WACH/FOX-TV has reported that a 17-year-old student at Westwood High School (Richland 2) was found with a knife today.
Richland 2 will consider a knife to be a weapon. In some cases, it is. Most often it is a tool.
No details about the knife in the media, of course.
Does anyone know? Big knife? Little knife? Straight knife? Folding? In a sheath on a belt? In a back pack? Pocket?
A parent called me a couple of weeks ago because her child had been found with a knife at school. For the kid, it was a tool; not a weapon.
Remember (most readers won't) when all the boys used to carry pocket knives? I still have the Swiss Army Knife that I got when I was about 12 years old. It has been all over the country with me (by car and motorcycle). Across Mexico, into Belize; and back.
And when pick-up trucks had gun racks in the back windows? With guns in them? In the school parking lot! And when students in ROTC had real rifles? And when schools had rifle teams?
No school shootings. No thefts from pick-up trucks.
So it's not the weapon. It's what between the ears that counts. And THAT is what Richland 2 ought to be working on.