Boy Charged with Felony for Rubberband Gun

[sdgregory 0]

Well I was going to say something about how that one kid must speak for the entire High School population.

But Dave beat me to it here.

And I was going to say soemthing about how you defined "toy gun" but PhillyKev beat me to it here.


Is this how we come up with a conclusion in the North? Certainly in the South and even as far North as Ohio we tend to get a better sampling of the population before drawing a conclusion.

I bring my toys to school everyday.

I have this kick ass cell phone that plays Tetris and all kinds of other stuff. I take my brandy spankin new shiny Acer with all kinds of cool functions to school. I use it mostly as a toy. You know to play skydiving movies on and games when my longwinded closed minded liberal professors bore me.

I have another cool toy. My Harley that I take to school as often as I can. Love my toys. And if I have a water balloon cannon that I bring with me too. And if I had a rubberband gun, I would probably take it to school and shoot my friends with it just because it would be funny as hell since we tend to shoot each other with rubber bands all the time.

So since taking toys to school by your definition makes me "special" I am going to stand over here and wait for the short yellow bus with tinted windows. Should I wear a safety helmet?

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

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It has been established that the cop involved clearly stated that there could be no confusion between this rubber band gun and a real gun. That's the basis I use to judge that the adults went overboard in their school lockdown, etc.

Established where? Certainly not here, based on the text of the Herald article. I asked several times for more detail - a picture would have been useful - feel free to provide it.

Quoted from the original post:

"The weapons charge against him is a felony, said Miami-Dade state attorney's spokesman Ed Griffith. Even though the toy looked nothing like a firearm up close, Villafaña said, it qualified as a weapon because it ``has a trigger mechanism and can fire a projectile.'' "

Right there is the cop spokesman saying that the trigger mechanism was what made them classify this rubber band gun as a "weapon" -- "even though the toy looked nothing like a firearm up close."
-

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[newsstand 0]

Replying to the orignal post just to keep it simple.

1) Cleary this (felony charges) is a huge over reaction to what happened.
2) A 15 year old gifted (in this case really smart) student should have known he was treading on thin ice.
3) For carrying on as long as he did he should have been busted for something, but within normal school bounds, like detention for the rest of the year for being a dumbass.

"Truth is tough. It will not break, like a bubble, at a touch; nay, you may kick it about all day like a football, and it will be round and full at evening."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes

[kelpdiver 2]

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Right there is the cop spokesman saying that the trigger mechanism was what made them classify this rubber band gun as a "weapon" -- "even though the toy looked nothing like a firearm up close."
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Umm, Jeffrey, which part of "up close" did you gloss over? It doesn't matter how obvious it was a toy upon close inspection after the fact. Your claim was it was clearly established before someone pushed the panic button, and these words don't do that.

If I'm a teacher or student (unarmed of course, schools are a gun free zone!) and see something fishy in the distance, how likely is it that I will go "up close" to confirm that it is a weapon? If they were that close there wouldn't have been a mystery over who had it in the first place.

I'll go with the most recent poster - no felony, but serious school sanctions.

[AggieDave 6]

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If I'm a teacher or student (unarmed of course, schools are a gun free zone!)

Yes and no. You can conceal carry a weapon (this is TX, check your own state's laws) on a campus, but you can not enter any buildings. A parking garge is no considered a building. There are acceptions to the rule, it has to do with sporting events being held on the campus, but for all but college campuses, it doesn't really apply.

--"When I die, may I be surrounded by scattered chrome and burning gasoline."

[Kennedy 0]

And maybe someday they'll learn the lesson of Joel Myrick, Luke Woodham, and Pearl High School in Mississippi.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*

[BillyVance 34]

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sigh.

this is downright stupid. a rubber band shooter isn't a gun anymore than rubber bands are bullets.

The only good reason for keeping even toy guns like this out of schools is that you can still put somebody's eye out with a sharply flung rubberband. I know calling it a felony is pretty stupid. They should make an exception in this boy's case. Heck, I could shoot a rubberband more accurately, faster and farther with my own fingers than with those wooden guns. One of my co-workers has one in the office. You string up 4 rubberbands on a pistol and try to shoot out 4 targets like the kind in the Olympics. Kind of like a semi-automatic.

However, back in my day in school in the early 80's, the weapon of choice in the classrooms, actually the lunchroom, was tearing strips of notepaper, rolling them in small folds, then bending them in half, then get a good strong stretchy rubberband, and you've got a powerful paper bullet to thwack somebody with, and those really smarts!

Those were the good old days when we could have fun, and get in no more serious trouble than a trip to the principal's office for a lecture and have the rubberband confiscated. This was in a private school, no less...

Blue Skies
Billy

"Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban

[peacefuljeffrey 0]

Pussy! We used to use paper clips!

LOL!

My friends and I used to innovate all sorts of lunch-room weaponry. I got very good with just a peanut flicked from my fingers between my middle finger and thumb. We opened the corners of juice boxes and inflated the boxes like pillows, and then took the skinny lunch room straws, plugged them at one end with their own wrappers, and inserted them into the juice boxes, and pounded them. The straws would go end-to-end across the room like missiles.

I also used the Bic Biro pen, which was a perfect plastic cylinder, as a spitball shooter. I took out the ink from one end, and the plastic plug from the back (on modern made Biros, this is now glued in ). Using my teeth, I flared the end of one pen like a trumpet so that the end of another identical pen would fit inside it. I sucked a Tic-Tac for about five to ten seconds, loaded it into the cylinder, and a strong puff made that thing like a bullet! I called it the Bic Sniper Rifle. I imagine it hurt to get hit with it. Lucky for me, I was the only one doing the shooting.

We also used to make orange peel guns. The Bic Stick pens worked best for this. You removed the ink stick and the butt cap, and pressed the back of the pen against an orange peel and a little plug got stuck in the pen. With the ink stick, you forced it to the tip of the pen, then plugged the back again. When you forced the ink stick quickly into the back of the pen against the rear plug, the front plug would fire out under a charge of compressed air. The rear plug became the front plug and was now ready to fire, after you made another rear plug. -

-Jeffrey
"With tha thoughts of a militant mind... Hard line, hard line after hard line!"

[Gawain 0]

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However, back in my day in school in the early 80's, the weapon of choice in the classrooms, actually the lunchroom, was tearing strips of notepaper, rolling them in small folds, then bending them in half, then get a good strong stretchy rubberband, and you've got a powerful paper bullet to thwack somebody with, and those really smarts!

I remember those paper bullets...well placed shots will leave a mark.

Anyone remember when you would just stick small, damp pieces of paper wrapper in one end of a straw...spit wads. A classic.

So I try and I scream and I beg and I sigh
Just to prove I'm alive, and it's alright
'Cause tonight there's a way I'll make light of my treacherous life
Make light!

[Kennedy 0]

You think paper clips are mean? I remember some kids would put thumb tacks through the front of the paper folds (we called them wasps). One of those things would stick in you if it hit you right. THAT was lunchroom warfare at it's finest.

witty subliminal message
Guard your honor, let your reputation fall where it will, and outlast the bastards.
1*