Guns In School

Essay by PaperNerd ContributorCollege, Undergraduate October 2001

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Tuesday, October 30, 2001 Is it fair to suspend, and potentially expel a student for displaying a cap gun in school? I at one time thought that common sense would prevail, and know the difference between a cap gun and a real gun; that a real gun will harm another, and a cap gun is just "pretend" "“ or is it? I was walking home from school a few weeks ago when a car behind me started to speed up. A fellow student from Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School was sitting passenger in this car. Although the car was speeding up quickly, I caught a quick glance of him as the sound of an innocent voice headed towards me. I barely look at him through the corner of my eye when I noticed him. I've seen him many times before (I could even pick him out of a line-up), however to this day I still don't know his name.

I barely had the time to respond to his blasting voice when he instantaneously pulls out a gun from beneath the window, points the weapon in my direction, and fires the gun with an explosive sound, no more than 5 meters from my face. Fearing the image of the gun and that the sound I heard was indeed true, I instinctively dove to the grass while covering my head, praying that the bullets would stray away from it's target. While trying to comprehend what exactly had just happened, I was dreading the worst, searching down my body, looking for blood seeping through my clothes. After certifying myself it was only a cap gun and that I am indeed alive, I pondered the question, "Why would this person, or anyone for that matter, think that shooting someone with a cap gun at point blank range, is humorous?" After the slight paranoid and stomach wrenching feeling had subsided, I abandoned the issue, never to tell anyone of what had happened "“ only until a student yesterday was suspended and possibly expelled for showing another student a cap gun during a crime stoppers meeting. I immediately recalled what had happened a few weeks past, and wondered if it was the same person. To those who think he was "just carrying a cap gun" what if you were like me and someone whom you don't know shoots you with a gun "“ only this time it is real? If it can happen to me, it can most certainly happen to you. Thankfully, the assertive authority of Sir Allan MacNab Secondary School has a "no tolerance" policy with regards to weapons, because maybe next time it won't be just a cap gun.