When bullying happens to your child, you want something done about it. I tend to think an old-school butt-whooping from the victim does more good than anything, but I've been informed by more than one school administrator that such behavior isn't acceptable. I'm just going to say, after the one where my kid had to be dragged off of the would-be bully, he never had a problem again.
Anyway, it's tough for a father to deal with it, because what was considered normal in our day isn't today, and in some cases, the bullies are violent enough to cause real, lasting damage.
One father in Florida tried to deal with it as best he could, and he escaped charges that many residents in the community think he should face.
Outrage and frustration boiled over at a community meeting in Indiantown, as residents packed a room to demand answers from the Martin County Sheriff's Office after a parent who pulled a gun on two students at a bus stop was not charged with a crime.
The tense Monday night meeting, led by the Martin County NAACP and the sheriff, centered on the sheriff's determination that the father acted in self-defense. However, many residents argued that the man should have been arrested for the separate crime of possessing a firearm at a school bus stop.
The incident at the bus stop
Sheriff John Budensiek laid out his office's account of the incident, which occurred just over a week ago. He said it began with a student being bullied and struck by another student on a school bus. The victim's father went to the bus stop to report the bullying to the driver.
The situation escalated, Budensiek said, when the alleged bully and a friend "pushed past the bus driver and tried to confront the dad."
"He puts his hand up and backs up, backs up, says 'stay away, stay away,' and they don't," Budensiek explained. "In fact, they’re yelling that they’re going to whoop his hind end... He pulls out a gun and all of a sudden they’re backing up, because they don’t want to get shot."
The problem for residents is that while school bus stops are gun-free zones under Florida law, the law doesn't seem to include any kind of definition of what constitutes the bus stop itself. That means that even a foot away from the curb might be enough, thus making the law unenforceable, as the sheriff noted to disgruntled community members.
But the issue I have here isn't that this father had a gun. It's that he was in a situation where he needed a gun, and it seems remarkably few have an issue with that.
They'd pushed past the bus driver and were actively threatening the father. Two of them, which means you're outnumbered by younger, more aggressive individuals who are acting as if they want to deliver serious bodily harm to you. The father pulled the gun, which he never fired, and somehow, he's the bad guy?
No wonder we have such an issue with criminality among teenagers. Entire communities will defend the indefensible, which is precisely what we have here.
Editor’s Note: The American people overwhelmingly support President Trump’s law and order agenda.
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