If you live in the United States, it's reassuring to know that police are constantly on the job protecting you from crime. With murderers, rapists, and armed robbers roaming the streets, you can rest assured that the authorities are vigilantly protecting you from bodily harm.
That's why I was delighted to hear of the recent arrest of a 10-year-old girl in Florida on a felony weapons charge. The fifth-grader apparently brought a piece of steak to school for her lunch, along with a four-inch steak knife to cut it with.
Alert teachers immediately seized the "weapon" and notified authorities. When police arrived, they arrested the girl and took her to the county's juvenile assessment center. She was suspended from school for 10 days, and now faces a felony charge for possessing a weapon on school property.
According to a spokesman for the school district, the girl was arrested pursuant to a "zero-tolerance" weapons policy in public schools. "She did not use [the knife] inappropriately. She did not threaten anyone with it. She didn't pull it out and brandish it."
That may be true, but don't you feel more secure knowing that a potentially violent criminal has been taken out of the public schools? And that for the next 10 days, her fellow students won't need to fear for their safety?
If that's not enough, I recently learned of another incident in which an alert off-duty policeman arrested a woman for swearing at a toilet. The disorderly conduct charge could have led to up to 90 days in jail and a US$300 fine. However, a bleeding-heart judge dismissed the disorderly conduct charge.
This is an unfortunate example of judicial activism. It's important that the "toilet police" be vigilant to threats made against these proud porcelain receptacles. After all, if Americans aren't called to account for swearing at toilets, they might start swearing at cars that won't start, furnaces that don't heat, or even presidential candidates that don't deliver on their promises.
Fortunately, alert legislators in numerous states have identified many other serious threats to our American way of life:
- If you live in Alabama, you can be arrested for selling a sex toy.
- In Georgia, you can be fined for keeping a donkey in a bathtub. In Arkansas, donkeys in bathtubs are OK, but you can't keep an alligator in one.
- Also in Arkansas, it's illegal for the Arkansas River to rise higher than the Main Street bridge in Little Rock.
- In Texas, it's illegal to take more than three sips of beer at a time while standing.
In any event, I hope that authorities in these states are vigilantly protecting the public from sex toys, donkeys in bathtubs, and standing beer tipplers. And, that police in Arkansas are prepared to incarcerate the entire Arkansas River if it rises too high.
After all, today's sex toy seller could be tomorrow's serial
killer. Not only that, but if the Arkansas River is allowed to overflow, who knows what heinous crimes it might commit?
Copyright © 2007 by Mark Nestmann
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