Toy Guns CAN Be Dangerous

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February 22, 2010 • Sonali Sukumar  
Filed under View from the Crew

          Schools have always been extremely careful with the regulation of weapons on campus. This obsession has come to the point to where students have gotten into serious trouble for bringing toy weapons into the classroom. In New York City, nine-year old Patrick Timoney was called up to the principal, Evelyn Mastroianni’s, office for bringing a two-inch plastic toy gun to school. He and his friend were playing with Legos during lunch and he brought the gun to play with. He was later called up to the principal’s office. His parents received a phone call from the school and were later told to meet their son in the principal’s office. His parents spent most of the time trying to persuade the principal not to suspend Patrick if he left the gun at home. Patrick’s father stated that the principal’s measures “went overboard.” It is definitely a surprise that an elementary school child would get into that much trouble for bringing a fake gun to school, and it was not even big enough to be used as an actual gun. Schools should not have taken the matter to such a level where the parents were involved. It proved to be an embarrassment to the city and to the state due to the fact that they overreacted to such a small matter.

          This is not the only incident where schools have been obsessively cautious over the possession of toy guns. This time an eight-year old boy was actually suspended for bringing it to the classroom. In Duniway Elementary school in Oregon, the boy forgot that he had the toy gun in his pocket and accidentally brought it school. He showed it to one of his friends and later another student reported it to the staff. The boy’s father stated that he thought that the district “would go that far with something so little like that.”

         So what do these incidents have to say about the New York and Oregon school’s policy against weapons? They are saying that the kids are not even allowed to bring a harmless toy to play with during recess. I for one am completely against this kind of policy because the kids did not mean any harm to the school. It is ridiculous to suspend elementary school children for no real reason whatsoever. These incidents prove that schools are not kidding around when they say “no weapons in school,” even when the gun is not even real. So parents, just to be on the safe side, make sure that your children are not bringing any toy weapons (no matter the size) to school, or else you too will be receiving that ominous phone call.