Teen faces expulsion after brining stun-gun to school to fend off bullies

[HardRockSamurai]

Hopefully the six students that threatened this poor kid all end up getting suspended or expelled. Perhaps if the school had worked harder to stop bullying this never would have happened.

I'm willing to take this a step further : make em' wear explosive collars. The next time they decide to gang up on somebody...BOOM!

 

[lacktheknack]

She was dumb to give the kid a weapon, though for self defense purposes weapons are great, especially guns. BUT NOT AT SCHOOLS, what I mean is, a weapon is acceptable in life or death scenarios, this guy was not in one of those scenarios.

The school may not have done its job, but the parent pretty much caused mutiny. Weapons are not allowed in schools, period.

She should have taught him martial arts, much more legal.

You realize that a badly/well aimed kick is significantly more deadly than a civilian stun-gun, right? The kid was smart and fired a warning shot, this is pretty much the most perfectly the situation COULD have gone.

 

[kgpspyguy]

So basically you people think he should have just taken his beating like a good little sheep?

 

[Agayek]

So basically you people think he should have just taken his beating like a good little sheep?

Clearly not. He should have called the police then stood there and waited the 20+ minutes for the cops to send a car by, while becoming instantly invulnerable to all physical attacks after taking out his phone.

Edit: OT: I totally support the kid and his use of the stun gun. I would go so far as to say that he would have been perfectly justified in zapping as many of his assailants as he could. The fact that the school let it devolve into such a situation in the first place is the problem, not the kid taking steps to protect himself.

Would it be preferred if he didn't have to use the thing? Absolutely. The fact of the matter is though, schools like to bury their head in the sand and pretend there's no bullying problem, and the cops aren't going to care. He has to be willing to defend himself from attackers, and if that means using a stun gun, then he should use a stun gun. Simple as that.

 

[lacktheknack]

The kid was being threatened by 6 people and a 6 on 1 beating is absolutely a life threatening situation. The school wasn't doing anything to protect him for this sort of thing so what else was he supposed to do?
If you have a better solution I'd honestly love to hear it, but I don't see any other options this kid had

You call THE POLICE. It's their job. The school can deal with small stuff, but threatening a physical attack is a crime.

There is also self defense training, deescaelation training, walking with friends, standing down bullies (most will back off if pushed), switching schools, and MANY other solutions.

In addition to the kid being charged in this case, I'm rather disappointed the mother wasn't charged as well. At the very least child services needs to review her custody, she doesn't appear to be a fit parent. I wonder where the dad is in all this, oh wait, I can probably guess.

I dealt with bullies as kids, a stun gun is not the answer. There are plenty of answers, that isn't one of them.

Why not?

This is a civilian short-range non-Taser stun gun. It's basically a powerful portable Van-de-Graf generator, something that we played with one physics class with teacher's consent. The shocks hurt, but are NOWHERE NEAR deadly, unless you have a barely-functioning heart and get hit in the upper-torso all while Lady Luck frowns a frown of death. It's as safe as self-defense measures GET. When you have six people blocking you into a corner and threatening to pummel you into oblivion, it's all well and good to talk semantics, options, and how the school SHOULD be intervening, and how people SHOULDN'T bully others... as you get pummeled into oblivion. Good luck reaching a phone to call police (who won't come and attend a schoolyard standoff anyhow).

And what are the "other answers"? That's a slap in the face to anyone who was unable to stop bullies as children. I faced bullies as well, and I don't know how you did it, but the only thing that permanently stopped a bully before I outgrew them all was when I grabbed a big stick and threatened to bash his head in with it. Don't like that? DEAL WITH IT, IT WORKED BETTER THAN ANY OTHER METHOD. I tried all the others I could think of.

And quite frankly, "threatening to mildly injure" is a much better "solution" than your proposed "switch schools" or "threaten with greater injury" (a common effect of self-defense training), and some of your other ones simply won't work. De-escalation requires the other person to be somewhat reasonable, walking with friends requires friends, evasion requires speed, standing down requires cowardly bullies, NONE OF WHICH I had to work with.

I LAUD this kid for having the balls to make motions of fighting back, as well as having the brains to fire a warning shot first. I laud the mother for actually using the full extent of her power (up to arming her kid with a non-fatal stun-gun) as far as she needed to to make a goddamned difference.

Your post reeks of wishy-washy idealism that simply doesn't stand up in a bad bullying situation.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's all fun and games until someone gets shocked into cardiac arrest.

Back in my day, when we had to deal with bullies, we performed a musical number that showed the bullies why they wrong to do such nasty things. They would then join in with our song, proclaiming their lives changed.

The more you know.

....are you part of the cast of Glee by some chance?

OT: If a school isn't doing enough, I don't think raising the violence level is the answer. Sure, the kid's story sucks, but...I'm pulling a 'domino' effect here but it's one step away from bringing a fully loaded gun into school.

No... next step is pepper spray, then comes brass knuckles, then a taser, then coordinated attacks with other classmates, then an empty gun, THEN a loaded gun.

People don't realize how not-dangerous civilian static stun-guns are (I'm being led to believe that's what he had). They cause a nasty shock and mild muscle spasm, giving you three seconds to get away and/or threaten to zap them again. It's not a bowl-them-over taser.

 

[lacktheknack]

My my, all these people who have no concept of reality and would rather use a weapon than their head.

http://nospank.net/jordan-miles.jpg

Using your head is overrated. It's harder to hide the injuries afterwards. Plus, your neck hurts afterwards, as well as restricting the swing area required to make a good hit. Most people tend to protect their heads in these situations as one's fists, feet or carried object typically makes a better blunt weapon. Alternatively, a static stun gun or pepper spray. Those are the most effective and are more likely to doscourage the bully from trying again.

Unless you're referring to Macgyvering a shield out of the air, walls and floor as six brutes bear down on you. In which case, go ahead.

(Generally, people who tell bullied kids to "use your head" are simply too lazy and aloof and don't care enough to come up with an actual solution.)

 

[Bat Vader]

Hopefully the six students that threatened this poor kid all end up getting suspended or expelled. Perhaps if the school had worked harder to stop bullying this never would have happened.

I'm willing to take this a step further : make em' wear explosive collars. The next time they decide to gang up on somebody...BOOM!

While that would solve the problem and make bullies think twice about bullying someone. I can't help but think that it may be going just a bit far. I think they should be turned into mimes instead.

 

[Revnak_v1legacy]

This is why zero tolerance is fucking stupid, except when actual guns are considered and even then I'm not so likely to agree with it. In any other pat of society you can sue or have to be put on trial, but if you fuck up according to zero tolerance (which has some disgustingly stupid rules) you are expelled without any chance of making your case. Unless the media gets word of it, then the whole staff gets to spend to rest of their lives paying for having to act in accordance with rules that are largely beyond their control.

Spoiler: FUCK YOU ZERO TOLERANCE POLICIES!!!

 

[HardRockSamurai]

Hopefully the six students that threatened this poor kid all end up getting suspended or expelled. Perhaps if the school had worked harder to stop bullying this never would have happened.

I'm willing to take this a step further : make em' wear explosive collars. The next time they decide to gang up on somebody...BOOM!

While that would solve the problem and make bullies think twice about bullying someone. I can't help but think that it may be going just a bit far. I think they should be turned into mimes instead.

WHOA! I was only suggesting that we strap live explosives to their heads. But mimes???...................that's just sick.....

 

[GenericAmerican]

Mother gives child a weapon . . .and sends him to school.

Stupidity all around, move along people, move along.

 

[Powereaver]

Being someone who was horrifically bullied myself.. even to the point of being choked by my tie.. id say a stun gun is a perfectly reasonable fightback device as its fairly non-lethal and will keep the bullies away.

 

[lacktheknack]

My my, all these people who have no concept of reality and would rather use a weapon than their head.

Using your head is overrated. It's harder to hide the injuries afterwards. Plus, your neck hurts afterwards, as well as restricting the swing area required to make a good hit. Most people tend to protect their heads in these situations as one's fists, feet or carried object typically makes a better blunt weapon. Alternatively, a static stun gun or pepper spray. Those are the most effective and are more likely to doscourage the bully from trying again.

Unless you're referring to Macgyvering a shield out of the air, walls and floor as six brutes bear down on you. In which case, go ahead.

(Generally, people who tell bullied kids to "use your head" are simply too lazy and aloof and don't care enough to come up with an actual solution.)

Fortunately I'm from a country where both stun guns and pepper spray are illegal to use. Somehow kids manage to deal with bullies without that.Plus by finding solutions that don't involve a weapon they don't escalate the matter into a weapons battle that eventually they will lose, they don't break laws, and they actually find ways to stop problems that build their confidence and discourage future bullies by generating respect.

And I did supply a series of answers above to alternatives.

What we seem to have here is a cross dressing boy who wasn't smart enough to talk down agressors, tone down his dress, or simply have friends. He must have demonstrated lack of confidence or they wouldn't have picked on him for any length of time. Through the absense of the father in the story, he was probably without a father and thus didn't know how to handle himself as a man in that situation. So what did he do? Pulled a weapon? A cowardly response that will only make his life worse. He's lucky, for example, that they fled. He pulled a weapon first, at that point they could have taken him out and reasonably claimed self defence.

I don't give a damn what brought him up to that point in time, what matters is that he was at it. And his options at that exact moment were A. pull a stun gun, or B. take a beating.

 

[Saulkar]

People can spout all the legal/moral/ethical/empirically logical fucking bullshit they want but that is because they have never been in a situation where THEY FEARED/FOUGHT FOR THEIR LIFE. I have had multiple attempts on my life by youth street gangs be it with knives, knuckle dusters, or hammers.

The system (school, cops) did nothing for months until a cop stopped a knife from gutting me (actually had his gun out, safety off). I had a lead pipe in my hand and I was ready to kill, you do not think in those situations, you do. I know what I am talking about, until you are put into a situation where you fear for your life, how well do you know how you will react?

You could argue this kid hand hindsight and he made the choice to take the weapon or not but until you have been in a situation where you believe that you may one day never come home after God knows how much abuse, how well do you know what you would do?

As told from the survivor of multiple murder attempts as a thirteen year old.

 

[Twilight_guy]

So as far as I can tell he was never physically hurt... the school made some effort to resolve the issue (note how it says the administration didn't do enough not that they did nothing) that the mother felt wasn't enough and so she she though the best course of action was to have her son bring a weapon to school. This mother needs to reconsider what she thinks is an appropriate response.