Persecution of the Law-Abiding

I'm sure you heard about Kyle Kashuv, one of the "Parkland" students, being interrogated by school administrators after posting a picture of himself at a gun range with his father (and being called a Nazi by one of his teachers).  Now, another school in the US (Lacey, NJ) may have disciplined two student for posting pictures of safe gun use at a range during non-school hours.  The circumstances of the NJ students is unclear, but it appears that they were suspended and, after legal threats, the suspension was wiped from their records.

The term I'm going to use for both of these incidents is "malicious persecution".

It's one thing for schools to be upset about wrongful or illegal student actions on school property, whether those actions were taken during school hours or not.  And a second thing for schools to be upset about students committing crimes during non-school hours.  In both cases, I would require definitive proof that the students did indeed commit the offenses.  And if the proof existed, I would have no problem with disciplinary action.

But when a student is safely and properly exercising a Constitutional right during non-school hours, in the proper venue, and with competent adult supervision, the school administrators need to FOAD learn to live with it.  I understand that guns are a hot topic right now, and that the overwhelmingly liberal teachers' unions are vehemently anti-gun.  Too many ideologically-driven grade school teachers are willing to preach against Constitutional rights and spend classroom time ranting about how evil guns are.  The result is the intentional miseducation of their students.

Punishing students for exercising their Constitutional rights is wrong - and, if I had anything to do with it, I would censure, suspend, or fire any school administrators who are overstepping their bounds in order to make a political point.  In loco parentis does not mean usurping and, in the case of Kyle Kashuv, completely ignoring the will of the real parents while insulting both the children and the parents.

The overwhelming number of grade school teachers do the job they were hired to do: they teach.  But there are "bad apples" in that barrel too.

So, a word to those "bad apples":  stop forcing your personal political views on students.  Your job is not indoctrination: it is education.  These two concepts do not belong together in a grade-school classroom.

And here's a thought for you:

If you don't think anyone under 21 is mature enough to own a rifle, how can you then say that those same under-21 individuals have "something valuable to say"?  Is it possible that they're merely repeating what you have been saying, and doing it without understanding why you're saying it?

And, for that matter, is it possible that you're merely repeating what others have been saying, and - as an adult capable of mature and logical reasoning - you're doing it without understanding what you're talking about?