The sheer stupidity of zero tolerance never ceases to amaze me.  What zero tolerance policies are intended to do is keep everyone safe, right?  All the ‘law breakers’ are handled the same.  No excuses, no room for judgment calls.  Well, in reality what ‘zero tolerance’ says is ‘we abandon all concepts of common sense’.  It’s an easy out for school administrators to not have to deal with anyone on a case-by-case basis.  They just throw out that blanket of ‘zero tolerance’; if one is guilty, then all are guilty.  There is no such thing as a simple mistake, an error in judgment or ignorance of policy.  No, no, no!  Here is yet another example of just how ignorant such policies truly are.

David Cole Withrow is a senior at Princeton High School in Princeton, North Carolina.  A few weeks ago, Withrow had gone skeet shooting, but forgot to remove his gun from his vehicle before school the next day.  Realizing his error in judgment, he called his mother to come to the school to remove the gun.  A school official overheard his conversation and, instead of assessing the situation a bit further, called police in unnecessary panic mode.   Withrow was arrested and now must finish out the remainder of the year at an ‘alternative school’.  Oh, and did I mention this young man is an honor student and an Eagle Scout?  We all know what scourges those Eagle Scouts can be on society.

According to The Blaze, two school officials reportedly brought guns onto school property in the past. One, a teacher at another high school in the same district, was cited and resigned. The other is the assistant principal at Princeton High School. He (or she-they are not identified) was suspended for three days and continues to work at the school. Neither of those individuals faced criminal charges.  How liberally hypocritical of them.

But, there is a silver lining to this story.  The Blaze has also reported that Liberty University has offered this young man a four-year scholarship!  Kudos to Liberty for stepping up to help him out.  But all of this begs the question: how much longer are we, as a society, going to tolerate this idiotic ideology of making a criminal out of everyone out of some ill-conceived mission to not offend anyone and/or be fair and equitable?  A little common sense could have averted this entire mess.  But no, let’s not employ any of that.  After all, that would require…gasp…thinking!

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