Jake Trembath, a Maple Grove, Minnesota High School junior who served on the student council, is the latest victim of the incredibly stupid idea of "zero tolerance". Jake is being expelled from school for unknowingly bringing a cap gun onto school grounds in his car.

• Not a real gun
• Not into the school
• Not knowingly
• Not a weapon in any sense
• Not dangerous in any sense

School officials often respond that schools are required to have a zero tolerant position... required by federal law that can otherwise cut off their federal funding. Is that true? No, it isn't, but I can see why they worry about it happening.

From the End Zero Tolerance website:

In 1994, an act was passed by the 103rd Congress called the “H.R. 6 Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994”. In this act, Section 14601, known as Gun-Free Requirements, spells out how local school districts MUST discipline students that bring certain items (esp. firearms or explosives) on school property. If the local school district does not comply with mandatory expulsion then the school district runs the risk of losing federal funding under the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Act) that was established in 1965. Annually, each school district has to compile a list of expelled students and the weapon they had on school grounds and send it to state officials which in turn submit it on a federal level.

It's easy to see why schools are cautious about violating H.R. 6's mandate, but the truth is that H.R. 6 grants local school officials the right to make their own judgment on a case-by-case basis. It did give the feds one more way to coerce and intimidate local schools. It was stupid legislation, but not quite stupid enough to outlaw using their own judgment..

From H. R. Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994  6 C. 17001. GUN-FREE REQUIREMENTS

(1) IN GENERAL- Except as provided in paragraph (3), no assistance may be provided to any local educational agency under this Act unless such agency has in effect a policy requiring the expulsion from school for a period of not less than one year of any student who is determined to have brought a weapon to a school under the jurisdiction of such agency, except that such policy may allow the chief administering officer of such agency to modify such expulsion requirement for a student on a case-by-case basis.

H.R. 6 defines "weapon":

(4) DEFINITION- For the purpose of this section, the term `weapon' means a firearm as such term is defined in section 921 of title 18, United States Code.

From section 921 of title 18, United States Code:

The term ''firearm'' means (A) any weapon (including a starter gun) which will or is designed to or may readily be converted to expel a projectile by the action of an explosive

Clearly, the intent of H.R. 6 was to require expulsion for students bringing "real" weapons... potentially dangerous weapons to school. Any differentiation or expansion to the silliness of banning a cap gun (or even sillier examples) are not law-based, but administratively based.

If the schools are really afraid of losing federal funding by not being tough enough on students (and they may be) what they are actually in fear of is a federal agency arbitrarily applying a standard that has no basis in law. Can that fear be real? Hell yes, it can, because federal agencies are notorious for throwing their weight around, irrespective of their legal grounds.

H.R. 6 was passed by the knee-jerk, reform-minded actions of the 103rd Congress, elected in 1992, a particularly strange election year, in which an incumbent "read-my-lips" Bush was whupped by a "I-can-be-anything-you-wish" Clinton, while "we-can-computerize-government" Ross Perot got 19%. Congressional races were besmirched by the recent House Bank bounced-check scandals. It was the same Congress that gave us the Assault Weapons Ban (Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)) in which weapons that "looked" dangerous were banned, and the Brady Bill (Rep. Charles Schumer (D-NY)), that requires good citizens to jump through hoops while having no effect on criminal activity.

This was the same Congress responsible for mandatory sentencing, an end to parole and more spartan prison conditions, as I described in Crime is down. Was it worth it?

It was a stupid, destructive Congress, but it's not to blame for zero tolerance:

The term "zero tolerance"  -- referring to policies that punish all offenses severely, no matter how minor -- grew out of state and federal drug enforcement policies in the 1980s. The first use of the term recorded in the Lexis-Nexis national newspaper database was in 1983, when the Navy reassigned 40 submarine crew members for suspected drug abuse. In 1986 zero tolerance was picked up and used by a U.S. attorney in San Diego as the title of a program developed to impound seacraft carrying any amount of drugs. By February 1988 the program had received national attention, and U.S. Attorney General Edwin Meese authorized customs officials to seize the boats, automobiles, and passports of anyone crossing the border with even trace amounts of drugs and to charge those individuals in federal court. Zero tolerance took hold quickly and within months was being applied to issues as diverse as environmental pollution, trespassing, skateboarding, racial intolerance, homelessness, sexual harassment, and boom boxes.

Just one more destructive effect of the War on Drugs. The idea of zero tolerance is ridiculous in the extreme. It is a means of avoiding judgment by replacing it with words to be interpreted as anyone sees fit. It is the resort of completely gutless, unthinking bureaucrats. It is a refusal to think... a refusal to consider... a refusal to reason.

That the application of harsh, unthinking standards should come from school personnel is incredibly bitter. From those entrusted with helping children learn how to distinguish and think... we have policy that is precisely the opposite... arbitrary, unthinking, undistinguishing punishment. School boards or administrations adopting zero tolerance policies should be sentenced to living their own lives by their own insane standards.