People Fear What They Do Not Know...

...And are prone to paranoid, ignorant, and idiotic overreactions because of it. A classic example from Atlanta:

NEWTON COUNTY, Ga. -- The latest case of zero-tolerance at the public schools has a 10-year-old student sadder and wiser, and facing expulsion and long-term juvenile detention. And it has his mother worried that his punishment has already been harsher than the offense demands.

"I think I shouldn't have brought a gun to school in the first place," said the student, Alandis Ford, sitting at home Thursday night with his mother, Tosha Ford, at his side.

Alandis' gun was a "cap gun," a toy cowboy six-shooter that his mother bought for him.

"We got it from Wal-Mart for $5.96," Tosha Ford said, "in the toy section right next to the cowboy hats. That's what he wanted because it was just like the ones he was studying for the Civil War" in his fifth-grade class at Fairview Elementary School.

"It kind of reminded me of the [soldiers'] guns that I was studying," Alandis said, "because I had brought pictures home of the gun and stuff, and that gun that I had reminded me of the revolver" depicted in his textbook.

Tosha said that Wednesday afternoon, after school, "six police officers actually rushed into the door" of their home. "He [Alandis] opened the door because they're police. And then they just kind of pushed him out of the way, and asked him, 'Well where's the gun, where's the real gun?' And they called him a liar... they booked him, and they fingerprinted him."

(Emphasis added.)

My children have been around firearms all their life, and they've known how to shoot since they were each about 8. They respect "guns;" they don't live in fear of them. While my teen-aged daughter is not particularly interested in shooting sports, she does know the bloody difference between a cap gun and a real revolver. If the Newton County Sheriff's Office or the Newton County School System will drop me an e-mail - I'm sure she'd be willing to give you some pointers. (She needs the community service hours.)

The final line of the article says it all:

Innocence of child's play now lost, she says, no matter what the outcome of the case is.

Indeed.

Hattip: Liberty Girl.