Dangerous pocket Knife

The following is from the latest "Bob Barr Update", it seems to be a case of the nanny state and political correctness gone mad.

Atlanta, GA – Former Georgia Congressman Bob Barr today blasted school officials in Cobb County, Georgia, a northwest suburb of Atlanta, for seeking to bring felony charges against a 12th grade student, Wilford Ray Chandler, Jr., for simply having a small Swiss Army knife in his car in a school parking lot at Wheeler High School.

"The student posed no threat to anyone, and he was not using the knife in any threatening manner," Barr noted, "in fact, he was not using the knife at all - it was simply in his car." "Trying to ruin a student's career before it even begins, by treating such an innocuous activity as having a Swiss Army pocketknife in a car, is nothing short of an unthinking, stupid, and vindictive exercise of government power,” Barr, a former federal prosecutor, said.

Barr said he hoped the county's prosecutors, including District Attorney Pat Head and Solicitor Barry Morgan, would quickly drop any charges against the student, and thereby "exercise the common sense and understanding that county school officials and police apparently lack, as evidenced by the unyielding and ridiculous 'zero tolerance' program and the unreasonable application of the policy to a student with no criminal record or intent and who exhibited nothing that could be remotely viewed by reasonable people as criminal behavior."

Barr, a former Member of Congress (1995-2003), also served previously as a US Attorney and with the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a lawyer and currently works with national organizations on issues related to privacy and national security.

This is how it was reported in 'Decatur DeKalb.'

According to an arrest warrant, Wilford Ray Chandler Jr. had a pocket knife with a 2.5-inch blade on Aug. 29, a violation of the school district's weapons policy.

Jay Dillon, a Cobb schools spokesman, said Chandler left the Wheeler campus about midday — a violation of the school's rules. When he came back onto the grounds, a school resource officer searched him and his car, which is standard operating procedure when a student leaves campus without permission.

The blade, described in the warrant as a "multipurpose-type pocket knife," was found in the center console of the car.

I would find it hard to think of a knife less likely to be used in violence than a swiss army knife, it is a novelty item with some possible minor uses, but pretty impractical. All those fancy odds and ends on it are of limited usefulness. Crocodile Dundee would not pull one of those out and say, "Knife, thats not a knife, this is a knife".

In any case, it could hardly qualify as an offensive weapon in his car in the car park.

While my school days were a long time ago, none of the boys would have been seen dead without a pocket knife, it was just a required accessory. The really flash guys had a pouch for it, and if you had one with a pair of tweezers and a 'pricker' (for removing splinters etc), then you were top of the heap. Nobody ever used them in a fight, thats what fists were for.

I can't imagine what the loonies who come up with these rules are thinking of.