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Nationwide Knee Jerk Gun Madness Continues
Steve Watson
Infowars.com
Jan 30, 2013
A five-year-old boy was threatened with suspension by school officials in Massachusetts after he built a small toy gun out of lego bricks and started to play-shoot his classmates.
Joseph Cardosa was given a written warning by officials at Hyannis West Elementary School, Cape Cod, when he fashioned the crude toy in an after-school activity program.
The boy was told that if he commits the crime a second time he will be suspended for two weeks.
Cardosa’s parents reacted by accusing school administrators of over-reacting.
“Kids are taught, ‘Here’s a squirt gun, this is fun,’ so this is fun to him… he’s running around playing,” the boy’s mother, Shelia Cruz, told Fox 5 News in Boston, adding that instead of threatening him with punishments, teachers should have redirected his activities.
“It’s not like he’s designing a machine gun,” the mother said, as the child built another “gun”, which looked more like a stick, as an example for reporters.
The parents also revealed that their son has been punished before for making a gun gesture with his hand.
“We were running around and we were shooting… we were jut pretending,” the boy said.
Despite the media coverage, the school has held its position, noting in a statement to Fox 5:
“While someone might think that making a Lego gun is just an action of a 5-year-old, to other 5-year-olds, that might be a scary experience.”
This case is far from isolated. As we have seen over the past days and weeks, hysteria is sweeping America’s education system in the aftermath of the Sandy Hook shootings.
Yesterday we reported on an incident that erupted when a discussion between two children about a toy nerf gun caused a lockdown and a massive armed police response at two elementary schools in the Bronx.
Earlier this month, a Long Island high school was also placed on lock down for 6 hours in response to a student carrying a toy nerf gun.
Another incident this month saw a five-year-old girl suspended after a three hour grilling, and described as a “terroristic threat”, when she brought a pink bubble gun to school.
Last week, a South Philadelphia elementary student was searched in front of classmates and threatened with arrest after she mistakenly brought a “paper gun” to school.
A 6-year-old boy was suspended from his elementary school in Maryland for making a gun gesture with his hand and saying “pow”.
Days later another two 6-year-olds in Maryland were suspended for pointing their fingers into gun shapes while playing “cops and robbers” with each other.
In Oklahoma, a five-year-old boy was also recently suspended for making a gun gesture with his hand.
A 13-year-old Middle School seventh grade student in Pennsylvania was also suspended for the same hand gesture.
Representatives from the toy gun industry have reacted to backlash against the $16 billion market.
John Frascotti, CMO of Hasbro which makes Nerf toys, said, “Nerf is all about active play and active fun. If you ask kids as young as when they’re able to play, up through parents and grandparents, everyone understands that these are toys. … They understand this is play and this is fun, and I think to try to confuse it and meld it into a whole bunch of other things in this political discourse that’s going on, may be just bad.”
In a separate statement, the Toy Industry Association noted “Toys themselves do not promote aggressive behavior. There are no violent or nonviolent toys. Quite often, military and other role-play items may help kids work through or cope with what is happening in the world around them through play rather than through outwardly aggressive behavior.”
Psychologist Michael Thompson agreed, noting that “Blaming toy guns for adult male violence or mass shooting defies common sense.”
“Banning toy guns would be misguided, silly, even delusional. It would have no impact at all on our rate of adult violence. Healthy boys know the difference between pretend play and actually hurting someone,” Thompson said.
“Playing heroic hunt-and-chase games is something boys have done forever. They have done it with sticks and balls and they do it with toy guns. It often represents the best of boys: their desire to be strong, heroic and to stand up for what is right, to protect their homes and kill villains.”
That is exactly what the social engineer usurpers of the US government wish to see eradicated within society, while they also happily send off women to the front lines of military combat zones, as Alex explains in this short video:
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Steve Watson is the London based writer and editor for Alex Jones’ Infowars.com, andPrisonplanet.com. He has a Masters Degree in International Relations from the School of Politics at The University of Nottingham, and a Bachelor Of Arts Degree in Literature and Creative Writing from Nottingham Trent University.
This article was posted: Wednesday, January 30, 2013 at 11:24 am
