Oh cut me a fucking break!!!

[ABSTRUSE]

Teen Suspended Over Civil War Weapon


PINE BUSH, N.Y. - A teen-age Civil War buff has been suspended from school and faces serious charges after his replica musket was found in his car trunk at school in the Orange County community of Pine Bush.



Joshua Phelps had been at a re-enactment with his Civil War costume, including a musket last week. He threw the uniform and equipment into his truck and forgot about it. Yesterday a security guard at the Pine Bush High School saw it and called police.


Phelps was sitting in study hall when the security guard told him to go to the assistant principal. When he was told they saw the rifle he wasn't concerned - thinking they would understand it's part of his costume.


But it didn't happen that way. Town of Crawford Police were called and Phelps was cuffed and charged with a misdemeanor charge of criminal possession of a weapon.


His mother, Valerie Michaels, is outraged, saying the school has blown this thing way out of proportion. She says also in the trunk was a costume, shoes, leather belt, powder keg, and a leather cartridge box.


Phelps used the costume when taking part of the re-enactment of the Battle of Chancellorville which was staged by the 124th New York State Volunteers. The re-enactors say they are models of the unit that came from Orange County and fought in the Civil war. High School students were recruited to take part in the re-enactors club. Phelps' mother questions why give the students fake guns and then arrest them.


Pine Bush School Superintendent RoseMarie Stark called the incident a student discipline matter and declined to comment further.

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Sorry, but did they think this kid was going to dress up and go on a spree with a musket???
What was he going to do, kill a person every five minutes while he stopped to reload???
Little extreme for me when you consider how many others are out there with concealed weapons and it's now legal to have an AK47 assault rifle.

My rant for the day.

 

[cantdog]

Asses.

 

[Edward Teach]

Patriot Act Violation

Sounds seditious to me. I'll bet he was planning to invade Virginia. Damn Yankee.


Edward The Neocon

 

[Guest]

 

[Colleen Thomas]

What state is in the byline? NY? Nuff said. A state full of antigun retards. According to the wisdom here, the only people allowed to own weapons are the cops, with whom the safest place to be is directly in front of them and the criminals. The rest of us are just presented gift wrapped as victims.

You think you were ranting Abs? Not hardly.

-Colly

 

[Belegon]

one more example of the idiocy of "zero-tolerance".

 

[R. Richard]

Teen Suspended Over Civil War Weapon


PINE BUSH, N.Y. - A teen-age Civil War buff has been suspended from school and faces serious charges after his replica musket was found in his car trunk at school in the Orange County community of Pine Bush.

Joshua Phelps had been at a re-enactment with his Civil War costume, including a musket last week. He threw the uniform and equipment into his truck and forgot about it. Yesterday a security guard at the Pine Bush High School saw it and called police.

Phelps was sitting in study hall when the security guard told him to go to the assistant principal. When he was told they saw the rifle he wasn't concerned - thinking they would understand it's part of his costume.

The student did not have a rifle. A rifle is a weapon defined by the rifling grooves inside the barrel that cause a bullet to spin as it exits the barrel. The purpose of the spin is to increase the accuracy of the flight of the bullet.

A musket is a smoothbore weapon that is muzzle loaded. A musket is usually of large caliber and was a standard infantry weapon of some two+ centuries ago. A musket is NOT a rifle.

If I were the kid and charged with possession of a rifle, I would sue for lots of money.

JMHO.

 

[cantdog]

The paper, or at least the reporter and his editor, did not know the difference. I daresay the principal didn't, and in New York, possibly the cop didn't either.

Many of the long arms in the war in question were "rifled muskets" and there was a wide array of different kinds in use in it. Regiments were formed independently and each armed themselves. Replacement arms came from various sources. It could have been either rifled or not. Chances are good it was a working replica, though. And chances are good it was indeed rifled.

Even if it were smooth-bore, your suit would fail; they simply re-word the indictment. Unless smooth-bore weapons are allowed to New Yorkers under their gun laws, as they are most places.

The suspension is another matter, and the real object of any suit likely to be brought.

The law (or ordinance or whatever) under which the suspension and confiscation was mandated most likely dated from the panic following Columbine. It would have had to do with bringing a firearm to a school. A lot of those ordinances made no distinction as to the kind of firearm.

The effect of such a rule is like that of the laws against street drugs within x yards of a school. None, except that they have an extra law to club the perpetrator with.

The laws already on the books prohibit people from walking into a school and holding hostages and shooting people. A new rule about having guns in a school is a ridiculous response, but it was done without reflection or common sense all over the country.

 

[matriarch]

What state is in the byline? NY? Nuff said. A state full of antigun retards. According to the wisdom here, the only people allowed to own weapons are the cops, with whom the safest place to be is directly in front of them and the criminals. The rest of us are just presented gift wrapped as victims.

You think you were ranting Abs? Not hardly.

-Colly

Best not come live in Brit-land hun, cos that's how it is for the majority of the country. And even the police don't carry them, except with specific authority, and under special circumstances. A fact for which I am heartily glad.

That said, the school does seem to have lost all sense of reality on this one. Re-enactment societies are big over here, and even in this almost gun-free zone, such action against a society member would have caused outrage.


Mat

 

[Colleen Thomas]

Best not come live in Brit-land hun, cos that's how it is for the majority of the country. And even the police don't carry them, except with specific authority, and under special circumstances. A fact for which I am heartily glad.

That said, the school does seem to have lost all sense of reality on this one. Re-enactment societies are big over here, and even in this almost gun-free zone, such action against a society member would have caused outrage.


Mat

The difference, sweet mats, is that the majority of your petty criminals don't own them either. Over here almost any arrest of a criminal ends up with a firearms charge tacked on. Just cause anyone, even the kids in gangs, can get them if they don't mind breaking the law to do so.

And that's the rub, the only people the law keeps from having guns are law abiding citizens.

-Colly

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

As is usual, the quality of reportage does as much to obscure the facts as it does to explain them.

First it calls the weapon in question a replica which would suggest that it is a working model. Aside from the uselessness of a “musket” in these days of legal automatic weaponry there is also the consideration of whether this “replica” was actually a working model.

Phelps' mother questions why give the students fake guns and then arrest them.

From the report of the mother’s statement this would seem unlikely. Which would also jibe in that it would be more likely that a re enactment group would hand out non working muskets to student participants. Finally, it would explain why Joshua Phelps may have left a Civil War musket-shaped stick visible in his vehicle. (If it was visible.)

Whether, as the article says (at one point) the “musket” was “found in his car trunk at school” or whether, as reported at another point, “He [Joshua Phelps] threw the uniform and equipment into his truck and forgot about it,” causes some questions.

This "truck" may turn out to be a "trunk" mispelled, but what does that say about the quality of the reportage.

Leaving an untended gun lying in a truck suggests that most likely it was not a working model (as the boy’s mother indicated.) If it was found in the student’s trunk, in my mind, that raises questions about probable cause — no matter what the type of replica the musket might be.

As for the possibility that it was both in the back of a truck, in a trunk — well, I know I am not up on trucks — but I have never seen a truck with a trunk.

 

[Guest]

 

[ABSTRUSE]

Pretty soon they won't allow the use of swords in high school versions of Shakespeare...they'll charge the stage and arrest the actors.

 

[Guest]

Pretty soon they won't allow the use of swords in high school versions of Shakespeare...they'll charge the stage and arrest the actors.

Hmmm... If you cut out the violence and sex in Shakespeare... P.

 

[oggbashan]

Pretty soon they won't allow the use of swords in high school versions of Shakespeare...they'll charge the stage and arrest the actors.

Jest not, fair maiden.

I have been warned by the Police for carrying a sword in a pageant. It wasn't a replica. It was a real 17th century long sword - in its sheath but technically an offensive weapon.

If I swung it at someone I could probably remove their head.

It was only my local 'fame' that prevented my arrest. 'Which magistrate don't you know, sir?'

I also carried a deactivated WWII rifle at another event. I had to produce the deactivation certificate 3 times in the afternoon and demonstrate twice that a round could not be chambered. I didn't demonstrate the still effectively sharp bayonet because I would have been arrested for that.

When I was a Boy Scout (number deleted) years ago I attended a St George's Day Parade in Trafalgar Square and went to Buckingham Palace as a car park attendant - wearing a machete as part of my uniform. That was then and an eyebrow or two was raised but Scouts were trusted. Now? I'd have the security services on me in seconds.

Og

 

[lewdandlicentious]

"What was he going to do, kill a person every five minutes while he stopped to reload???"

Actually, to be just a weeensy bit of a Twat here, I am after all, the Top Twat, if the lad was highly skilled in Musketry, he'd be able to reload and fire that thing three times in a minute!

Woooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhhhhhh!!!!!

 

[Virtual_Burlesque]

... if the lad was highly skilled in Musketry, he'd be able to reload and fire that thing three times in a minute!...

Assuming the musket was capable of firing ANYTHING.

Go back and check his mother's statement. It doesn't sound like it.

 

[Guest]

'ey, Lewd! How long does it take to get all those doughnuts on? Musketry, indeed.

Perditwat

 

[Just-Legal]

The difference, sweet mats, is that the majority of your petty criminals don't own them either. Over here almost any arrest of a criminal ends up with a firearms charge tacked on. Just cause anyone, even the kids in gangs, can get them if they don't mind breaking the law to do so.

And that's the rub, the only people the law keeps from having guns are law abiding citizens.

-Colly

Thats the problem, they do. Its getting worse.

 

[Lucifer_Carroll]

Cause only in California are they that bloody stupid

Pretty soon they won't allow the use of swords in high school versions of Shakespeare...they'll charge the stage and arrest the actors.

Already have it.

In California schools you are not allowed to have a real weapon or a weapon replica. Thus, the school can arrest you for bringing a plastic sword to school for a play practice or skit. This law even applies to the theatre department of the school, which means no Shakespeare, Cyrano, or other plays of demonstratable quality.

In my old high school after Columbine I have heard from friends that they got a police officer to come and stand in the middle of the quad at lunchtime to stop any impromptu shootings. Also one of my friends was dragged into the principal's office with a possible suspension charge for talking about a video game that had a) characters who possessed guns and b) an explosion cutscene.

Did I mention that you'd best clean out your backpack after camping because most camping tools fell under our schools zero tolerance policy?

So, the NY charge seems delightfully free in comparison.

 

[cheeryorchid]

weapons of mass overreaction

Weapons Bad! The extent of this in schools has gone to the extreme. Not only can you not bring a toy weapon to school...you also cannot draw them or talk about them.
Draw a picture of a gun in school and you will be suspended. Talk about weapons or draw a picture of a weapon in action and you could get expelled for up to a year of school. I have tried to help youth that this has happened to by arguing for them to be allowed back to school. Sometimes these kids get sent to alternative school where nine times out of ten if they didn't have a problem to begin with, they learn a few there!
Another problem....you get a group of kids mad at another one and they can just tell the administration that the student has plans with a gun and bam, kid expelled for a year.
Sort of reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials.
Weapons are serious, and Columbine very well should have alerted more careful attention, but we have turned it into a massive witch hunt.

 

[cheeryorchid]

weapons of mass overreaction

Weapons Bad! The extent of this in schools has gone to the extreme. Not only can you not bring a toy weapon to school...you also cannot draw them or talk about them.
Draw a picture of a gun in school and you will be suspended. Talk about weapons or draw a picture of a weapon in action and you could get expelled for up to a year of school. I have tried to help youth that this has happened to by arguing for them to be allowed back to school. Sometimes these kids get sent to alternative school where nine times out of ten if they didn't have a problem to begin with, they learn a few there!
Another problem....you get a group of kids mad at another one and they can just tell the administration that the student has plans with a gun and bam, kid expelled for a year.
Sort of reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials.
Weapons are serious, and Columbine very well should have alerted more careful attention, but we have turned it into a massive witch hunt.

 

[cheeryorchid]

weapons of mass overreaction

Weapons Bad! The extent of this in schools has gone to the extreme. Not only can you not bring a toy weapon to school...you also cannot draw them or talk about them.
Draw a picture of a gun in school and you will be suspended. Talk about weapons or draw a picture of a weapon in action and you could get expelled for up to a year of school. I have tried to help youth that this has happened to by arguing for them to be allowed back to school. Sometimes these kids get sent to alternative school where nine times out of ten if they didn't have a problem to begin with, they learn a few there!
Another problem....you get a group of kids mad at another one and they can just tell the administration that the student has plans with a gun and bam, kid expelled for a year.
Sort of reminds me of the Salem Witch Trials.
Weapons are serious, and Columbine very well should have alerted more careful attention, but we have turned it into a massive witch hunt.

 

[SlickTony]

Last year we had a case in Florida where this girl and her family was moving. Well, you know how it is when you move; you start by putting stuff into neatly labeled boxes and you end with boxes marked "miscellaneous" and then just heaving stuff into your car. So she had a kitchen knife on the floor of her car. And someone found it. And the shit hit the fan. Appeals to common sense were useless.