Massachusetts schools forbid students to speak about weapons

Children beginning the school year in Somerset, Massachusetts this week will be banned from talking about weapons or making weapons-related gestures.

Somerset elementary schools will no longer allow, for example, a student to form the shape of a gun with their thumb and index finger, though It is unclear what punishments await the children who disobey.

"So there have been several cases where kids on the bus are making gestures and we didn't have anything in there to discipline them," Chace Street Elementary School Principal Timothy Plante told the school’s committee, according to WBZ-TV.

Chace Street is one of three elementary schools which now forbid children from talking about knives or other weapons, claiming it will “curb school violence.”

But some parents disagree with the new restrictions.

"It's absolutely silly. It's foolish," said Andrew Speeckaert, whose son is beginning kindergarten this week. "The fact that they're trying to control speech, I think, is ridiculous beyond words. The fact that they're trying to do it with children as innocent as kindergarteners. I don't really understand what the intent there is." 

According to EducationWeek, there were no school shootings in any Massachusetts elementary schools this year, and there appears to be no evidence of any violent incidents involving knives.

But while speech about weapons will be banned, discussions on gender may soon become mandatory in schools across the state.

Massachusetts Governor Maura Healy is trying to force schools to include gender confusion in their sex education curricula so that children as young as four will be taught about “gender role stereotypes” and children as young as eight will learn about “biological sex and gender identity differences.”

The proposal to include gender disorientation would be the first update to the state’s sex education program since 1999, reports the Daily Mail, and Healy is using a surge in mental health conditions among youth to push it through.

“Our young people have experienced a real surge in documented mental health conditions and we owe it to them to empower them with resources, knowledge, and the tools they need to be successful,” Healey explained, adding: “'These updates are also inclusive. They recognize gay, queer, trans students’ identities and needs. That’s important and it’s not something we are going to shy away from.”