A couple years back, you may recall a spate of stories about schoolchildren pointing their fingers as guns and chewing toaster pastries into shapes that resembled guns. For a while, these stories stopped appearing, giving hope that maybe school administrators had come to their senses and recognized that make-believe is a normal and healthy part of childhood.
Now it appears that hope was false. Several days ago, LU ran a story about a fifth-grade autistic student who was handcuffed and hauled off to juvenile hall for aiming imaginary rifle. Today, there is a fresh story out of New Haven, Conn.
According to Fox affiliate WTIC, officials at the Jepsen Magnet School called police after a student built a toy gun out of Legos and allegedly began pointing it at other students.
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A spokesperson for New Haven Public Schools said that “school leaders and local police partners were able to investigate and resolve the issue internally with use of restorative practices.” What a relief, eh?
The statement continued:
Appropriate steps were taken at the school level to insure the safety of all students and to impress upon the students the seriousness of engaging in positive peer interactions while avoiding conduct that may pose risk or concern to others. All children need to feel safe and secure within the learning environment and we all have a role to play to make that happen.
We’re not sure if the toy gun was made from assault Legos, but it’s clear that something needs to be done to deal with the scourge of military-style building blocks.
Apparently the use of Legos to make murder weapons is widespread. The Daily Mail reports:
Earlier this year a 14-year-old in California was arrested for posting a photo of a Lego rifle on social media along with a threatening message.
In 2013 a five year old in Massachusetts was almost suspended after he made a gun out of Legos.
Exit question: Should Legos now come with a warning label?
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