“Daniel McClaine Jr., a freshman at Poston Butte High School, said he saved the picture as his desktop background on his school-issued computer.” And an, er, educator ratted him out, resulting in the Florence, AZ kid’s suspension. Turns out the weaponized wallpaper was deemed to have violated the school’s policy against “sending or displaying offensive messages or pictures” and the freshman’s suspension. As written, the policy seems to leave more than a little wiggle room, n’est-ce pas? . . .

According to abc15.com,

McClaine said he read the guidelines but does not consider the picture threatening to anyone.

What the young skull full of mush is yet to learn, though, is that when you’re dealing with zero tolerance government automatons, ‘wiggle room’ isn’t on their list of pre-approved options. It’s much easier to boot a kid than make a judgement call that might be criticized later. Thought experiment: would PBHS’s administrators have come down on young Master McClaine as hard if he’d had this pic on his school-issued screen?

Here’s the school’s statement on the incident:

Although we cannot specifically discuss student discipline, we can certainly agree that violence in schools is a sensitive and timely issue. Students, parents and staff are on edge, and the daily news delivers more reasons for caution. All of us must work together to protect our kids and to cultivate an environment that is conducive to learning.

Need more be said?

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52 COMMENTS

        • Billy, billy, billy. Are you a stupid libtard like the effers who pissed their panties and suspended the boy?
          Liberalism is a mental disorder.

        • Billy, you’re right. Bibles are still taught as literature in some schools, provide they aren’t taken seriously. However, if the kid was AP material he should have been prepared to instruct his elders that the AK on his screen is a sign of support for our allies the Afghanis, with whom we have been fighting and dying shoulder-to-shoulder (OK, occasionally face-to-face) for 10 years…this is “the rifle of the new free and democratic Afghanistan! We will crush the Jihadis with their own tools!” (Yes, my favorite TV character growing up was Eddie Haskell.)

    • Ha. The Christian persecution complex is just amazing right here. Tell me, what would have happened if he had put Satan on his computer?

    • may be older, had to post. Call received Jr. High son was suspended and had to pick up NOW and take home. Work over hour away- arrived to find son’s offense- ? Wearing T-shirt with word ‘Ruger’ in red letters above photo of their Redhawk revolver. That’s it. No kill them all and let God sort them out or anything offensive. Other children can have vampires eating someone’s neck, shirt showing decapitation with body parts on ground. Shirts showing hypo= needle and drug stuff that idealizes or promotes drugs,, shirts showing violence from video games (bad then compared to today). ALL OF THAT WAS OKAY,, BUT A PHOTOGRAPH OF A STANDARD REVOLVER WAS BAD. Cannot repeat all of the words with school principle. Values were screwed thirty years ago, tragically worse today. MY SON WAS PROUD OF THAT SHIRT BECAUSE HE BEGAN SHOOTING HANDGUNS AT AGE EIGHT, WON BOWLING PIN MATCH (22) AGAINST NEARLY 100 ADULTS,, AND PROUD BECAUSE HE SHOT THAT ‘TERRIBLE’ GUN WITH HIS FATHER AT TAMPA POLICE RANGE (no longer there. built homes 40 yr after fact and that nasty old range had to go,, subject of multiple law suits.. and so it goes)

  3. Government automatons, yes, yes they are. But that’s not exactly what’s going on with this and similar school panics. This is, “you’ll see it our way, because this is the only way it’s going to be seen from here on; this is about turning non-events into screaming media fits – until YOU fit – if we have to send you to prison or kill you in the process. Because either way, we’ve made you useful to us, and us alone. And the sooner you put your head down and knuckle under, the better it will be. FOR US. Because son, ma’am, mister, this isn’t about guns or violence. It’s about getting our kind of society, and we don’t give a rat’s ass who figures it out.”

    • I disagree in that the negative press and blowback from such an odviously ridiculous overreaction to a non issue will tar the libtards badly. No, these are the freaky stories that ‘leak out’ every once in a while from the re-education camps. Sometimes, they just cant help themselves.

  4. Prove the school administrators are just as part of the problem as the news casters are. Face it they are brainwashing our kids into Brownshirts for the national Fascist cause of Obama. if a Kid can say even if he likes to shoot no picture needed he is cast out if not persecuted by these teacher scumbags.

    I feel for that kid I really do.

  5. The progressive indoctrinators in the public school systems are in full anti-gun mode, going all out to stigmatize gun ownership and use. Parents need to fight back.

  6. We should all point to this incident when gun-grabbers promote things like enhanced background checks and mental health checks for gun ownership. All it took was one asshat who considers guns “offensive” and a kid’s permanent record is now screwed.

    And all it’ll take is one politician who finds certain ways of thinking “unhealthy” and we get a de facto ban. Tyrants thrive on vague laws to enact their oppressive and illegal agendas on the citizenry.

    Also, either home school your kids or find a private school. Public school in modern America is tantamount to child abuse, as someone else said earlier. And if those two aren’t options, spend a good hour after school every day to reprogram your kid’s mind from the brainwashing it had to endure.

  7. I feel bad for these kids and maybe I’m a horrible person for thinking this but I hope this will start waking people the #v@% up. I don’t want it to keep happening but its a good way to show just how rediculous things are.

    I quoted this before and will again,
    “Stop! In the name of American squemishness!”

  9. On second thought the kid should have been suspended for using a COMMIE gun. They would have most likely cut him some slack if he had a photo of a good ole American AR-15 (hopefully a Colt).

    • Which would have provided an interesting potential court case, were it something military.

      In other words, promo pic from a US Armed Forces recruiting site. Preferably one with several soldiers in full battle gear. How ’bout one with a sniper in a Ghillie suit?

      • The article in which I originally saw this story asked a similar question. What if he had used as his background a picture of a brother or cousin or uncle who was overseas, dressed in full battle rattle including his weapon(s). Would those guns have been threatening or offensive? After all, they would actually be in someone’s hands (gasp!).

        • Oh yeah, you’re spot-on. Plays not only the patriotism card, but the family angle as well, not to mention all the points you can pull out of that.

          A group photo in a helo door, with a minigun nearby, and somebody holding the SAW.

          The cross-ex on this one would be priceless if done correctly.

  10. he should make his new background the constitution or maybe just the second and or first amendment.

  11. For God’s sake!! Please tell me school officials had the good sense to check the computer for pictures of 30 round magazines or (tremble) pictures of
    b u l l e t s! The young man should be placed under hypnosis to determine his intent.(Not) Freekin’ bed wetters.

  12. Hey, when I was in the sixth grade we took a field trip to the state pen at Florence. We walked top of the wall around the main prison yard. Where the guards had actual machine guns. Visited the gas chamber, too.

    Scarred me for life. Left me never wanting to end up inside.

    • Our driver’s ed instructor would use our road time to run personal errands, so we sometimes wound up getting to go to our LGS during class. This was only in the mid 2000’s. Imagine the kind of shit storm that would cause in one of these piss-yer-pants districts.

  13. 40 years ago he’d have been suspended because of the commie (Yugoslavian) flag.

    Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose

    • He should claim geography points for attempting to replicate the Mozambique flag. Mozambique liberdade!

  15. I used to think most of the issues with kiddies the last 15-25 years was mostly in the home, parents and all that. Now, no way, its a straight up 50-50 parents and home life vs. shitty teachers and even more shitty school administrations…way overpaid superintendents and their union lackeys…sick, sick, sick

  16. Whatever happened to the First Amendment? If I were that student’s parents, I would request that the American Civil Liberties Union file a huge lawsuit on the student’s behalf.

    No matter what a person says or what picture they display, someone will find it offensive. That isn’t sufficient reason to deny someone their right to express themselves.

    But like we have said all along as firearms owners: any entity that is willing to infringe any one of our rights is willing to infringe all of them.

  17. Ive got a picture of Jerry Mitulek, an soldier with an M4 and a guy shooting a shotgun( i’m pretty sure birdhunting). Under each picture is a single word reading ” Life, Liberty, The Pursuit of Happiness” With “The Second Amendment” underneath that. Then a slew of similar NRA programs under each, the hunter saftey training, Life of Duty ,and the Competitive shooting program. They ever get my laptop I’m pleading the first and telling them to deal with it.

  18. Also, in highschool my CADD teacher was an NRA member so I did a report on John Moses Browning for a famous inventor project. In NJ.

  19. I stuck a wanted ad on Craigslist for a 10-22 birch stock and it was flagged and removed so fast. I did not mention its was for a Ruger as I figured those who had one would know what it was…… I did include a picture of a wood stock.
    So it must have been offensive .
    Too bad I’m way to old to get suspended from school.

  20. This reminds me of how Pink Floyd provided me a theme song in high school. Flash forward several years, and I became the guy at the front of the room. I promised myself that I wasn’t going to give cause to my students to sing, “We don’t need no education.” I think most of them would say that I didn’t.

  21. I wish all of you commie loving posters would actually type the truth. That is the old Yugoslavian flag. They were socialistic country, much like ours today. AND, they were one of America’s biggest allies and a friend during world war 2.

  22. Only socialist have 1st admen. rights. If you don’t agree with their thinking your wrong no matter what. That’s government schools for ya. I hope that teacher had to change their depends.

  23. I’m offended that a legitimate interest in one of the tools often used by those exercising their 2nd amendment rights offends the school administration.

  24. Last I checked weapons don’t have political parties…the AK is a fine rifle…been doing business since 1947 and still going strong today. By that thought process…does having a Mosin make u a commie? I guess my p-38 makes me a nazi…? Oh well…:(

  25. As a parent, I agree with the kid’s father… seems a bit extreme to suspend a kid for something as harmless as a desktop image. A warning should have been sufficient.

    Speaking as a teacher, I wonder what exactly is going on. Does this student have a history of discipline issues, and this happened to be just the “last straw”? Did the teacher warn him, and the principal is one to blame for the suspension? Or is it vice versa, the principal is merely handing out a punishment the teacher demanded?

    If the laptop is school property, the student and his family should have signed some sort of contract about its use and the rules regarding its use. If there’s some sort of line covering that students can customize their desktops with “inappropriate pictures”, they might be out of luck because *surprise* – the definition of inappropriate varies from teacher to teacher.

    As a male teacher, I get surprised looks from my female co-workers about how permissive I am in allowing my male students to write / research things such as weapons (guns, swords, etc.), war, ghost / horror stories, etc. I think its a matter of perspective and understanding that even if those topics might be uncomfortable, it’s a part of human history and as a teacher, it needs to be something you permit your students to explore (within reasonable limits). Getting a student interested in WANTING to learn is the best way to get them to learn.

    • “If the laptop is school property, the student and his family should have signed some sort of contract about its use and the rules regarding its use.”
      In many schools and businesses it’s SOP security practice to lock-down (via computer system policies) the ability to change certain personal settings, including desktop wallpaper. I guess this was beyond their technical expertise level.

  26. Let’s see…it’s a SCHOOL OWNED COMPUTER, so why the f*ck does the school let the kids change the wallpaper? It’s a very simple matter to prevent people from messing with these kinds of settings, something done all the time in corporate America. Sounds like inept school administrators or incompetent IT staff. (And yes, I work in IT, so I can say that.)

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