Zero tolerance

Tonight's is an issue I can talk a little bit about.

This issue is based upon a news article that I read in which a child accidentally brought a pocket knife to school. The knife dropped out of his pocket, his gym teacher called the "school resource officer", and the kid then left the school in handcuffs.

I can compare and contrast the above news story with an incident from my childhood in which I tried to buy a pocket knife from another kid. This was at day camp. My parents didn't want me to have a pocket knife, so I tried to buy one. Long story short, I got caught. There were no handcuffs. I did get in trouble. Eventually, many months later, my parents even let me have a pocket knife.

My point is, I never again brought a knife to school. Not once. Why couldn't the kid above have gotten the same treatment? Especially when there is no malice, I see no need for zero tolerance.

Also, in this comic, all the kids have scissors. At schools, they give kids more dangerous weapons than they are punishing the kids for having. It's reactionary and paranoid. At best these schools are teaching kids that authority figures suck.