Colorado lawmakers are considering rewriting a state law after a high school student was suspended for locking in her car on campus a fake rifle used in drill team exercises.
Marie Morrow, a senior at Cherokee Trail High School senior and a member of the Douglas County Young Marines, was suspended for 10 days after school officials responded to a tip from students and found the plastic duct-taped prop.
The 17-year-old faces an expulsion hearing tomorrow.
Cherry Creek School District spokeswoman Tustin Amole said under state law a suspension is required for all weapons reported at schools – even fakes.
“We did what the law requires us to do,” she said.
Amole told the Aurora Sentinel that schools sometimes actually keep facsimile weapons in school buildings – but out of sight of students. The Douglas County Young Marines isn’t officially sanctioned at Cherokee Trail, which was why Morrow had the prop in her car.
Amole said school officials concluded the fakes fell under the state definition of “a firearm, whether loaded or unloaded, or a firearm facsimile that could reasonably be mistaken for an actual firearm.”
Now state lawmakers are stepping in.
State Rep. Kevin Lundberg, R-Berthoud, said he would propose legislation that eases the state mandate.
“There should be exemptions to this hard and fast rule so this type of thing doesn’t happen again,” he said. “I am outraged that a student faces expulsion for participating in a drill team.”
A spokesman for the Young Marines, Chris Proctor, said he’s going to require future drill team participants to acknowledge that the fakes cannot be taken onto any school grounds – ever.
“Obviously I completely understand the need for security measures. But when they found out that Marie was a Young Marine. … I think they should have slapped her hand,” he told the Sentinel.
“There’s no mistaking that these are not real rifles,” Proctor told Denver’s KUSA-TV. “I think somewhere along the line, logic has to take over and they have to be able to make exceptions to the rules.”
District officials called police, who took the drill team props – three were in Morrow’s vehicle – and told her to pick them up when she needed them for drill practice.
Morrow’s mother, Jennifer McGrew, said she hopes the school is not sending the wrong message.
“I just don’t want it to affect her view on the world, (make her believe) that people who do the right thing don’t come out on top,” McGrew said. “I’ve always kind of really looked up to my daughter for having a mind of her own and going places that I never even dreamed.”
Morrow already has obtained a recommendation from a member of Congress to attend the Merchant Marine Academy. She’s been told an expulsion would not affect her plans to attend the academy.
At the Peoples Press Collective in Denver, a commentator said whether the guns were fake or not really doesn’t matter.
“In this world there are good guys and there are bad guys. Let’s call the good guys law-abiding citizens, and call the bad guys criminals. Law-abiding citizens (often with significant firearms safety training, 1000s of rounds of practice, years of experience, and concealed weapons permits) disarm themselves and lock their firearms in their vehicle prior to entering a gun free school zone. Good guys follow the rules. On the other hand, the criminals don’t. That’s what makes them criminals; criminals break laws. Before the bad guys at Columbine (13 dead) or Virginia Tech (33 dead) stepped foot onto the gun free school zone, they had already made the decision to break one of our most sacred laws: murder.”
He continued, “Want to really protect the children? Want to keep good students from being suspended for having duct taped, prop rifles locked in their vehicles? Eliminate the ineffective, feel-good, gun free school zone laws that only help kill our children.”
The commentary at the Denver Gun Rights Examiner was even harsher.
“The school said students told teachers there were guns in a car in the parking lot. Certainly, investigate student concerns. After looking in her car, the school officials should have said, ‘Just replicas, not real, go back to class.’ Judgment has to enter in,” the opinion column said.
“Marie Morrow seems to be a model student. Indeed, to me she sounds like the flower of American youth. It is people like her who defend our country today,” the column continued.
