Boy suspended for having pocket knife on camping trip

Garden Gate Elementary School in Cupertino, CA suspended and almost expelled a 10 year-old boy because he brought a Swiss Army knife on a camping trip.

Braden Bandermann was suspended for bringing a Swiss Army knife on a camping trip. Other students on the trip apparently reported Braden to teachers once they saw that Braden had the tool.

The Swiss Amry knife, and all pocket knives, are more tools than weapons. Anyone that has ever been a boy scout, cub scout, a hiker or camper understands the value of a simple knife. A Swiss Army knife has a myriad of tools valuable to a camper, hiker or anyone stuck in a situation for which they were otherwise unprepared.

The panic comes from school administrators who believe that it is possible to create a antiseptic, danger-free Utopian environment. It is not.

Teaching our children to be self-sufficient and able to defend themselves is apparently not the job of the public school system.

Here, on a camping trip, a boy is nearly turned out from the California public school system for carrying a tool. Perhaps it’s the best thing that could have happened to him.

The state of California seems beside itself in efforts to strip the population of the ability to take of themselves. Now, they are actually attacking children who make an attempt at self-sufficiency.

Braden’s dad said, “I felt as though I want to pull him out of the public education system and homeschool him,” he said. “I felt as though the public education system is becoming the bottom of the barrel. I felt sorry for today’s kids.”