Colton Southern. Via washingtonpost.com.

Young Master Colton Southern is a student at George Junior High School in Rosenberg, Texas and a Star Wars enthusiast. In fact, he’s so looking forward to the seventh film in the series that he decided to buy a Star Wars: The Force Awakens t-shirt and wear it to school. Much to his surprise, this caused panic and confusion amongst school administrators, who told him that the shirt was banned. Why? Because it showed a Stormtrooper holding a blaster rifle . . .

Apparently an image of a fictional character holding a fictional weapon in a fictional galaxy in a fictional past constitutes a “symbol oriented toward violence,” which is forbidden by district policy. KTRK has the story.

Joe Southern says his son, Colton, wore a shirt depicting the “Star Wars – The Force Awakens” logo, along with a Storm Trooper holding a weapon, to class Thursday at George Junior High School. He’s apparently worn it to school several times before without any issue.

On Thursday, though, school officials told Colton the shirt was banned because it has a gun, or at least a picture of what in the movie is weapon….

A spokesperson for Lamar Consolidated Independent School District says the LCISD secondary school handbook spells out potential violations of dress code. The list includes “symbols oriented toward violence.”

Administrators say they did not reprimand the student, though they could have required him to change or assigned him in-school suspension. They say they only required him to zip up his jacket.

Mr. Southern found the administrators’ lack of faith…disturbing:

“It’s political correctness run amok. You’re talking about a Star Wars t-shirt, a week before the biggest movie of the year comes out. It has nothing to do with guns or making a stand. It’s just a Star Wars shirt,” Southern said….

Of course, young Kenobi Colton is partly wrong. This story has everything to do with guns and freedom of speech. It’s simply an attempt by local school administrators to keep students in line with their anti-gun agenda by means of fear. Fear of their arbitrary power to penalize and suspend those stray from the approved orthodoxy.

Still, the administrators of the Lamar Consolidated Independent School District shouldn’t be too proud of this pedagogical terror they’ve created. A number of court cases in the past have held that the First Amendment does, indeed, apply to public schools. Students’ rights to symbolic speech — whether it was wearing a black armband to protest American involvement in the Vietnam War, or a t-shirt that read “I (heart) Boobies!” to promote awareness of the risks of breast cancer — have been repeatedly upheld.

Ironically, as TTAG reported earlier, The Force Awakens director, J.J. Abrams, is a bit of an anti-gun dark-sider himself. Perhaps Colton is, in his own way, just a way of restoring balance to the Force?

I certainly hope so. Because putting aside any discussions of civil rights, law, and philosophy here for a moment, there’s one thing I can tell you from real practical experience: wearing Star Wars-related t-shirts in high school does absolutely nothing to improve a guy’s dating prospects.

(H/T: Taylor Millard @ hotair.com.)

 

DISCLAIMER: The above is an opinion piece; it is neither legal nor dating advice, nor does it create an attorney-client relationship in any sense. If you need legal advice in any matter, you are strongly urged to hire and consult your own counsel. If you need dating advice, there are probably better places to get it than a blog post on firearms news. This post is entirely my own, and does not represent the positions, opinions, or strategies of my firm or clients.

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70 COMMENTS

  1. Wouldn’t be worried. Storm troopers can’t even aim.

    In a world of trigger warning and “safe zones”, why does anything surprise anyone anymore?

  2. Full circle. False bravado, against a false threat, leading to a false solution, leading to a false sense of security.

    • Welcome to Texas! HS football is as much a religion as Jeebus and his Sky Daddy. Replete with ‘Gentleman’s Clubs’, it;s just fine to hang with strippers all Sat. night, as long as you go to church on Sunday.

      • Oh now 16v, feel free to insult two billion people world wide that see the Christ as a symbol of self-sacrifice and of living the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” , we won’t chop your head off for the disrespect; just don’t walk through down town Bagdad, or the Muslim no go zones in Paris, with a simple picture of Muhammad on your T-shirt, they WILL chop your head off.

        • All religions have violence backed beliefs. It comes and goes, christians just happen to be the less violent at the moment (at least openly). Comparing religions based on their level of violence is asinine, they’re all responsible for deaths of those that have not damaged another’s person or property at one point or another.

        • ThosmasR, So, you sound just slightly more tolerant than the Muslims who will kill over cartoons. Good to know.

          Oh and this was commentary on TX. Go live there for a few months, and watch the hypocrisy in action. If it weren’t quite so nutty, it’d be comedic.

        • “Slightly more tolerant”.? 16v. Really?

          When’s the last time, in our life time, a christian has stoned to death a woman that was raped? A christian chopped the hand off of a thief? Chopped the head off of a person that refused to convert to chritianity? Committed mass murder against other christians of the wrong type? Murdererd another christian because they converted to another religion? Committed mass murder against helpless men, women and children in stadiums, malls and coffee shops Unlike Muslims in countries of the mid-east as well as in Paris and San bending just recently?

          But in the end 16v. It is not Christians in the last hundred years that have been used to committ murder by tyrants, that’s what was done in the past. The,”useful idiots” that are being used to support tyrants in committing mass murder in tbe hundred of millions in the last hundred years are athiests supporting mad men like Stalin, Mao, Pol-Pot as well as those that support the murder of the unborn in the west and the Muslims that look to a mass murdering religious psychopath like Muhammad as their spiritual guide.

          So right now, in this present time, the ones that have proven themselves as the ones we need to be concerned about in supporting mass murder, are athiests, and muslims.

          Because, while all athiests or muslims are not mass murderers, tbe great majority of all those that have been the “useful idiots” that have supported the greatest mass murderers of the last hundred years have been athiests and muslims.

        • After reading my last paragraph, I thought I should clarify.

          While not all Athiests and muslims are mass murderering terrorists or support the actions of mass murderers, It has been mostly athiests and muslims in the last hundred years that have either been individual mass murdering terrorists, and/or support the actions of mass murdering psychopaths.

        • Well, Tom, just feel free to insult two billion people in the world who know the one true god and his prophet, Mohammed, just because they follow his most holy instructions to behead all unbelievers. I bet you think that is silly, reread your own missive. Boosht is boosht.

        • Ummm, sorry Larry, it seems like you are agreeing with me that Muhammad IS a mass murdering religious psychopath.

          Because if you read his biography, like I have, that is exactly what he was. Also a pedophile. He married a child at 6 years old and consumated that marriage when she was nine years old.

          But if you prefer your ignorance over finding out the truth?

          Well, like they say, ignorance is bliss. Until that ignorance gets your head chopped off.

        • So Larry in Texas. I challenge you to show that I am nothing but an ignorant, bigoted and hateful christian by reading the Koran, The Hadith, and the biography of Muhammad’s life, as I have done, (You need all three as muslims believe, to be “good muslims”) And prove me wrong in my being simply being factual in calling Muhammad a mass murdering religious psychopath.

          Can you handle the truth?

        • In all fairness 16v was only insulting the ones in Texas. 😉

          However, I love how you responded to the perceived slight by insulting an even larger number of people yourself. Classy!

        • Well for starters, I happen to be an atheist that generally frowns of being considered a useful idiot. I don’t recall supporting and/or conducting any genocides, and I’m reasonably sure none of my friends and acquaintances have either.

          The crux of it is this; your reasoning is flawed and bigotted. Extrapolating the worth and complicity of any individual or group based on conduct of a small minority of a much larger population is ignorant and not particularly useful for anything other than, well frankly, organizing a genocide.

          There’s also the matter of motivating principles. Religious adherents, perhaps such as yourself, often conduct themselves based on their religious ideology. In fact, most people act based on the content of some belief system or set of principles. In contrast, atheism, lacking any religious ideology or belief in a deity, does not provide a belief system or principles to act on. Now, if an atheist happens to be a nihilist, fascist or communist, or violent progressive, it might be possible to accuse them of acting based one of those ideologies, but they can’t, as you imply, be acting on the basis of being an atheist. For example, I consider myself to be a secular humanist. I act on and treat with others based on these principles and derive my morality based on the respect of intrinsic human rights. Being an atheist doesn’t enter into how I treat people, as it simply describes my lack of belief in a deity.

          So if you find a mass-murderer who happens to be an atheist, say Stalin for instance, you can rest assured that he isn’t killing people because he’s an atheist – there’s certainly some ideology motivating him, but it can’t be called atheism.

  3. That is something that has always bothered me – Storm Troopers can’t hit a damned thing with those blasters and their plastic armor is NOT blaster-proof. What the hell kind of recruitment incentives do they give those schmucks?

    • Storm Troopers effectiveness in inversely proportional to the current plot line. The real question is George Lucas lazy or just doesn’t give a…..

      • ***NERD ALERT***

        Actually, they were clones up to Episode III. By Episode IV, the Empire had begun a recruitment of non-clone humans to supplement the ranks of the clones. The reason that the Storm Troopers were inferior marksmen in the Episode IV – VI is due to the dilution of ill trained humans in the rank and file of what once was elite clones.

        (No, I do not own or wear any Star Wars t-shirts.)

        • Nerd alert! Stormtroopers have always been clones since day one! http://www.theforce.net/image_popup/image_popup_global.asp?Image=timetales/misc/arcana/post4-03.jpg

          Also in Episode 2, Lucas had Jango bump his head getting on his ship as a nod to the head bumping stormtroopers on the Death Star to explain where they got that trait from. Lucas himself stated he thought it would be funny that Jango’s head bumping would get cloned into “all” the stormtroopers, as he put it. If you watch the scene were Obi-Wan is shuting down the tractor beam, the two stormtroopers standing there making small talk have identical vocies! The squad leader who ordered those two to stand guard also has a indentical voice!

          Also onboard the tantive IV and on Hoth the stormtroopers were mowing down Rebels with ease, while they missed on purpose onboard the Death Star to let the heros escape so they could be tracked to the Rebel base. Lastly in Episode 3 the stormtroopers could not hit Organa (Jimmy Smits) or two lone Jedi at the temple.

          The issuse here is that the writers of the spin off stories like the comics and games always deviate alot from the films. The recuited stormtroopers came from the spin off stuff which Lucas said were a alterete universe to his films.

    • The Mandalorian armor (what the clone trooper/storm trooper armor is modeled after) is made of plasteel. It will not stop heavy blaster fire, or direct small arms blaster fire, but will deflect some effectively. The Mandalorian deluxe armor (Jango/Boba Fett’s kit) is much more expensive and incredibly durable.

  4. The Farce is strong in this one.
    Reminds me of the Texas junior high student whose principal objected his use of the school name on his Geocities page. (as in, “I am an 8th grade student at George Junior High School”).
    She wanted him to log into his control panel, right then and there on her computer, and delete all reference to his school.

    As soon as he logged in, she tried to physically throw him off the computer, so she could delete his entire private web site. He was stronger than her, so he just held on to the desk with all his might until he had a chance to log out of his personal web site.

    So then his dad got called in to discuss his assault on the principal. I commended the father on his tact in dealing with the witch, and said I would have had a very hard time stopping myself from teaching her the true meaning of the word ‘assault’. He told me that in Texas, the schools pretty much owned the kids, and could do whatever the Hell they wanted to them.

    • “He told me that in Texas, the schools pretty much owned the kids, and could do whatever the Hell they wanted to them.”

      Yeah. No.

      That Dad made a conscious decision to send that kid to that school. Now, maybe one could argue he was not TOO far out of the bounds of mentally competent for doing so before this incident.

      However, if he left that kid in that school after this? It’s all on him, the Dad.

      Government schools don’t control kids that are not enrolled there.

      I’ll just leave this here:

      http://www.hslda.org/hs101/TX.aspx

      • Texas. The land of the imaginarily free because they claim to be. The rest of the time they’re subject to a bazillion oppressive laws, and make almost nothing to ‘live’ in that s-hole.

  5. Man, if they banned “symbols oriented toward violence.” shirts when I was in school. I would still be trying to graduate.

  6. Ah, zero tolerance and freedom from thought. Aren’t we all better off when we just follow group think?

  8. Sorry Texas, but you are basically screwed. You have Californians streaming in trying to turn it into the next Colorado. Illegals trying to turn it into Mexico, and Syrians and Somalis trying to turn into a 3rd world hell hole.

    Where is your pride.

    • I really feel sorry for those Texans. Those Californians go to Texas to get away from all that crap in California but bring along their ideology, subconsciously or not, that made California the terrible place it is today.

      I am just thankful that everybody outside Alabama thinks the state is backward and nobody wears shoes, because that’s just the way it is. Please do not visit Alabama. It is a terrible state. You will hate it.

    • You must be right. Guess that’s why the fed chair said there would be no recovery if it weren’t for all of the jobs created in Texas. Probably why we were voted by CEO Magazine and Site Selection Magazine as the best place to start or grow your business for 5 years in a row. Probably why more Americans are moving to Texas from other states, than any other state. Probably also why our state sales taxes have gotten lower over the last 10 years, not higher, why we still have no income tax, why our median income continues to rise faster than any other large state, and why our gun laws keep getting better. Probably also why there are more hunters in this state than any other, and growing, more people that own firearms than any other state, and growing, and why we own more guns and spend more on guns than any other state, and growing.
      Things are trending very much in the right direction here.

  9. If it had been a picture of Jihadi John, with a knife in one hand and a severed hear in the other, they would have thrown him a party

  10. Most school administrators in this country have gone totally insane.
    And they should be put where they belong.. In the nearest asylum…

  11. Not mentioned was that this school is in Rosenberg–the same place where the cop decided to arrest someone on a trumped-up traffic charge when he found out that the guy had a CHL (the story is here at TTAG somewhere). Maybe something has contaminated the water there?

  12. Authoritarians strike again! It must be great to go through life with your mind totally shut off and pretend to be an educator.

    • I fear that Disney will wear the old whore out with their scheduled movie releases. The good news is Lucas is out of the picture. Bad news? JJ Abrams isn’t who I would want to continue the SW legacy.

      • It was disappointing 16+ years ago with The Phantom Menace. Even after all that time of finally accepting they aren’t very good and beginning to move on…this happens.

      • I don’t know, Disney has divorced itself from Lucas, and if they model the Marvel movie release then who knows…the sky is the limit.

  14. If I was a parent at that district I’d be at the next meeting of the school board demanding the loon who went after this kid be fired.

  15. Back in the 70’s, a kid in my school was actually *expelled* for wearing a T-shirt that said:

    “Disco Sucks”

    My, oh my, how the times have been a-changin’…

    • I was told I could not wear a Sex Wax(surfboard wax) shirt in middle school. I asked if I could wear it in Sex Education class(taught by an OFWG gym teacher). Answer was no. I was however allowed to wear it in after school detention.

  16. They think fear of their arbitrary power to penalize and suspend those stray from the approved orthodoxy battle station will keep the local systems in line.

    But the harder they squeeze, the more systems will slip through their fingers.

  18. The kid should march into the library, grab some history books and look for pictures of weapons. He should then point out their hypocrisy and demand an apology.

    Needless to say, my pointed sarcasm got me in a lot of trouble when I was in school.

  19. Okay, somebody ‘splain this to me. If shirts depicting “symbols oriented toward violence” are banned, then how come they let the dudes on the football or soccer teams wear their jerseys to school? Or, in fact, even allow letterman’s jackets (do they still have those?) be worn around the hallowed halls? Or, for instance, in my region, everyone and his dog (literally) seems to be wearing the “12th man” Seahawks jersey. Isn’t that glorifying violence?

  20. It appears to moi that the George Junior High School mascot is a muscle-ripped, clenched-fisted, scowling ‘gator, looking about ready to rip someone’s f’ing head off if they so much as look at him wrong. Check it out yourself at their Interwebz site: http://www.lcisd.org/campuses/georgejh/athletics

    How is this vicious looking ‘gator NOT among those “symbols oriented toward violence.” which this same school system seems so terribly concerned about protecting its delicate flowers from?

    /sarc

    • The gator actually does look more violent than the storm trooper! Probably more dangerous too the way they shoot.

    • I see they have a student climate survey going on, for which you have to input your student ID for access. I’m sure they offer all sorts of assurances about confidentiality and get a lot of honest feedback from the students using that system.

  23. I wouldn’t mind nonsense like this if the bureaucrats and administrators were just honest. Come out and say “because guns” or “because I don’t want to lose my job for not enforcing policy” or “because I honestly didn’t know what else to do” or “our policy is ridiculously vague and confusing and I really don’t care but whatever I’m bureaucrat.”

    But to pretend it’s in any way shape or form related to violence prevention when all the schools kids are encouraged to participate in pep rallies that only serve to incite empty feelings of competitiveness and all the kids then go home to blow each others brains out in Call of Duty while shouting racist/homophobic insults and threatening to rape each others mothers then watch the Expendables 1-3 back to back is completely absurd and disingenuous.

  25. It’s a misnomer that Stormtroopers can’t hit anything; on the Outer Rim many of the troopers have Apex’d the trigger in their blasters, but on the DeathStar and in the Core they have to have the notorious 14 lb trigger.

  26. Hold the damn telephone. A kid in a school in TX is allowed to wear a jacket but up here in CT, where the temperature rarely exceeded 58 degrees during the winter in all the schools I attended, were forced to stuff our jackets in closets and lockers? Wheres the justice!

  27. “The Force Awakens director, J.J. Abrams, is a bit of an anti-gun dark-sider himself.”

    Um, he directed a movie in a movie series that chronicles a mostly unarmed society being subjugated by a newly formed tyrannical government where only outlaws, rebels, and Storm Troopers seem to have guns, and he is an anti-gun nut! Wow!

  28. This is a really well written and funny article… keep this writer on the payroll. or ammo roll. or give him cool guns to review, whatever, just keep him on the keyboard!

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