quidni wrote:When our son Thane was a sophomore in High School, we had a go-round with the principal about her concern over our son's "mental stability."
Her concerns:
He was a minority - anglo in a mostly hispanic school.
He was a member of the school's JROTC.
He was on the JROTC air-rifle team (and a pretty good shot).
He enjoyed talking about guns and hunting with his JROTC instructors.
He was enrolled in the martial arts, and doing well in Tae-Kwon-Do.
He was a Christian, and spent his lunch time alone, studying or reading his bible instead of hanging out with the other students. He was also outspoken about his beliefs in class.
- (he said he wasn't interested in the usual "guy chatter" that happened during lunch. "The friends I have, boy and girl, are like me - they want to study and get good grades instead of dating.")
The problem:
Several of the boys decided our son was a prime target for taunting, and were making his school days rather unpleasant.
Her solution? she wanted to send
Thane to counseling to make sure he didn't "go Columbine" on his tormentors. She said she "couldn't do anything" about or to the bullies until they "actually did something physical."
We said no on the counseling.
Well, eventually the bullies decided it would be fun to start tossing rocks in his general direction, trying to spook him. He did his best to ignore them until one of them did actually hit him in the face right above his eye. His reaction? He picked up the offending rock, stood and glared through the blood at the bullies until they backed down, pocketed the rock and walked off without having said a word. IIRC, he didn't have too many problems with them afterward. He later graduated near the top of his class without "going Columbine" on his classmates, or even being in an actual fight.
That particular principal moved on sometime before Thane graduated. Last I heard, she was in admin at the local university where she didn't interact much with the actual students. And the high school did much better without her, with fewer "disciplinary problems."
Back to the OP - finger guns? a teacher "in fear" of a "terroristic threat" due to a
finger gun???? 
Someone has no sense of perspective.
There is a thing that puzzles me.
I often wonder why
We label this thing "Common Sense"
When it's in such short supply?