Insanity: seventh-grader suspended three days for gun keychain the size of a quarter

[ShooterInPA1]

Yet another student has landed in trouble for having something that represents a gun, but isn’t actually anything like a real gun.

This time, the student is 12-year-old Joseph Lyssikatos, a student in advanced math who had perfect attendance last year. The seventh-grader made the mistake of bringing a ridiculously small, silver keychain shaped like a gun to Alan Shawn Feinstein Middle School in Coventry, R.I, reports local NBC affiliate WJAR.

The two-inch keychain fell out of Lyssikatos’s backpack while he was at school.

After another kid picked it up and displayed it to other students, a teacher intervened and impounded the keychain. (HOW BRAVE OF THEM!/S)

Apparently fearing that the roughly quarter-sized hunk of cheap metal was somehow a danger to life and limb, school officials sprang into action. They suspended Lyssikatos for three days. He has also been banned from an upcoming class field trip.

The boy’s parents aren’t pleased.

“This boy was the one waving it or showing it to other kids. Not Joseph,” Bonnie Bonanno, Joseph’s stepmother, told WJAR. “Joseph wasn’t doing that so why weren’t both of them reprimanded?”

Lyssikatos noted that he got the tiny keychain at a local arcade with go-karts and such in exchange for 25 tickets.

School officials have clammed up concerning the incident, according to WJAR. The school released a brief statement saying: “Because this is a student discipline issue, we cannot comment on any specifics.”

Someone called a behavioral specialist at Feinstein Middle School informed the boy’s parents of the suspension. The parents say the principal and the school district superintendent won’t return phone calls.

The Feinstein Middle School handbook entitled “Serious Disciplinary Infractions” declares: “Possession/carrying/use of/threat of use of a firearm or replica shall result in a recommendation for expulsion for a period of time up to one full calendar year.”

The boy’s father, Keith Bonanno, claimed on WPRO radio that the behavioral specialist told him his son was “lucky that he didn’t get suspended for 10 days, or even worse expelled.”

According to the Feinstein Middle School website, the behavioral specialist at the school is Kim Sturdahl.

This incident marks at least the second episode during this newly-minted academic year involving school officials in the United States overreacting insanely to things that aren’t guns .

Also this week, two seventh graders were expelled from a public school in Virginia Beach, Va. for an entire school year for playing with an Airsoft toy gun on wholly private property. (RELATED: Awful: School expels kids who played with Airsoft gun on private property)

http://dailycaller.com/2013/09/29/in...-of-a-quarter/

[RaggedEdge]

That is of course crap. Though there is a functioning gun just about that size that can fire flares.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?...jINHo1g&sns=em

[priell3]

What do you expect from a school named "Feinstein"?

[claudel]

^^^^

Beat me to it...

[PocketProtector]

It's time....

[Pilot321]

The only way we are going to bring sanity back to school systems is to get involved with the school board, and pressure them. We pay A LOT of property, and real estate taxes which goes to fund these typically far left goons.

[brad5452]

That is of course crap. Though there is a functioning gun just about that size that can fire flares.
http://http://www.youtube.com/watch?...jINHo1g&sns=em

You can find functioning 2mm live ammo for them as well, but to assume it is one of those is about as logical as assuming all pens in school are pen guns.

[Metz]

Honestly, that keychain does resemble a gun that can be fired. However the biggest bullshit is zero tolerance policies. Which mean school administrators, that receive six figure compensation to CARE about kids and circumstances just dont give a fuck about the latter, pointing to zero tolerance policies.

[Grey Bearded One]

About 15 years ago there were three incidents that stuck in my memory.

One was a kid found a little plastic gun, one of those gold charms that comes from a gum ball machine on his way to school. He picked it up and later showed to a friend at school. He was suspended for having a "gun."

There was kid who was going to a friend's house after school for a sleepover and took his PJs and some toys. One of the toys was a brightly colored toy gun. The school went into lock down and they evacuated the classroom, leaving the kid locked in by himself until the police responded. The school said that the reaction was appropriate because teachers cannot tell toy guns from real guns.

I actually know the kid involved in the incident. It was Halloween and he wore his costume to school as everyone else did. His costume was a T-shirt printed to look like a police uniform complete with duty belt and holstered gun. He wasn't suspended but was sent home for having a "weapon."

Make it four incidents.

My brother was on the school board in a district in which a kid was sent home for having a plastic ax as part of his fireman's costume.

Five.

No one was suspended but a kid in my son's school made a diarama of a WW II battle using little green army guys. To make is "school acceptable" he had to cut the rifles off all of the soldiers.

[BB MBD]

it does not surprise me. Bringing toy guns to school is equals to saying "bomb" on a plane.