I can see them holding up this knife - 10" blade, tanto point, black coated, serrations, lanyard with small silver skull hanging from it, maybe dripping with blood. They don;t have the knife the kid brought, the police or school administration has that one, but they need to put something up there....right?

Years ago I was watching the news about this guy who marched into a middle school or something with a baseball bat and chased the principal around. Somwehere in the midwest I think. In the background, upper-right corner of the screen, right behind the female news anchor, was a picture of a semi-auto pistol. SHe didn;t mention it or refer to it, it just stayed there throughout her reporting of the incident.

The next day, I was asking co-workers if they'd seen the report. Of those that did, not one noticed what was in the upper portion of the TV screen. They just remember it was a horrible incident and the guy "needed to be hanged", or something similar.

Ahhh the power of picture show media. THe danger is, they KNOW how powerful and influential they are.

OH! One more thing: You don;t call the police when a 10 YEAR OLD KID does something wrong like that!!!! You call the parents! That's not a police matter! What's with these pea brains that run our public schools????? People like this don;t just accidently "end up" running our schools, you have to pro-actively go out and search them out!

"Firstly God created idiots. That was for practice. Then He created School Boards." - Mark Twain

I have to say that, aside from the feminazi teacher who tends to dominate my memory, my elementary and high school was awesome when it came to common sense regarding stuff like this. One former teacher was particularly awesome. If you went hunting over the weekend or somethin like that, and the next day found a pocket knife, or even a shotgun shell in your jacket pocket, you could take it to this teacher and he'd wrap it in a manilla envelope and a top of packing tape and you could get it at the end of the day. The way he figured, even if you met someone on the bus who pissed you off, by the time you got through all the tape and paper, you'd either be home or cooled off enough to just let it go. After he left, you could still take stuff to the principal and he'd hold it till the end of the semester or until a parent came to claim it. If another teacher caught you with it, it was up to them, but i doubt you'd have been arrested and charged with felony weapon possession. One time after going to a carnival, i had a tiny cap gun and a few caps that i'd won in my pocket. I was fishin for a pen, and the gun falls out. The idiot next to me picks it up and shoots a cap. Yeah it got confiscated, but all we got disciplined for was disrupting class. Everyone involved was smart enough to realize that an inch long carnival prize is a toy, not a deadly weapon, and if an Alabama kid has a SAK, it's probably not because he's plannin a murder.

On the other hand ...

As a father of an 11 year old and a 12 year old, both of which have handled knives for a long time and each own several. Both my kids know VERY well that they simply can't take a knife to school and that if they did there would be severe penalties.

This isn't just school policy, but the law. I teach my children to respect the law ... wether we agree or not.

Taking a steak knife to school was a stupid move.

Ken

Yes, Ken, I agree, but "stupid" from an adult's or more mature teenager's perspective, not a 10 year old's. I agree it's wrong and that the kid will learn from it, but the handling of it is another matter.

ok, well I think I should have my say, im in middle school. My school is pretty lax and chill about all of this, my friend even carries a sak on her key chain. just a small one with only a blade tho. But If I accidentally brought one i could probly just keep it in my backpack and no one would no. One of my teachers was an eagle scout, one is a total out doorsy person and one works on a farm so i don't think it would be that bad if I accidentally brought one, as long as it isn;t my machete. (:

But 10 year olds know this too. I was a Den Leader for my son's Cub Scout den and a Girl Scout leader for my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I started teaching both groups about knives when they were 9 years old. They definitely knew not to take a knife to school.

Now, on the other hand, I can easily imagine one accidently leaving a folding knife in a backpack - after a weekend outing. I encourage my troops to use separate packs for Scouts and school to avoid that happening.

"Intent" doesn't have anything to do with the law anymore, right? Like justice.

So many parents complain about the schools, but then just keep sending their kids back there. Stupid is as stupid does.

Sue

If we apply that kind of logic to somthing like this then maybe we should lower the age of consent to 10. Children are expected to make mistakes, we all learned more from our mistakes than our succeses. If there had been any threats, referances, or even a slight inuendo about a knife before she was caught then I would say a crime had been committed. People need to understand there huge difference between a mistake and a crime.

I can remember in my High School - they would confiscate a frizbee (NOt kidding) but have a pocket knife? No problem - a bunch of kids were taght how to sharpen them in shop class

(There was a reason for the frizbee rule (kids playing in the street, not paying attention to cars), but it became a no tolerance issue, which got dumb, fast)

My school was the same way. I graduated in 1991. We all carried pocket knives, I has a cousin who carried a big fixed blade in his boot and would pull it out and clean under his nails and no one cared.
Then again we got to target shoot .22's in gym class (I was though to not know how to hold a gun because I was turning it sideways studying it and comparing its bolt action to my semi auto at home).
I was helping the shop teacher with an after school activity shortly after getting my license so I was allowed to drive to school but couldn't drive to where we were going so I rode with him and he saw a ground hog in a field behind the school and pulled his rifle out from under the seat of his truck and shot it.
We never had a stabbing or shooting at school either. We had one student shot one weekend by her boyfriend whose parents had recently moved from a city.