Our 2nd amendment right to kill kids

 Our 2^nd amendment right to kill kids

 

"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed." – second amendment to the Constitution of the United States.  Even though the wording makes it clear that the amendment refers to a militia not to individual citizens, it has regularly been interpreted as applying to the individual as well.  In doing so the Constitutionalists ignore the genesis of the amendment and its relation to the British not allowing local miltia.

That being said the United States has more guns in the hands of civilians than any other first world nation, and more than some second world nations.

What does this have to do with children?  Plenty.   At the present time more children are being killed by gunfire than for any other reason.   Nineteen percent of all children’s deaths in our country are by guns! That exceeds auto accidents that come in at 18%.   Dropping into single digits are disease, drugs and abuse.

Students are asking us for gun control.   One student recently said “guns are too deadly.  At least with a knife you have a chance.”  And a little child shall lead them.

Too many homes have guns that kids get into.  Children are killing each other during play.  They are killing each other in arguments and they are being killed just by being in the path of an adult fight.  In some neighborhoods children are not allowed to play outside after school for fear they will be in the crossfire.   Some children have been killed in their homes when errant bullets come through the window.

It is unclear to me why people feel the need to have a gun.  Most gun homicides are not the result of someone committing a crime or even protecting oneself from a crime.  They are the result of someone known to the victim being angry and acting out.   Shoot immediately, repent at leisure. 

Now this proliferation of guns has come to be the leading cause of deaths of our children.  But still, we want more guns.  Children are not committing crimes and their childhood is being taken away and traumatized by guns.

The second amendment gives us the right to do that.   Tell that to all the parents of dead children.

Sounds Good Doesn't It?

 Sounds Good Doesn’t It?

 

Children are important to our country’s future.  We need to protect and care for them and prepare them to become happy contributory citizens of tomorrow.

Nice words, not much behavior follow-up.

In 1863, an American diplomat in Russia was appalled by the treatment of horses and outright cruelty to them.   He returned to his native state of New York and was further appalled by the treatment of horses and other animals in New York.   After passionate pleas to the New York legislature in 1866, he was given a charter to establish the American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA).   The organization also had the authority to arrest and prosecute offenses.   The charted stated that “All animals are entitled to kind and respectful treatment and must be protected by the law”.

In 1874, a young child Mary Ellen Wilson was found by neighbors in her New York neighborhood near death from starvation and abuse.   There were NO laws in New York at the time to protect this child.  Since she was considered an “animal” albeit not the 4-legged kind, the ASPCA stepped in to provide protection and arrest her abusers.    In 1875, the American Association for the Prevention of Cruelty to CHILDREN was established.   A full nine years after the ASPCA was established, we got around to thinking children might need protection too.

The pattern continues today.   We repeatedly refuse to act to protect kids and repeatedly defer to adult needs and wishes.

There are families waiting to adopt children from abusive homes or homes unable to provide for them because of drug addiction or other dysfunction.   Yet these families cannot adopt unless the biological parents give up parental rights or the state asks courts to terminate those rights.    The current common wisdom is that no matter how bad or dysfunctional a family is, the preference is for the child to be with the biological family.   I know of an instance where a family and a child have been waiting six years for the privilege of adopting the child.  Each time the termination of parental rights seems ready to happen, one of the parents shows up in court and mentions a recent treatment program that he or she is about to enter and, therefore, wants to sustain parental rights.   Each time the judge has deferred to these parents and the child remains in limbo.   The girl is now in her early teens.  The child plans to seek her own emancipation when she turns 18 if the situation has not been resolved by then.

Teens, mostly girls, remain incarcerated for physical aggression against rapists, child traffickers and pimps.   The young girls (and it is mostly girls) are incarcerated but the adults who are the perpetrators who created the antecedents to the girls’ violence are still free. 

Over and over the issue comes down to children don’t vote.   Pay attention to what I say but ignore what I do.

Gender sure confuses some people

 Gender sure confuses some people

 

What is it about transgender kids that gets people all whipped up?   Generally the whipping up seems to be about keeping transgender children in their “proper place”.   According to these folks the “proper place” is the gender the child was assigned at birth. 

In Florida, a federal appeals judge upheld a school district’s policy of requiring kids to use restrooms based on the gender they were assigned at birth even if that is  inconsistent with their gender identity.  Assuming most school bathrooms have stalls with doors in addition to urinals in male bathrooms, not sure who will be assigned to police this one.  When I was training to be a teacher one of the first principles  of behavior management that I was taught is don’t make threats you can’t enforce.  So it will be interesting to see if this law can be enforced.  Lack of ability to enforce doesn’t change the lack of respect and sting it sends to trans youth.

Next up for the trans police is participation in intercollegiate sports.   West Virginia passed a law that bars transgender youth from participating in girls’ sports in the state. A judge recently ruled that it was constitutionally permissible for the West Virginia legislature to limit participation in school and college sports based on biological sex.   In 2021, this same judge ruled that to exclude a transgender student from sports “on the basis of sex” was likely in violation of the equal protection clause of the U.S. Constitution and Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.   Either the judge learned a lot or forgot a lot in the past two years.

The judge did state that he felt the law was a solution in search of a problem since no transgender student has sought to participate in female sports before the legislature passed the law.  But he could not find that the legislature had acted in animus towards transgender students when it passed the law.

The state had asked the Supreme Court for or an emergency injunction forbidding the girl to participate in middle school girl’s track while the family continued with its appeal.   However, last week the Supreme Court in a very brief statement said that the girl could participate on the track team until such time as the family continued through all of its appeals.

Funny thing is, all parties agree, this transgender girl is a very average track runner so no one feels threatened on that issue.  Wonder what could be bothering these folk?

Looks Like They Failed Again

 Looks Like They Failed Again

 

The Maryland legislature ends its session on April 10.   There are two bills before the legislature that are particularly important to special ed.

Looks like the bill shifting the burden of proof for hearings regarding the provision of a free appropriate education (FAPE) for children with disabilities will once again fail.  It has crossed over to the other house but seems stalled in committee before the session will end.   Many years ago the burden of proof that the proposed program was appropriate to the child’s needs was on the school system.  That made sense because both federal and state law require the school system to provide FAPE.  However, in those days parents won about 95% of the cases.  So the legislature in its wisdom changed the law to say the party requesting the change in placement had the burden of proof.  In practice this change meant that parents would now have the burden of proof since they were the ones almost always dissatisfied with their child’s placement.   Since the change, parents have won only about 4% of the cases.  A bill before the Maryland legislature would change the law back to what it used to be.  There was great hope that this time the law would pass, but given where it is stalled that does not seem likely.

The second bill that is important to special education schools is the one that would do two things.  The first is change the name of the non-public special education schools to alternative special education placements.   This change makes sense since the designation “non-public” is very confusing.   These schools are private in their governance but subject to all of the Maryland regulations for providing special education to children with disabilities.   They also have their tuition set by the Maryland State Department of Education.

The other good news about this bill is that it would require teachers in non-public special education schools to be paid equally with teachers in public schools.  This change also makes sense since these teachers and other related services personnel must meet the same standards as public school teachers but are often paid much less.  A pay equity bill was passed several years ago but was not funded by Governor Hogan.

This bill has crossed into the second chamber and is now on 3^rd reading in the House of Delegates.   Whether there is enough time left for it to return to the Senate for final passage is anyone’s guess.  And we don’t know what the Governor will do.

Not many people will be surprised if our elected representatives fail again.