsboro High School after security conducted a parking lot search. They found an unloaded, unholstered .22 pistol beneath the seat of her car. How they found a pistol concealed beneath the seat of a vehicle is unknown, but Pith has a call into Principal Rod Manuel, so we'll keep you posted.
Apparently the car is normally driven by her father, and the gun belongs to him. Still, the girl is being charged. What do you think, PITW readers? Justified prevention or excessive punishment?
Comments (7)
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Sounds like an illegal search to me.
Your car is your property. School officials (& the police) shouldn't be able to search it w/o probable cause.
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated
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I'm fairly sure that law doesn't apply on school grounds. Does anyone else know if this is right or not? I think, legally, anything on school grounds can be searched. This sucks for this girl if she didn't know the gun was there.
Zero tolerance is just another example of the unrelenting American/idustrial obsession with conversion of education into an unthinking machine. Test, test, test. Apply the rules as if all children are the same. Pay teachers the same regardless of ability. Treat race as if the term means something identical to each child. I can see an argument that she should be reprimanded in some way - even if she did not know. Whether she be expelled should depend on the totality of the circumstances. That's not something we're willing to consider these days. It would require the system to think. What a novel idea - educators required to think.
that law doesn't apply on school grounds.
So local school rules trump the US Constitution? That = wrong.
Anybody that went to high school in the 90s knows Unreasonable Search and Seizure pretty much goes out the window when you step on campus. They searched our lockers, brought K9s into class to sniff our backpacks for weed, and even brought the dogs out to the parking lot to sniff our cars. I wouldn't be surprised if that's what happened to this girl. Can't K9s indicate on the smell of gunpowder from a weapon?
A Tennessee court ruling of a few years back was that a teen could not be suspended for possessing a friend's weapon because he had no intent to break the rule.
Cliche as it is to quote Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility."
As a gun owner and concealed carry permit holder, my opinion on guns in general is mostly what you'd expect. However, any person, anyone! who chooses to own a handgun also chooses to accept responsibility for that gun. That includes the responsibility of knowing where that gun is at all times. Anyone who fails to live up to this responsibility in any way or for any reason is negligent and deserves to have their right to that gun rescinded. If the student was unaware of the gun's presence in the car, the owner of the gun should shoulder the blame and face the consequences.
My apologies for imposing sanity and logic upon the zealots on both sides by pointing out that the gun debate, like all complex issues, isn't black and white.
