Photo of boy posing with gun banned

[Wally_in_Cincy]

<font color="blue">Apparently this kid is a skeet champion and wanted to pose with his shotgun </font color>

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/US/10/13/gun.photo.ap/story.gun.photo.ap.jpg


http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/10/13/gun.photo.ap/index.html

Photo of boy posing with gun banned

Wednesday, October 13, 2004 Posted: 7:16 AM EDT (1116 GMT)

LONDONDERRY, New Hampshire (AP) -- The school board has voted to ban a photo of a student from the senior section of his high school yearbook because he is posed with a shotgun.

But Tuesday's unanimous vote also backed a compromise: Blake Douglass can have the photo published in a "community sports" section, and a new photo -- without the gun but featuring other elements of skeet and trap shooting -- can appear in the seniors' section of the Londonderry High School yearbook.

<font color="blue"> Ooooh it's a big mean nasty gun. I'm soooo scared I'm gonna pee my pants /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif </font color>

The compromise wasn't good enough for Douglass, who wanted his senior photo in traditional sportsman's pose, wearing an oxford shirt, navy vest and holding the shotgun over his shoulder.

"I don't see anything wrong with the picture," Douglass, 17 said at the hearing. "I just want my senior picture in the yearbook."
Last month the yearbook staff, adviser, principal and superintendent chose to bar the photo from the yearbook, saying the firearm was inappropriate.

Penny Dean, Douglass' lawyer, said she intends to file a complaint in U.S. District Court, and said the National Rifle Association will pay for the court case


Dean cited a statement on student publications in the board's policy manual: "We encourage the use of school sponsored publications to express students' points of view. They shall be free from all policy restrictions outside the normal rules for responsible journalism."

<font color="blue">My uncle was a one-room school teacher in KY and I went to school with him a few times. The kids brought their .22's to school and had shooting contests at lunch /ccboard/images/graemlins/smile.gif </font color>

[highsea]

Wally, when I was a kid I used to bring my .30-06 to school and put it in my locker. After school I would run my trapline. It was not considered unusual.

We had a .22 range in the basement of the gym in the junior high. Anyone could use it, and the school provided the guns if you didn't have your own.

[Fair_Play]

Hello Wally, Highsea -

We had a range in the basement, and an ROTC rifle team...
What a sweet Remington 513T!!
The range is gone, now.
New recruits? Most can't shoot.

Fair Play

[SpiderMan]

I read that story on Drudge earlier, but I honestly don't see it as a "gun" issue. After all, the school officials didn't have a problem with including that picture in the yearbook. They just didn't feel it was an appropriate shot for the senior photos section.

I agree, I'd want the photos of individuals in each class to be standard face shots. It's for me to remember what they looked like after 20 years, not an expression of someone's idea of their own individualism. I wouldn't want a picture of a helmeted kid on a dirt bike, a runner crossing a finish line, a suited-up and helmeted football player, etc, as a substitute for the standard face shot.

I think it's silly to let kids furnish their own "vanity" pictures for their yearbook. March 'em through in front of a photographer on picture day, that way we'll see what they REALLY looked like.

SpiderMan

[catscradle]

<blockquote><font class="small">Quote SpiderMan:</font><hr> I read that story on Drudge earlier, but I honestly don't see it as a "gun" issue. After all, the school officials didn't have a problem with including that picture in the yearbook. They just didn't feel it was an appropriate shot for the senior photos section.

I agree, I'd want the photos of individuals in each class to be standard face shots. It's for me to remember what they looked like after 20 years, not an expression of someone's idea of their own individualism. I wouldn't want a picture of a helmeted kid on a dirt bike, a runner crossing a finish line, a suited-up and helmeted football player, etc, as a substitute for the standard face shot.

I think it's silly to let kids furnish their own "vanity" pictures for their yearbook. March 'em through in front of a photographer on picture day, that way we'll see what they REALLY looked like.

SpiderMan <hr /></blockquote>

That's another issue Spidey. I think the senior photos should be formalized too, but if you're going to let people pick their own photos I don't see an objection to that one.
It should be noted that although Londonderry is in NH it is not really NH. It is a yuppy bedroom community for Massachusetts. Southern NH due to the MA influence is much more liberal than just a little bit further north. Whether that is a good thing or not is for somebody else to decide, but that picture would absolutely not have been banned north of Manchester or west of greater Nashua.