Originally published at: Boy reporting classmate with bullet gets same punishment - Boing Boing
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This is the kind of school administration that punishes the kid who finally fought back against the bully along with the bully, under a so-called “zero tolerance” rule. It creates a culture where abusers are given power, so the other story comes as no surprise.
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Republicans: Life begins at conception, but ends at the second amendment. No exceptions. And we’ll just punish those on the periphery as well.
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This is the kind of school that punishes the kid for simply being beaten up by the bully, because both were “involved in a fight.” (This is an actual thing that happens, apparently.)
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Can confirm; empirically. Can also confirm that they aren’t super happy if you try to point out the low standing of collective punishment in international law.
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Was it “helpfully” explained to you that smart comments like that are what got you bullied in the first place? Victim-blaming administrators love that one.
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Sadly, this was a a large part of my experience during elementary school in the 80s.
Often, if I would “tattle” because a bully punched me in the face or kneed me in the balls, I would get in trouble as well. It was demoralizing and confusing and, later, when I was actually being seriously abused by a “trusted adult” I just kept my mouth shut for fear of getting in trouble too.
I wish I could send those motherfuckers my therapy bills.
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There’s another principle in US law that’s being violated by these types of punishments. You cannot charge a person as an accessory to a crime if the law involved is intended to protect that specific person. For example, liquor stores are required to ID people attempting to buy alcohol. If a 16 year old talks a liquor store clerk into selling him alcohol even though he doesn’t have an ID, you can charge the liquor store clerk with violating that law, but you cannot charge the 16 year old as an accessory or for inducing the clerk to break the law, because that law is intended to protect minors.
You shouldn’t charge victims, or potential victims, of crime with those crimes or crimes related to them.
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“You too, snitchy!”
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Ah yes the most important lesson that st. John told us:
“Snitches get stitches”
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As someone who spent K-12 in Catholic Schools this is not surprising. Illogical rules are kind of their specialty. (Well, other than that other specialty)
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“Authoritarian nitwits” tracks with my small town public school. I had to find out the hard way in fourth grade that you can’t trust what adults say, especially ones in a position of authority.
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Can confirm!
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What happened to the actual bullet? Did it get a medal?
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perhaps promoted to Super Double Secret Vice Principal ?
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One must also note that a common reason for banning some books is “Questioning authority”.
Authoritarians dislike anything that upsets their status quo.
This situation is almost Kafkaesque: We are punishing you for not reporting things the proper way.
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If it was just a bullet it is a harmless trinket hardly worthy of punishment. If it was a round of ammunition then it might be evidence of someone bringing a firearm to school and worthy of further investigation but still harmless of itself.
Oh no, is contemporary English not conforming to some firearms manual somewhere? 
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Time to close the thread. We no longer have the right to discuss the issue.
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