"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.