By Matt Allen, WPRO
I want the charges DROPPED. Everyone should want them dropped. No justice is served by dragging a 12 year old boy through any form of the judicial system because he stupidly brought an Air Soft gun to school and had it in his bag.
You may or may not know the story of a Johnston middle-schooler who brought this toy to school in an effort to return it to a friend he borrowed it from. According to police he showed it to a few kids who reportedly told the administration and they have now suspended him. 
Johnston police say there was no threat made. They say he wasn’t brandishing it an anyway at all; he just stupidly brought this thing into school. The school obviously has a zero tolerance policy when it comes to firearms and so the 12 year-old boy now is facing a charge of possession of a weapon other than a firearm. That charge should be dropped because he’s a 12 year old boy who didn’t bring a weapon to school — he brought a toy to school.
Stop the insanity and stop the over-the-top reaction to guns. Drop the charges.
I have no problem with the Johnston School Department doling out punishment to this young man for disrupting the school day with a dopey decision. All possible threats have to be investigated and a police officer obviously had to go to the school and take time to deal with a toy. That deserves some school discipline and sends a message that these types of toys or toys at all shouldn’t be in school. However, involving the law in this is over the top, silly, reactionary, and just plain stupid.
We cannot be a society that punishes people for what they might have done. An Air Soft pellet gun is NOT a weapon. Or if it is, then so is everything in a classroom if properly used. The kid disrupted the school day. He didn’t bring a weapon to school. Punish him for what he did, not for what we’re afraid he might have done.
The focus on gun control and gun tragedies in the news and our communities today should be about trying to solve a problem. It shouldn’t used to justify hysteria. I reject the fact that a message must be sent with the over the top reaction. The only real message it sends is that you’ll be punished not only for what you’ve done, but what might have happened. Plus what MIGHT have happened then depends on the atmosphere of the day.
That’s not a place that I want to live in. How about you? This is why, in order for sanity and reason to rule here, they must drop the charges.
