February 3, 2013

"High-school freshman suspended for having a picture of a gun."

"Thoughtcrime! But wait, there’s more..."

But wait! What if it was a picture of President Obama with gun?

P080412PS-0464

See, now that would really confuse the teachers.

56 comments:

AustinRoth said...

I am waiting for a picture of Obama and Putin shooting together shirtless before riding off on horses to wrestle bears.

virgil xenophon said...

The world is being run by crazy people..

(h/t Kate@smalldeadanimals)

vet66 said...

The action in the photo doesn't look right. No recoil, smoke coming out of the barrel's side, aiming incorrect for skeet. Maybe a blank. Reminds me of the "photo" with the photoshopped of multiple smoke plumes that turned out to be cloned by a discredited wire service. The timing of the release of the photo is suspect also.

virgil xenophon said...

@Austin/

Horses? You mean Tigers, don't you? I mean, if you're gonna photoshop you might as well go all the way..

Oso Negro said...

Public schools are totally out of control. It was already a fine time to bring an end to mandatory public education. This is simply another reason.

pm317 said...

That is a great idea. Send that pic of Obama with your kid. Were they not singing his praises at one time, literally singing? All the righty parents should do this to teach Obama and minions a lesson.

Brian Brown said...

Part of a the sustained effort to demonize guns and try and make them fall out of disfavor in society.

Good luck with that, cowards.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

One of the Caller commenters suggests this is not simply idiocy, but deliberate brainwashing, to teach young people that the very idea or image of a gun is to be hated and feared. I wonder...

sarge said...

"The action in the photo doesn't look right. No recoil, smoke coming out of the barrel's side"

Not much recoil from a skeet load shot from a shotgun with a recoil compensator... which is also why the muzzle blast comes out the sides.

nice playing with you though

MisterBuddwing said...


Seems to me I was roundly ridiculed for merely suggesting the possibility that President George H.W. Bush legally erred in displaying a packet of crack cocaine in a nationally televised address. Something about President Bush being the chief U.S. law enforcement officer, which enables him to do things that we were mortals are not allowed to.

Anonymous said...

If these people could think critically, they would have never elected Obama in the first place. They are in the thrall of a great movement that has the characteristics of a religious cult. Of course they wouldn't object to a picture of Obama firing a gun. This is just one step on the way to saying only believers can have guns.

Phil 314 said...

The "crime" in question was in the San Tan Valley, a semi-rural exurb of Phx. This won't be well received by the community. Teacher has some 'splainin' to do.

Paul said...

That still looks like a fake photo.

The top barrel has some kind of insert. I bet a blank adapter so the gun is shooting blanks. Hence no kick.

Yet the kid gets in alot of troulbe of a picture.

Just like 1984.

Right is wrong, war is peace (yea Prez Drone killer has shown us that), poverty is riches...

Aridog said...



Somebody needs to say it....

Here is the real meaning and intent of the 2nd Amendment that they will never teach or clarify in public schools.

Interestingly it is occurring in Mexico, of all places, in a state named "Guerrero" [translated = "Warrior"]. Basically the local villages have formed regulated militia groups (aka vigilante) to oppose both gang violence and government ineffectiveness or outright corruption vis a vis the drug cartels and gangs.

In places where the government police are still allowed in to town, they are relegated to traffic control only. And guess what, this ad hoc vigilantism is working better than anything tried previously in terms of suppressing crime, violence, and kidnappings for ransom.

What the progressive & liberal contingent in the USA do not want to discuss is the idea of regulated [organized, with rules and regular meetings, etc. arising only in time of threat] militias resisting criminal and governmental over-reach, life interference by taxation and regulation, and general intransigence ignoring laws and writing rules unsupported by literal interpretation of laws.

Progressives and liberals won't mention this because they think it is unthinkable, just like King George did long ago...when a bunch of planters and farmers rebelled. This aspect of the 2nd Amendment is the most important, right along with self defense, because it is the ultimate in self defense.

Might as well mention it here and now. It IS part of the conversation, even if you don't like it. Those who understand this, and believe in it, are not mouth breathing drooling troglodytes who play games in the woods and admire Nazis...no, they ARE ordinary people, going on with their daily lives and routines, all within the law, but with the ability to arm themselves who can organize themselves, if necessary, and resist what becomes too much.

Liberals know full well what "Tea Party" means and they attempt to mock it only because they know, push come to shove, it is their worst nightmare.

Mogget said...

Hm. What is more likely to catch the teenage imagination and drive to show independence than something that adults try to demonize and forbid? And especially so if the teachers and admin types are among those not well-regarded by the kids.

southcentralpa said...

At one time, Virginia had a holiday called Jackson and Lee Day, celebrating the life of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. They didn't want to give state employees another paid holiday so when they got tired of being called raaaaacist, they created "Lee-Jackson-King Day", which did to brains the professors at the Virginia state college approximately what a picture of That Guy with a gun would do to those teachers...

Matt Sablan said...

If only the kid were David Gregory, he'd be fine.

Aridog said...

Damnit...the WSJ blocks even brief access by non-subscribers...so here is a Huffinton Post artile on the same topic.

Anyone who is not a "subscriber" but wants to see the Wall Street Journal article, email me...I'; create a PDF file and send it to you...I don't know how to attach a PDF file here. Kind of pisses me off that, with what I pay for the WSJ paper & on-line subscription, that I can't post a link now and then.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

Aridog--these guys come to mind.

(And a darn lot of people where I live, who are not 60-something Vietnam vets. More like middle-class 30-somethings.)


Michael said...

MisterBiuddwing. You were ridiculed for not knowing the Gregory Exemption.

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

(found that vid at Protein Wisdom, btw)

ricpic said...

I pledge allegiance to the one world thugocracy.

--Teachers' oath at Ed. Schl. graduation.

vet66 said...

Sarge; maybe my eyes are going bad but the smoke appears to be a different shade. Also, I am a skeptic when it comes to photos such as these from a President who says he shoots skeet "all the time", Carney seems to confuse skeet with "squirrel", and if President shoots skeet "All the time" why not an action shot of him shooting skeet in the air? I guess I am just being picky. Nice playing with you also!

Aridog said...

Funny thing about schools today and yesteryear...my first exposure to abolitionism, transcendentalism, environment and wildlife causes, and civil disobedience ...was to Henry David Thoreau ... require reading for me as a 15-16 year old Junior in a high school class on American literature.

Is Thoreau even taught today? Anywhere? I ask because it shaped a significant portion of my life and attitudes, even to this day. Some would say a lot of that a lot of that is not good vis a vis my attitudes and resistance to authoritah!

vet66 said...

One other item; the port seems to be venting too far back. A minor detail, I know....

Brian Brown said...

Since 1985, inflation-adjusted federal spending on K-12 education has increased 138 percent.

That's going swell, isn't it?

Leland said...

The top barrel has some kind of insert. I bet a blank adapter so the gun is shooting blanks.

That could be a choke, which is common in skeet shooting.

Kirk Parker said...

Althouse,

I assume you meant to write, "That would FURTHER confuse the teachers", as there is certainly no lack of confusion among this particular group of them already.

Aridog said...

Sarge...you're obviously not much of a shooter if you think that "smoke" is "muzzle blast"...it is just residual smoke that emanates from a firearm AFTER the shot is fired and the shot cup or bullet is long gone.

"Muzzle blast" is the instantaneous gas expulsion that propels the shot cup or bullet...and it is NOT blue or "wafting" out slowly. The residual smoke is unlikely to "waft" out the porting holes, as the path of least resistance (bullet/shot cup is gone by then)is to drift on out the open gun barrel end, driven by inertia as much as anything...or even the breech of a double shotgun if opened fairly promptly after firing. You see, it is the pressure created by the projectile in the barrel that creates "muzzle blast" ...once downrange, so is the "blast/flash."

I could be wrong, but in 62 years of well regulated shooting (NRA) and 55 of them shooting skeet and trap, I have never seen blue smoke waft out the porting or muzzle break holes after a shot...and that includes some old time stuff like Cutts Compensators. My firearms ranging from a Winchester Model 52 .22 caliber bolt action (first gun at age 7, first Junior NRA badger at age 8)to various pump, semi-auto, double barrel over/under shotguns, match grade M-14's and field grade M-14's, M-16's, .30-06 bolt action rifles, .308 & .30-30 Winchester lever actions, and occasional painful bouts with .375 H&H and .404 Jeffrey Express. Some of these guns were ported, compensated, or had muzzle flash suppressors.

Watching any of them closely one can see muzzle blast as a very momentary flash, and it goes out both the barrel and any ports. Muzzle flash can be easily seen in firing a Model 1911 .45 pistol...it ain't blue and it doesn't linger to drift out after firing. I only shoot my M1911 weekly for 100 rounds or so, and my trap gun like Bad Barry's, barrel ports and all, monthly (these days) for 200+ rounds....but I could be missing something, eh?

Been nice playing with you, too.

God Bless.

Strelnikov said...

"But wait! What if it was a picture of President Obama with gun?"

Then you're Honor Role material.

Bruce Hayden said...

Things are getting weirder and weirder in public schools these days. The interaction between government bureaucracies, government bureaucrats, and progressive indoctrination gets more bizarre every year. These teachers, of course, should be fired, but won't be, because they are union employees, and, after all, are educational professionals, and you and we are not.

I think though that this attempt to brainwash public school students into antipathy towards guns is going to ultimately fail miserably. Guns are ubiquitous on TV, and while Hollywood doesn't provide the foot soldiers that the teachers do to the Democratic party, they still provide a lot of money and star power. So, guns are not going to be banned from TV or movies anytime soon. And, in poor inner cities the kids will be seeing guns in the hands of the gangs and the cops on a routine basis, and if they are in "Red" America, in the hands of their parents and their friends, and likely to handle them themselves. Something that isn't supposed to even exist, according to these teachers and these school districts.

And, of course, the kids, or at least the high schoolers, and maybe even a lot of middle schoolers, know that this is absurd. They know that guns exist, what they look like, etc. Maybe not so much how they really sound or work if they are middle class. I think that it does reduce respect for the schools and their teachers who try to implement this sort of indoctrination. While they can get away with gutting American Exceptionalism from public school curiculae, it is much harder to eliminate the knowledge of guns, because we are talking something they see every day, and not about some old dead white men.

This isn't, of course, about safety, because the kids would be safer if they had to take a mandatory gun safety class to graduate - probably from maybe middle school. But, that might get them to think about guns, and that would negate all the indoctrination the teachers and school systems had pushed into them up until then.

edutcher said...

They've already started with the Photoshops after being told not to.

pm317 said...

Jesse Jackson has a challenge to Obama! But mom-jeans is not up to snuff to tackle it.

Dust Bunny Queen said...

The world is being run by crazy people..

I agree.

Just yesterday I was doing my shift as a volunteer librarian in our town's non-profit, completely private and not government affiliated, library. During some down time, I thought I might look up some news and was on Instapundit trying to follow a link on an article similar to the one linked in this post.

The link was blocked because the word 'weapon' was in the title or body of the article. WTF??? How are the kids who use the library for reference material supposed to research WWI, WWII or get any information about Chicago, Washington DC or any other current news about the Second Amendment?

After surfing around, or trying to, I discovered that there were many innocuous and standard web sites and places that you were not allowed to access. The WSJ was one!

Who sets this draconian level of censorship? No one knew. It is just the program they said. To protect the cheeeeeldreeeeen!

We are so screwed.

pm317 said...

edutcher said...
-------------

yeah, twitchy has a selection..

edutcher said...

Kaspersky is doing similar things.

Bruce Hayden said...

What is going to be interesting is to see whether or not the shot was really digitally manipulated. Or, more accurately, digitally to show the smoke, because it appears that Photoshop was probably used on the picture, just not what was done.

If I were to bet right now, I would probably put my money on fake smoke, but that is only because those like Aridog sound a slight bit more accurate. I have a shot gun, but don't shoot nearly as often as many here, and esp. haven't watched others shooting various weapons many thousands of times. Of course, there are plenty with comparable experience to his on the other side too.

But, if in a couple of weeks, the consensus is that the smoke (and maybe even background) was probably added, I don't think that it will do the President as much good as the White House thought. Just waiting for someone to ask Jay Carney for the original photo. We shall see.

Aridog said...

edutcher ... it might be a recent addition, but that do not futz warning is on every single photograph on the White House Flickr Photostream web site.

Further, if you open up the "august 2012" photo collection you will find a photo dataed 02 August as # 0264 and another dated 06 August as #0270. Whoopsie...the 04 August photo recently posted has the number 0464.

Let the whoop-de-do continue... :-))

[Pssst: you'd think the White House would at least re-number the skeet photo.]

Dust Bunny Queen said...

@ ed.

Don't even use the 'parental control' option in Kaspersky. I can go anywhere I want.

Anonymous said...

What if it was a picture of President Obama with gun?

That will send the teacher back to the loony bin whence she escaped.

Bob Boyd said...

Who cares if Obama shoots skeet?
I don't care if Obama won a Nobel prize for skeet shooting.
Does that make his gun control project any better?
The 2nd amendment is not about recreational activities.

Brian Brown said...

Have a teacher convicted of assault or sexual abuse against a student who is teaching in another school?

Thank a union.

ErnieG said...

Aridog, your comment about the Mexican militia dovetails with a comment I posted here and at Wretchard's a while back:


Many neighborhoods in the city of Chicago are being held captive by a de facto Army of Occupation. The majority of the decent law-abiding citizens are out-gunned by this Army, and although they outnumber them, they are able to do nothing about it. Hadiya Pendelton and Heaven Sutton are shot dead and nothing happens but more cries to tighten gun laws.

Now indulge me in a Gedankenexperiment. Imagine a street in the worst part of town on a Spring evening, with folks sitting on their porches or stoops, socializing and enjoying the evening breeze. No one is brandishing or waving any weapon, but on every porch there is an AR-15 or M1911 within easy reach. The first time the gang-bangers showed up, things got ugly. Very ugly. Twenty rifles beat a half dozen pistols any day of the week. The gang-bangers hadn't had it explained to them that way before, but after the initial confrontation they left that street alone.

The point I am getting to is that the men and women on those porches are a perfect example of a well-regulated militia.

Aridog said...

Bruce hayden said ...

If I were to bet right now, I would probably put my money on fake smoke ...

And you would win. Real modern gunpowder "smoke" can emanate from the barrel end as residual gases, not propulsion gases like the blast of a muzzle flash [usually orange to whiter in hue].

What got me looking hard at the photograph was the alleged
"muzzle blast" emanating from only one side of a dual side ported barrel....just like my own trap gun for 16 yard station use. Muzzle blast comes out the ports, both sides, always...and residual smoke never does.

Mild curiosity is the fact the "smoke" emanates from the top barrel of the over/Under...which would imply the second shot fired, v-e-r-y likely from stations 2 or 3 [which he ain't on because he's facing the wrong way]...e.g., where your 2nd shot is at the low house target which is approaching from further away from you and the first shot if for the high house target, going away...so shot first, from the lower barrel because in about 95% of such skeet and/or trap guns the lower barrel has the more open choke pattern, the upper tighter.

My own O/U for 16 yard trap station use is damn near Improved Cylinder choke on the bottom barrel so when I pick up the target quickly I have a wide pattern on target at maybe 20-22 yards out. The upper barrel is close to tight Modified choke, for second shots in doubles. At any trap range stations further out, like 21 yard, for instance, my 16 yard gun is nearly useless [need the full over improved modified gun for that stuff]...but I can still shoot skeet with the 16 yard gun reliably....nice long sight radius too. :-)

Last thing as the aiming position...barrel is aimed quite low, like you might for shooting trap on station 3...problem is that the smoke indicates a shot already fired, so if at that level he just blew the shingles of the trap house.

What positively befuddles me, really, is the absolute clumsiness of the whole affair....from the doctored photo to the dubious number sequence for 04 August 2012 on their official WH site. What the hell, his word that he shoots skeet was far more believable than the silly photograph...he/they just couldn't resist doubling down on stupid....when there was no need to do so.

This happens when the emperor has no clothes.

I hear-by promise that I will make no further comments on this Obama/skeet topic, on any threads from here on out [honest Injun]....I am excruciatingly boring myself to death.

kentuckyliz said...

Check this out.

Joe Biden, America's Putin said...

Obama looks ridiculous. Is that the first and last time he will hold a riffle? I think so. President photo-op strikes again.

Bob Boyd said...

Aridog said:
"he/they just couldn't resist doubling down on stupid....when there was no need to do so."

Yeah, the issue was already old news, but they brought it back up.
I think somebody came up with that "skeeters" line and they thought it was so clever they wanted to use it.

Hagar said...

It has been suggested that Obama had just fired a blank, and the blue smoke is from the wax or whatever the blank shot was made with.
Still puzzling that the blue smoke is coming out the muzzle under pressure, while it just gently wafts out from the porting holes, and then just from the right side.
Could he have fired two blank shots, and there was a good breeze from his left?

Hagar said...

Sorry, that was silly. It is an over-under, not a semi-auto, and he could not have fired two quick shots from the top barrel.

Paul said...

Whoa... I can now say for a FACT IT IS FAKE.

How?

Notice the ports on the barrel. Notice NO SMOKE FROM THE PORTS FACING THE CAMERA. ONLY SMOKE IS FROM THE PORTS ON THE FAR SIDE OF THE BARREL.

And do not, Obama seems to have no recoul from the shot. SHOTGUNS KICK!

IT'S FAKE FOLKS. FAKE AS A TWO DOLLAR OBAMA BILL.

Joe said...

I think the photo is real, just not what was described. I would guess it was a staged photo and the gun expert brought in suggesting using a particular black powder gun. Take enough pictures and you'd get something dramatic.

baker said...

It's not unreasonable for school officials to be sensitive about AK-style guns. The student set a picture of one as the background for his school-issued computer. There were rules in place about inappropriate images and the student stated he had read them. What if it were a picture of someone actually being shot? Look, students are going to test the limits of what's acceptable. Are we going to have a national referendum second-guessing every such decision school administrators make? What if another student decides to bring a cardboard AK to school? Wouldn't that be fun? How about a replica AK that shoots soap bubbles? How about this: keep guns and representations of guns out of our schools.

Joe said...

On the original subject: what do you expect when you create "hate crimes." But this goes even further back from that on all political sides--many conservatives freak out over pictures (and depictions) of nudes. Others over depictions of violence. Heck, prohibitionists of all stripes are the same. The common thread is the tacit assumption that people are incapable of governing their own passions and the sooner you stop those impulses, the better off society is.

Once you start down the path of preemptive laws, where is the end? Add to that the absurd belief that life can be made absolutely safe and the tendency of those in power to extend that power and this is the result.

This isn't just about liberals letting people govern themselves, but conservatives as well.

Hagar said...

or, both barrels could be ported - I think the picture has been reduced, so that we cannot get it clear enough to see the portholes, if any - and the smoke plume is from the bottom barrel fired just before, but that still does not explain why no smoke from either barrel on the near side.

baker said...

Let's not forget how creative and smart students can be. They often seek attention, status with their peers, and love to rebel. Rebel against what? ("Whatcha got?"). Any rules school officials make regarding appropriate images for school-issued laptops are sure to be broken. The world is full of all kinds of intriguing subjects with countless stunning, artful pictures. However, it doesn't surprise me that the student in this story bluntly chooses an Ak-style firearm. In a way it makes sense. Let's have fun poking the establishment. Ok, he's a smart, creative student. He's testing the limits of what's allowed in his school. Is it not better to direct his energies to something more appropriate?

n.n said...

Laws are proscriptive measures which regulate law-abiding members of a society. Gun control laws are designed to empower minority interests, including criminals, to commit acts of involuntary exploitation, including murder and rape, of a disarmed population.