"School offended by student's slogan on T-shirt," the CBS 13/CW 31 (Sacramento, CA) video title tells us.
What was so offensive?
12-year-old Zachary Fisher won a national trapshooting competition. Understandably proud of his accomplishment, he wore a T-shirt commemorating the event to George A. Buljan Middle School in Roseville CA.
It's from the World Shooting and Recreational Complex in Sparta, IL, a place even lauded as "premiere" by Gov. Pat Quinn. The slogan?
"I love the smell of gunpowder in the morning."
Horrors! We can't allow humor, enthusiasm or practiced excellence--not when it comes to...g-g-guns!
So the institution did what politically correct government indoctrination facilities do--they forced him to remove a heretical idea that contradicts their anti-gun orthodoxy from the premises.
Conditioned moms agreed with the decision--either that or CBS could only find two herbivores to solicit opinions from.
"I don't think it's appropriate," bleated one.
"I think it send the wrong message," lowed another.
Why it's inappropriate, why it sends the wrong message is left unexplored. That they may be unqualified to judge this young man of remarkable achievement, that his example should be celebrated and emulated, does not even dawn on them. The knee-jerk reaction is an equation that applies to hoplophobia as well as other forms of prejudice: ignorance + fear = bigotry.
It reminds me of nothing so much as a paraphrasing of the Mr. Mackey character from South Park: "Guns are bad, mmkay?" And those other ridiculous cartoon characters in San Francisco who would also eradicate the mere image of guns from the public consciousness...
That adults would do this to children is unconscionable. That it would be done out of ignorance is inexcusable. And that there are those who would exploit this ignorance to advance their agenda is intolerable.
It looks like the school may have disabled their website--possibly a lot of irate gun owners are giving 'em hell and they don't want to deal with it? Fortunately, through the miracle of the Internet Archive "Wayback Machine," we can still access the proper channel to register concerns.
Me, I'm offended that the principal's last name is apparently "Gunn." What kind of example does that set for our budding young cud-chewers?
Also see:
- "Why did NJ youth baseball league reject gun store sponsorship?"
- "New Year's gun rights resolution: Teach your children about guns"
- "Love your children? Teach them how to safely handle guns"
- "Easy Access"
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Developing story updates
As promised, I'm notifying you about Fort Smith Gun Rights Examiner Steve D. Jones following up on the story of the disarmed Iraqi war veteran.
Click here to read the latest.
Jones also gives us more details on a justifiable cop shooting story discussed on Labor Day at WarOnGuns.
UPDATE: Dave Workman also weighs in on the vet story.
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Comments
Looks like they're in full "run and hide" mode. Got this when I attempted to send an email to the address listed in the web archive:
Delivery to the following recipient failed permanently:
ggunn@rcsdk8.org
Technical details of permanent failure:
Google tried to deliver your message, but it was rejected by the recipient domain. We recommend contacting the other email provider for further information about the cause of this error. The error that the other server returned was: 550 550-5.1.1 The email account that you tried to reach does not exist. Please try
550-5.1.1 double-checking the recipient's email address for typos or
550-5.1.1 unnecessary spaces. Learn more at
550 5.1.1 http://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6596 y17si5537451vci.154 (state 14).
We'll just have to keep watching and shut down the new email address when they post it. :)
Sometimes gun owners are too quick to smell conspiracy.
Buljan school just happens to be in the middle of having its website redesigned. They left the old site available in the meanwhile. The principal's contact information is here:
http://old.rcsdk8.org/buildings/buljan/principal.htm
You just grabbed a webpage that was too old and had an obsolete email address on it.
You have to look at the reporters on that television station to understand why you only got two very biased comments. There is a definite bias going on and while that station touts that they ask the questions and get answers it is apparently only the answers they want to hear that they air. I quit watching the newscast when Sam Shane became the lead voice of the station.The only voice I truly miss is the weatherman and he does not seem to be on there that much anymore. It is boys like this that will be defending this country in the years to come and women like the bleating liberals who were quoted. Their kids will be bhiding under their beds hoping kids like this one can protect them when real danger comes along.
How 'bout the the Canadian hoplophobia victim who had the school system remove "gun" from her second grader's spelling list?
Or the unversity prof here in the USA who was forced to remove a Brown Bess musket from his office wall due to the schools "zero tolerance" policy, even though it was just like the one on the school's seal.
Where can we get a few Morlocks? Time to thin the Eloi herd methinks.
And yet, where is the ACLU to be seen in this travesty of 'justice' as applied to the young champion's Freedom of Speech rights?
They were spot on when it came to the teenage lesbian and her prom, but no, no, no, can't be defending a bona fide trap champion; too many people might think the ACLU actually believes in the SAME RIGHTS for ALL Americans!!!!
Yet another example of Social Progressive selective rights doctrines in play.
Cheers.
Contact info:
http://www.rcsdk8.org/apps/pages/?uREC_ID=89900&type=d
Oh, and BTW the principal's email is :
gregg@rcsdk8.org
The Left is systematically and methodically breeding the testosterone from American youth. It makes the little darlin's much more compliant later in life...to the point that they say stupid things like "...I think it sends the wrong message..."
Young Zachary deserves praise, but obviously I am preaching to the choir, here.
Parents: The public schools are ruining your children. Every day they are indoctrinated from all quarters as to what is good or bad from the perspective of the Left. They have your children for 6+ hours each day...for years. Our children are told that teachers are to be respected, thus the child is in default mode to give weight to the crap the teacher heaps upon him.
It really is long past the point that parents should simply opt-out of the public school systems. Yes, it will be terribly difficult because the family will take a financial hit. The schools will come after you and pressure you to put the little darlin' back into their care. But even if you give your child the best after-school and weekend patriotic de-programming possible, you are still on the constant defensive and your children are outrageously injured.
Sam
III
Kerodin.com
I hope that parent does not sue the school over this.
Coming Soon!
Approved Sports!
Green Sports!
(and NASCAR and FOOTBALL aren't going to be on the list. Maybe Soccer but only because Europeans approve of it.)
These school officials are the same ones who would run and hide if it ever came to fighting for their freedoms. I believe the word is "coward".
Winning a contest is something to be proud of. Glorifying deadly weapons at school is not. Moreover, that particular quote is a paraphrase from Apocalypse Now, where an insane Colonel named Kilgore is talking about the smell of carpet-bombed civilians.
The school made an appropriate call. I'm glad the country is doing so well that this petty nonsense is all you have left to get on a soap box about.
Since this poster dismisses free speech rights as "petty nonsense," I suggest you simply remove his contribution from this board. He'd really look stupid protesting the "censorship," since we would all remind him that he's just getting annoyed over "petty nonsense."
Greg Gunn, Principal? His name offends me - why? It certainly sends the wrong message, and with TWO "n's" its even more offensive. Schmuk.
Home school if you want your children to live free and think for themselves. Certainly do not expose your children to such weak public figures and the hate/fear/ignorance -mongers they kowtow to.
There's even one idiot on this site who cannot comprehend the transistion of a movie phrase to a positive affirmation for an accomplishment - a negative to a positive. The kid could not directly celebrate - an "overt" gun shirt would directly offend the dipsey douche bag brigade.
Those who look for offense are sure to find it - especially if weak in spirit and low in honor.
"Those who look for offense are sure to find it"
You've certainly found it, along with a heaping pile of hypocrisy.
Well now Mr. Gunn, Principal;
It certainly sounds like you have a wonderful school with outstanding students with grade score good grade scores.
Now tell me sir, what does that exactly have to do with a young mans personal achievement in skeet shooting? I fail to see any kind of connection.
When I was growing up in the south bay area a number of years ago, I was taught gun safety by my father, as was my brother. We were member at early ages, of the NRA and have continued with both enjoying shooting sports and the NRA for over five decades.
We even sometimes hunted after school, by carrying our guns over our shoulders and walking to our hunting area outside of town.
T-shirts patch and even hats were worn showing our pride in our club and in our love of our firearms. We never had the interest to collect stamps or bugs or anything else while growing up in some of the best of times this country has seen.
We were instructed properly in firearms saftey, and are darn proud of it too. My son and my grandson and granddaughter were taught and instructed in the same ways.
For you to diallow a young man to wear a T-shirt to show his pride is about as assinine a thing I think I have hear in a while.
What kind of anti-American are you anyway? You have ripped this young mans heart out with you stupid policy of anti-gun, even on a T-shirt. It is a harmless display of self. Your ignorant ways should not be allowed anywhere near young people and esppecially in a school.
You call yourself a 'principal', hogwash. That kind of thinking makes you no better than the anti-American imposter passing himself off as a president.
You owe this young man and his family a huge apology, to say the least.
Ron,
Retired, L.E.
What an idiot this school principal is. What is that teaching the kids? No harm, no foul.
I certainly glad we went to school when times were better in this country.
And these people vote and walk among us. Wow, we are in trouble.
Ron,
Retired L.E.
People are always so quick to take every story they hear as truth. Do some real investigating and find out what really happened before you bash decisions that have been made. Then, at least, you will not be in the same category as those who you claim to be "ignorant."
Feel free to enlighten us on "what really happened."
"...what really happened....."
We don't need to have a court transcript of the conversations between the principal, the teachers, parents, and student to see that fits into a pattern we've seen all too often lately.
An honor student expelled because she was moving apartments and inadvertantly left her kitchen utensils, including steak knives, in her car while parked on school grounds.
Another honor student suspended because her drum and bugle corps drill "rifles", you know those wood and pipe thingies that sort of look like a rifle, were seen in her car on school gounds.
Or the student suspended because he left his shotgun, used in a before school hunting trip, locked in his truck parked off campus.
zero tolerance = zero thought required or exercised by the school administration
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