Knives and Common Sense

Two scenarios:

#1. I am a teen-ager.
I have a straight A average in High School.
I am an Eagle Scout.
I have saved a relative by using CPR.
I am a safe driver, with no citations and no accidents.
I want to attend West Point.
I am a church-going good kid.

A teacher asked me if I carried a weapon in the car I drive to school.
I said that I just had a small 1 1/2" blade in the emergency kit in my car.
I let the teacher open my glove compartment and take out the blade.

The teacher reported me to the principal, and I was suspended for 45 days.
The suspension was changed to 30 days, but will still be on my record.
I will probably not be able to go to West Point now.
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Question: Where was the common sense in this punishment?
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Scenario #2:

I am six years old.
I am a cub scout.
At a camping trip, I was given an eating tool, with a knife, a fork, and a spoon.
I use my eating tool all the time.
I took my eating tool to school so that I could use it when I have my lunch.
I dropped my eating tool in the school bus.
The school bus driver reported to the school that I was carrying a dangerous weapon.
I was ordered to go to reform school for three years.
My sentence was dropped, but not before the school board amended a rule at a special meeting.

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Question: What would have happened if the rule had not been changed? Reform school for elementary school kids? Where is the common sense in that?
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My TRIAD police friends agree with me that there should be common sense applied to cases that fit into such categories.

Some people are of the opinion that "La loi est la loi!" The law is the law. Like in Les Miserables, where a man is hounded for the rest of his life because he stole a loaf of bread many years earlier when he was dying of hunger. It didn't matter that he had become an honored man, who had helped make the world a better place.

The position of Judge was created initially to make sure that the law is upheld... and that should still be the case for the Supreme Court of the United States. But other judges are supposed to temper justice with mercy. I agree that "Three strikes you're out" seems to be fair, and seems to work... but "One strike you're out" is ridiculous in my opinion.

When I worked at Social Security, I had a chance to become an Administrative Law Judge. I wanted to be a judge and make sure that applicants and beneficiaries got a fair hearing before being arbitrarily eliminated from consideration. My boss said that I was too valuable to him to lose, so my hopes in the legal direction fell through. However, as an empath, I still am deeply concerned about the two cases I mentioned above.

Will the teen-ager be able to overcome his record of "bringing a weapon to school?" Will West Point or other colleges hold that against him? Will a potential employer decide not to hire him because of this "horrible" infraction?

Will the six-year old's school record show that he brought a weapon to school? Will this cause his future teachers to watch him extra closely and maybe search him for more "weapons"? What about the seven and eight-year olds in the same school... if they have the same utensil, will they get the mandatory 3 year reform school term... where they can learn some real neat criminal tips from the older inmates?

Come on school teachers and principals... let's bring some common sense to our schools and stop trying to cover your butts by destroying the lives of little kids.
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