Pop-Tart gun bill defended as 'common sense'

Simulating a gun with building blocks.

Pointing a finger like a gun.

Doodling a gun or dangerous weapon on a sheet of paper.

Twirling a pencil like a cowboy handling his revolver.

It almost seems comical, but Nevada lawmakers are seriously debating a state law that would list all these acts as protected from discipline in public schools, including students wearing clothes that depict weapons.

The proposed protections — for kindergarten through eighth grade — even prohibit disciplining students "brandishing a partially consumed pastry or other food item to simulate a firearm or dangerous weapon," which earned Assembly Bill 121 its nickname, the Pop-Tart gun bill.

The hearing Wednesday concluded without a vote. It remains to be seen whether the bill will move forward.

As ridiculous as it sounds, schools across the nation have suspended students for all of these trivial acts, said Assemblyman Jim Wheeler, R-Minden, defending his bill in the Assembly Education Committee on Wednesday as a proactive approach for Nevada to avert such overreactions.

The bill shouldn't be needed, but unfortunately it is these days, Wheeler said.

"All we're doing is cleaning up political correctness taken too far," said Wheeler, calling his bill common-sense legislation letting kids be kids. "That simple. It returns common sense back to our school system."

In 2013, a Baltimore-area school suspended a 7-year-old boy for chewing a Pop-Tart into a gun shape.

In 2014, a Pennsylvania elementary school suspended a 7-year-old boy for bringing his toy gun — complete with orange plastic tip — to school. The teacher only discovered the gun because the boy realized it had been left in his backpack from a sleepover and told the teacher about the mistake.

The examples are many, going so far as a New Jersey seventh-grader suspended last year for twirling a pencil around his finger, which school officials took as an intimidating act simulating a gun.

"It's a waste of a kid's day to send them home for something like that," said Assemblyman Elliot Anderson, D-Las Vegas.

Such a restriction shouldn't have to be spelled out for schools in state law, but it's come to that, said Ron Dreher, lobbyist for the Washoe School Principals' Association.

"We are living in a different world and, unfortunately, we have to codify it," he said. "I guess we live in a ridiculous age."

Discipline, however, would be allowed for students disrupting learning or the educational environment, injuring other students or placing another person in reasonable fear of bodily harm, according to the bill.

This is where the bill was a cause for concern.

While schools make headlines for their obvious overreactions, legitimate cases exist where these acts can be harmful, said Stephen Augspurger, executive director of the union representing Clark County school administrators.

He described a scene where a student points his finger at another student and pretends to shoot, doing this day after day to emotionally intimidate and torment that student.

"Things can get out of hand very quickly," said Augspurger, cautioning against such blanket protections.

Assemblyman Pat Hickey, R-Reno, shared his concern.

He questioned whether the bill would "create more gray areas that clarity."

OVERREACTIONS THAT THE NEVADA BILL ATTEMPTS TO AVERT

• Pop-Tart gun: A Baltimore-area school suspends a 7-year-old boy in March 2013 for chewing a Pop Tart into the shape of a gun.

• "Hand" gun: A middle school in Milford, Mass., suspends a 10-year-old boy in November 2014 for making his hand into the shape of a gun and pointing it at other students. School officials say the fifth-grader's actions indicated a threat, but his grandmother disagrees, calling it the "typical little boy behavior" done while stood in line at lunch playing with his hands.

• No shirt, no school: A high school near Buffalo, N.Y., suspends a sophomore boy in March 2014 for refusing to take off a shirt with a National Rifle Association logo, which depicts an eagle holding two rifles in its talons. The school later reverses the suspension after parent protests.

• Toy gun: An elementary school in New Kensington, Pa., suspends a 7-year-old boy who realizes after arriving at school that his toy revolver – complete with orange plastic tip – is in his backpack. The boy tells his teacher about the toy gun, mistakenly put in his backpack by his mom, but the school suspends him in June 2014.

• Weapon drawings: A South Carolina middle school suspends an autistic 13-year-old boy in October 2013 for drawing the kind of cartoon bomb – a black sphere with a thick wick coming out of the top – seen in Wile E. Coyote episodes.

• Pencil twirling: A Vernon, N.J., middle school suspends a seventh-grader for twirling his pencil, which school staff interpret as a gun motion.