Does "Zero tolerence" have to mean "Zero thought"!?!

Londonderry High School senior Blake Douglass is not a terrorist. But, by the way the local school board is reacting to his senior yearbook photo, you'd think that he was Ussama freakin' bin Laden! What did Blake do that was so unacceptable?

He posed with his shotgun.

Blake is a trap shooter. He wanted his senior photo to express this important part of his life. The school board, apparently equating "zero tolerance" with "zero thought" said no. Now Blake and his parents are suing the district.

No one wants violence in schools. But a firearm, let alone a mere picture of one, is not in and of itself violent; unless you believe that all guns are evil. But what we see here is all too common. In their desire to avoid an unnecessary or unpleasant mental work-out, school officials and others citing "zero tolerance" policies end up looking like toddlers sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting "LALALALALA!!! I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!" "Zero tolerance" is an attractive policy since it relieves administrators of the need to think and make decisions. Thinking and decisions are, after all, dangerous things! The Londonderry board hid behind their unthinking policy and thus avoided having to face the dangerous possibility that not all guns are evil.