Constitutional Rights at school?

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by tkwetzel

Nope. It is illegal to bring a gun to school in Virginia under any circumstances. However, if you bring one to school in the trunk of your car, there is no reason for them to find it, thus not getting in trouble for it.

Oh really?

Guns are prohibited at Virginia schools, but current law contains an exception for some weapons on school property, including an unloaded shotgun or rifle kept in a firearms rack of a car or truck or in a closed container, and for weapons used by a school-sponsored rifle team.

see here! I was suprised too!

[Cory]

Ok, so in Virginia you can have an unloaded gun, in a rack, in your car.

How many people with guns in their cars (outside of Texas) have gun racks, and keep their guns in it unloaded? How many students, for that matter?

Odds are if a student gets caught with a gun, they're going to have a pistol sitting in their glovebox or something. And it's probably loaded.

For all practical purposes, you can't legally bring a gun to school in any state.

And while we're on the topic, that's absolutely ABSURD that you can even have a gun in a rack in your car, unloaded or not. Johnny pisses you off in English class, and you go to your car during break, grab your unloaded gun... and what do you do? proceed to load it and go shoot Johnny. Yes an extreme case, but guns have ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS at schools unless it's in the holster of a police officer

[Jeff Rodriguez]

Originally Posted by phrontist

And who owns the school? ;-)


I agree Kyle, but for subtly different reasons. It is a public resource as much as any. Taxpayer money pays for that connection, and if officials elected by the taxpayers have deemed you can't use IM, they are acting on behalf of the people who paid for that connection. If you have a problem with it, attend some school board meetings.

He attends a private school. Taxpayer's don't pay for private school.
It's their lockers, their internet, their parking lot, their property. Don't they have the right to know what is happening on their property?

[sirbleedsalot]

I beg to differ, there have been times where I will park off of school grounds and have a rifle or shotgun in the back of the car so I can go hunting right after school instead of driving 30 miles home, or so I could hunt on the way home. They may have their rules but there are ways to follow the rules and get your way. Remember the 2nd amendment used to be a safeguard against tyranny, do not forget it.

[phrontist]

Originally Posted by Ogre

He attends a private school. Taxpayer's don't pay for private school.
It's their lockers, their internet, their parking lot, their property. Don't they have the right to know what is happening on their property?

I'm sorry, I didn't catch that!

Is this a boarding school?

[EddieMcD]

Originally Posted by Cory

And while we're on the topic, that's absolutely ABSURD that you can even have a gun in a rack in your car, unloaded or not. Johnny pisses you off in English class, and you go to your car during break, grab your unloaded gun... and what do you do? proceed to load it and go shoot Johnny. Yes an extreme case, but guns have ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS at schools unless it's in the holster of a police officer

Yet more proof that humans are their own worst enemy; "Guns don't kill people, people kill people."

Originally Posted by Cory

It's the school's job to keep you safe. That's been deemed important enough for you to sacrifice those rights. I'm against things like the Patriot Act, but I really don't see the problem here. What do you have in your locker and/or car that you don't want to see? If you don't have anything allowed, what's the problem?

Slightly more on topic (and keeping with my theme of quoting), I'm going to play devil's advocate here and say that (slightly paraphrased) "Those who give up a small amount of liberty for a small amount of safety deserve neither." The thing is, if they start taking away rights, it can easily become a domino effect. Let's say that a school can search a backpack of any person it deems could potentially start a problem to keep the place safe. Sure, we're only sacrificing a little bit of privacy in a public place, and it seems like a good cause. Now what happens when they start automatically searching backpacks when the students come in. You think that okay, we've only sacrificed a little (keep in mind this is relative to the first part of this), and we may be a little safer. Now, a completely sane and not weapon-toting person is thought to have something dangerous. Because of the previous rules, now there's a new rule that they can hold the person at gunpoint, and it doesn't seem like much... until you step back and look at it from the outside (which IMO, is the main problem with the Patriot Act, but that's another discussion). The same holds true with searching cars (which the schools have absolutely nothing business with). And what could a person be hiding that they don't want anybody to see? I can think of a few, among these are medication you don't want others knowing about (and this could technically bypass the lawful doctor/patient confidentiality), gym clothes (especially when it comes to those hormone bombs known as freshmen), sports equipment (which can easily be misconstrued as a weapon), valuables, cell phones, perhaps a game boy, CD players, I-Pods (all things which are legal to carry, but schools like taking away at first sight, even without them being on), magazines (which someone will attempt to find immoral no matter what it's about), etc. I think you get my point in that there are many things people like to keep to themselves that are perfectly legal (especially when you consider humans are quite possessive).

Slight tangent: a few years ago, there was a large mock trial with a lot of Rhode Island schools involved on this topic. Using every aspect of the law (mostly at the state level), the results were quite simple: lockers are school property, and thusly anything in them can be searched (for the record, I just found it easier to carry everything with me). However, backpacks are not school property. While on the person, they are personal property, and would need a warrant from a judge to search via the fourth ammendment (note that this changes once they enter the locker). Same with cars, though public highway laws still apply in the parking lot. Just a small FYI from my corner of the country.

[Adam Y.]

While on the person, they are personal property, and would need a warrant from a judge to search via the fourth ammendment (note that this changes once they enter the locker).

Read this. It should prove useful to the conversation. It is the groundbreaking case that I was taught in high school about constitutional rights in high school.
New Jersey vs. TLO

[Matt Attallah]

IMHO - if you go to a school - they may do what ever they want RELATING to what you do IN school and any of your property while in the school's boundaries.

Look at the Detroit school I went to for a few years - you where sent through a metal detector and patted down and than they would search any bags/books/ect. even before you entered the school. Personally - I'm all for it...

(This was during Jr. High also)

(On males/females that has had a violent past they would request strip searches periodically)

[GateRunner]

An example is that I rescently discovered that my boarding school

:-p

[Joe Matt]

You have none...

Bethel School District #403 v. Fraser

Hazelwood School District v. Kuhlmeier

New Jersey v. T.L.O.


But other good reads, not all against your rights, but they define them...

Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens

West Virginia Board of Education v. Barnette

Tinker v. Des Moines School District

[Joe Matt]

Originally Posted by Cory

Ok, so in Virginia you can have an unloaded gun, in a rack, in your car.

How many people with guns in their cars (outside of Texas) have gun racks, and keep their guns in it unloaded? How many students, for that matter?

Odds are if a student gets caught with a gun, they're going to have a pistol sitting in their glovebox or something. And it's probably loaded.

For all practical purposes, you can't legally bring a gun to school in any state.

And while we're on the topic, that's absolutely ABSURD that you can even have a gun in a rack in your car, unloaded or not. Johnny pisses you off in English class, and you go to your car during break, grab your unloaded gun... and what do you do? proceed to load it and go shoot Johnny. Yes an extreme case, but guns have ABSOLUTELY NO BUSINESS at schools unless it's in the holster of a police officer

Corry, let me invite you to J.R. Tucker High School during the build season. You'll be surprised. I agree with you, it's stupid rule, but still...

[Adam Y.]

Originally Posted by phrontist

And who owns the school? ;-)
Well, I'm no good at solving social problems, but I can usually fix issues with technical wizardry. The most obvious solution is to use encryption (Google for info, it's very easy with AIM and GAIM). If you want to go a step further, I could whip up a little program for you that logs on to two AIM screen names (one of them being yours and the other being one set up for this purpose) and sends text back and forth randomly in the background. Get a bunch of people to run this and they'll have too much data on their hands to sort through. Oooh, and you could even make it statistically identical to real AIM convos with a markov algorithm, foiling their attempts to read through it.

Actually if the school is not stupid then all you could probably could run is the java version of aim.

Originally Posted by Levin571

Another one is the locker inspections that sometimes occur at high schools, where even if there is basis for the search. While this can catch potential crimes or other actions, what about those innocent students who are just bystanders?

If they are truly innocent, there's no reason they'd get in trouble then. I'm all for it cuz' for one thing, I live in Richmond VA, which is up there in like, the top 20 cities in america w/ the highest crime rate. (seriously, there's a homicide like, every day)

[Mike33]

well, the lockers are the school property and the AIM is being used through the school network, im sorry to say that everything seems to be legal. I still dont think the aim sniffer is right because i actually feel safer talking on aim than i do in the lunchroom at school. if aim is 'tainted' at ur school, how are going to be able to have a private conversation? unfortunatly, i can see a side for the school. they probably just have the sniffer set to keywords like 'drugs' and so on. you chat may be recorded, but as long as it doesnt contain words like that you should be fine. if u need to, there probably is an encryption software for aim.

[Amanda Morrison]

A few comments to this thread:

My old high school, where my brother attends, recently disallowed students wearing hoodies of any sort, stating that firearms and drugs are too easily concealed.

They also recently tried to ban students from wearing the color pink, citing it as a gang symbol.

Keep in mind that this is one of Hammond's four PUBLIC high schools. The other schools do not have this ban.

What do you think? I'm thinking protests.

/edit: should I also mention that when I was in 8th grade, my high school was featured on MTV because it automatically suspended any student with a hair color other than 'natural' (normal redhead, blonde, brunette, or black hair)? sigh.