Legal Commentary

The Lesson to You Schoolchildren for Today: People in Authority Are Often Idiots

By Eugene Volokh

?Cops Charge 7-Year-Old for Bringing Toy Gun To Class.? ?Police charged the 7-year-old with possessing an imitation firearm in or on an education institution ? a misdemeanor and a minor juvenile offense in New Jersey.? This ?was a $5 toy gun, similar to a Nerf gun, that shoots soft ping pong type balls, according to the school?s superintendent?; the video attached to the story suggests the toy looks like a real gun, but it didn?t show the toy, so it?s hard to tell.

Why all the administrative measures the school system could take are insufficient, and the criminal law has to respond, is beyond me. Nothing in the story suggests that somehow the 7-year-old had, in past incidents, proved himself unwilling to respond to administrative measures: ?School officials described the child as ?a nice kid? and ?a good student.??

Of course, such actions have an effect beyond the particular student, and send a message to the public at large. But this message, I think, will not only be ?never ever ever bring nerf-guns to school.? Rather, I suspect that it will be the message suggested in the headline to the post.

Thanks to Little Miss Attila for the pointer.

Full post as published by The Volokh Conspiracy on February 04, 2011 (boomark / email).