When extremes clash

From a published article:

TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — Jordan Bennett was suspended from his central Florida public school last year for playing cops and robbers.

The 8-year-old’s crime? Using his thumb and forefinger to mimic a gun. …

In the last 12 months, a seventh-grader in Rhode Island was suspended over a miniature toy gun keychain knickknack. A 7-year-old boy in Maryland was suspended for chewing a “Pop-Tart-like pastry” into a shape resembling a handgun, and in South Carolina a 6-year-old girl was expelled for bringing a plastic toy gun to her class. …

But a new proposed committee bill in the Florida Legislature would put an end to treating young students like violent offenders. A state House education proposal would prohibit school disciplinary action for the following:

• Brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or weapon
• Possessing a toy firearm or weapon that is two inches or less in overall length
• Possessing a toy firearm or weapon made of plastic snap-together building blocks
• Using a finger or hand to simulate a firearm or weapon
• Vocalizing an imaginary firearm or weapon
• Drawing a picture of, or possessing an image of, a firearm or weapon

Children wearing clothing or accessories relating to the Second Amendment — for or against it — would also be exempt from school punishment unless it was determined to “substantially disrupt” student learning.

The bill was passed unanimously out of committee. Now, Florida is a purple state. You should know that well by now, since it has played a key role in the last three Presidential elections, with its final vote total often not being known for days after the election, so close were the votes cast for Democrats or Republicans. For a bill to pass unanimously out of a committee in Florida means that voting for the bill has no chance of imperiling anyone’s chance for reelection. It is a popular bill or such an obvious bill to approve that no one would be against it.

Ah, but, in America, the extremes are always playing their game of ideological purity. And so it has happened with this quite reasonable bill. The NRA is playing this bill up as though it is the strike of the free people back against a totalitarian government and a stifling educational bureaucracy. Meantime, the crazy liberal side has nicknamed this the “Pop Tart Bill.” They are playing this bill up as another butt-scratching redneck Florida reaction against reasonable attempts to make it clear to children that guns are not good things to carry around unless one is a Law Enforcement Officer. Hmm, did I mention that this bill was passed unanimously out of committee?

And yet, this bill is neither of these two extremes. It is a reasonable attempt to allow children to play freely and to make it clear to school administrators and to teachers that they need to stop the silliness. Neither Democrat nor Republican on that committee believed that they were making an ideological statement. If that had been true, the vote would have split along party lines. But, it did not split along party lines. They simply saw it as a necessary course corrective for some of the silly no-tolerance interpretations into which have fallen too many schools around this nation.

Sadly, you cannot raise money out of a reasonable bill. And so, the two extremes are trying to redefine this bill into something it is not. Supporting it is not a vehicle for stopping liberal intrusions into private liberties. Opposing it it is not a vehicle for stopping butt-scratching NRA craziness. And, most importantly for those reading this blog, this bill should not be made into an opportunity for extreme organizations to get more money out of you. There is no conflict between Republican and Democrat, conservative and liberal, in this bill. It was passed unanimously. This is a sensible bill.

We live at a crazy time in this country when it appears that the tails are ruling the dogs. Even reasonableness is made to sound extreme. Lord, have mercy!