Ashley Smithwick, IV

by Little Miss Attila on January 4, 2011

She’s just released her records to the media.

{ 64 comments… read them below or add one }

I R A Darth Aggie January 4, 2011 at 8:08 am

I take it ponce is diligently going thru her records as we speak, looking for dirt?

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 7:59 am: He won’t have to look too deep.

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Sean D Sorrentino January 4, 2011 at 8:56 am

Thanks for the link LMA. What are people going to say when the DA is forced to drop the Misdemeanor 1 charge of carrying a weapon on school grounds because the law specifically says that tools used solely for food prep are exempt from the law?

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 8:02 am: Yeah that’s understandable if it was used for food. The child was using it for PILLS

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ponce January 4, 2011 at 12:16 pm

Darth,

If all this girl did was accidentally bring a paring knife to school I hope the charges against her are dropped.

It was just my impression there is more to the story than that…

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:09 pm

And your impression is right. And those charges shouldn’t be dropped because it annoys me how she gets away with things like that.

SunWILLShine July 10, 2012 at 9:53 am: I believe starburstss is a complete ignorant waste of breath. I mean really, it’s her life..it’s always people like you who want to act like they know everything. How about you go star burst off this earth..people like you don’t deserve to have a mouth to speak or ears to listen..

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Sean D Sorrentino January 4, 2011 at 12:29 pm

Keep watching.

A little background on how we got to this point.

I went to the meeting. I met a reporter, and talked to her about how to look up the actual statutes. After I went home I read the law carefully and posted about it. I also sent her an email telling her about the exemption in the law for food prep tools. She used that info to create the video report she made, which I have embedded at my blog, linked above.

When the reporter emailed me the link to her report, thanking me for the info, she said that once she gets the records, she will file a follow up report, which I will embed.

The truth will out. Always. If there turns out to be something more to the story, we will find out.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 11:32 am: Yeah like how she lied about everything? That’ll definately add on to the story

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Darrell January 4, 2011 at 12:58 pm

It was just my impression there is more to the story than that…

With no basis in fact, other than she is white and right-wing blogs are championing her cause [and left-wing blogs calling for the death penalty].
Perhaps a lawyer can review your comments and see if they are actionable. The girl could use a different lunch bag, perhaps a red one.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:11 pm: Or maybe she shouldn’t lie about it being in her lunchbox when it was clearly found in her purse….

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ponce January 4, 2011 at 1:04 pm

No Purrell,

It was the drug bust that was mentioned in conjunction with the knife incident.

Darrell January 4, 2011 at 2:10 pm

Practice that for court.
Your true words are cast in stone here.

ponce January 4, 2011 at 2:37 pm

Purrell,

A wingnut threatening legal action over a blog comment is about as low on the food chain as you can get…the only thing lower is threatening to “call the F.B.I.”

How bout you try to up your game a little this year?

Darrell January 4, 2011 at 8:28 pm

Firing all sorts of baseless allegations at a teenage girl is much, much lower–snake belly lower. Paying for your actions would be justice.
You are one despicable piece of shit, ponce-de-lie-on.
But you know that.
Your only defense might be that you are a known liar and unlikely to be believed by a prudent person.
That should be on your tombstone, actually.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:15 pm: Wow you don’t know how much of an ass you sound right now haha shaking my head you’re funny. Last time I checked you don’t personally know her and his allegations aren’t baseless they’re actually truthful so don’t go around acting like Ashley is some little princess because she’s not. She beat up somebody with a bat! You call ponce a piece a shit but you sir are an ignorant dumbass

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ponce January 4, 2011 at 10:39 pm

Purell,

Your heart is filled with hatred.

I don’t know why, but I forgive you.

Sean D Sorrentino January 5, 2011 at 2:34 am

The latest.

http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2011/01/ashley-smithwick-speaks-to.html

The records are released. She had previously been suspended in (i think) 2009 for pushing someone at school. She will be able to walk at graduation, but still faces the court date of 24 January.

nicholas January 5, 2011 at 12:07 pm

Ashley Smithwick’s behavior does not appear to be dangerous to her fellow classmates.

I cannot say the same for the behavior of school superintendent Dr. Jeffery Moss.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:16 pm

She wasn’t using the knife to hurt anybody she was using it to cut up pills so that she could SNORT THEM.

nicholas January 11, 2011 at 12:54 pm: The suspension and decision to bar her from campus was for the offense of bringing a weapon onto campus. Food prep or any other use, it was not intended as a weapon. She states it was her Dad’s knife for peeling his apple, and though you claim otherwise, there is nothing to back the claim. In fact, your response actually supports my point that the administration has been acting in bad faith.

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 12:43 pm

This is in response to the media coverage of the alleged long-term suspension of Ashley Smithwick, a student at Southern Lee High School. The facts recited by the media are erroneous and without foundation.

Miss Smithwick has not been long-term suspended from Southern Lee High School. She is currently enrolled as a student at the school. Over two months after the event it is a mystery to us that the Smithwick’s concerns were not brought to our attention by the family through normal appeal procedures prior to going to the press.

Of course we know that Moss intended this statement as “doublespeak”[enrolled versus suspended]. But once he made it (and posted it on the District website), Ashley should have returned to school with reporters in tow. If they refused to let her in, or allow her to attend classes, Moss would be the “ponce” of that county. At least.

ponce January 5, 2011 at 12:57 pm

“She had previously been suspended in (i think) 2009 for pushing someone at school.”

I’m not sure how it works in Ashley’s school district, but usually a suspension comes only after a long history of behavioral problems.

And is it true that she was kicked off the soccer team as someone claims at Sean’s link?

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:18 pm: If your offense is bad enough you will be suspended on the spot I would know since I live in the county

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 2:10 pm

“I’m not sure how it works in Ashley’s school district, but usually a suspension comes only after a long history of behavioral problems.”

In most place–and for more than fifty years–any “fight” (defined as a physical altercation between two or more students) results in a suspension of all parties. You could be punched in the face by another student with your arms at your side and still get the suspension.

Why don’t you just keep your fucking mouth shut, ponce? Do you think that making things up contributes anything? Seems that Darth was right about you going over the released materials or reading the shitstained Leftist sites that did. The issue at hand is with the paring knife in the lunch bag. Does missing a soccer practice a year before affect that? Leftist minds are like the swirl in the toilet bowl.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:21 pm: What the hell you’re so dumb it’s not even funny. Maybe if you did a little research you would know that it WASN’T found in her lunchbox it was found in her purse. And yeah the missing of practice does affect this issue because if you actually knew her you would know that she skipped to go smoke weed or snort pills.

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ponce January 5, 2011 at 2:49 pm

Not really, Purrell,

There’s a difference between a violence prone, drug-taking student bringing a paring knife to school and a trouble-free student bringing a paring knife to school.

What’s funny is when a repeat offender gets arrested you wingnuts are usually screaming, “Why weren’t they locked up sooner!”

In other words, nothing can satisfy you whiners.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:22 pm

You’re so smart like seriously I agree with you 100%

emfu9 January 6, 2011 at 7:41 am

she is voilence prone.

I know her personally

and she does drugs

ALL THE TIME

she parties harder than anyone I know

facebook tells all man.

emfu9 January 6, 2011 at 7:42 am: violence**

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 3:02 pm

You need an enema, ponce. Try an eight-inch, high pressure line first.

From whole cloth to “a violence prone, drug-taking student bringing a paring knife to school…” Quite a leap! That proficiency at fiction and storytelling must be why Lefties get all the writing gigs in Hollywood.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:24 pm: dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb ASS

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 3:08 pm

I heard that Ashley once got a “mark” in gym for not dyeing her white gym shoes for class inspection.
What a reprobate!
Surprised she’s not doing hard time. . .yet.

ponce January 5, 2011 at 3:21 pm

Purrell,

It’s obvious from the records Ashley is not the virgin princess you wingnuts made her out to be.

If the reports of her also being kicked off the soccer team are true…it would appear the school administrators have acted in a reasonable manner.

I will never understand the fringe right’s hatred of the folks who labor away teaching America’s children.

It’s a hatred y’all share with such notable moderates as the Taliban and Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge.

nicholas January 5, 2011 at 4:16 pm

“If the reports of her also being kicked off the soccer team are true…it would appear the school administrators have acted in a reasonable manner.”

No it doesn’t. If that is true, that she was kicked off the soccer team because she broke team rules and was found to be smoking pot, it would not justify suspending her from October through June for the fault of having a paring knife in her possession. They are separate issues. Participating on an athletic team is a privilege, and teams will have team rules that the students must abide by. One can be breaking team rules and yet still pose no threat whatsoever to the safety of ones classmates.

What has become clear is that Dr. Jeffery Moss is quite willing to give misleading answers to attempt to cast himself and his principal in a favorable light. He has been less than forthcoming, and his claims that his actions were in the interest of protecting the student’s privacy was more filler for public consumption. In today’s environment of zero tolerance all judgment has been thrown out the window, and behavior that was commonplace for my friends and myself can very well end up getting you expelled for the sake of applying consistent policy standards. It’s nonsense.

Why I am responding to you is beyond me. The more you speak of wing-nuts, the more like one you sound.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:25 pm: You just don’t have a clue

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Sean D Sorrentino January 5, 2011 at 4:23 pm

Even more the latest.

http://ncguns.blogspot.com/2011/01/ashley-smithwick-and-not-so-good.html

cracks in the story are starting to appear.

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:26 pm

Oh really? Yeah surprised you people haven’t realized that SOONER

Sean D Sorrentino January 7, 2011 at 4:08 pm: If you have proof, by all means, send it to me. The thing is, we have no way of knowing if you are for real, or just some 13 year old in Boise.

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 4:23 pm

How much longer before the Left’s “big guns” like Andrew Sullivan get involved and “reason” that the only place the knife could have been
was in her vagina? They will call for the US DOJ to order the FBI and all States to test knives in evidence for her vaginal secretions. Magically, unsolved crimes will disappear.

Remember how Lefties did the same with “Central Park Jogger” Trisha Meili. At age 28, her high-powered life was essentially over with part of her brain being sprayed into the park and her left eye removed from its socket after being brutally raped by at least nine “yutes”. How did the Left help? By asking the tough questions like, why she was in the park? Was she “hooking?” they supplied. Selling drugs? Where was her husband? Her Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College, her Master of Arts from Yale University, and a Master of Business Administration from Yale School of Management couldn’t assuage her “blame.” Neither did her job at Wall Street investment bank Salomon Brothers. She was “dirty” and they knew it. I remember one
wild-eyed fucker saying on the TV “Let’s give our sympathy to those that deserve it.”

“I will never understand the fringe right’s hatred of the folks who labor away teaching America’s children.”
Zero tolerance laws allow the over-paid useless fuckers to do even less work. No investigations involved, no interviewing witnesses or ascertaining facts. Knife? Suspension. Case closed. Why not fire the fuckers and let the computer run a ten-line program?

Pretty soon, the only justice for Ashley will be if she never has to work a day in her life. I’m thinking a trust fund composed of every dollar these “educators” and leftist speculators have ever made, or make, or will ever make. And their pensions.

ponce January 5, 2011 at 4:24 pm

“No it doesn’t. If that is true, that she was kicked off the soccer team because she broke team rules and was found to be smoking pot, it would not justify suspending her from October through June for the fault of having a paring knife in her possession. They are separate issues. ”

Actually they are the same issue because the paring knife was allegedly being used to prepare some type of illegal drug for ingestion, not to cut up an apple…

starburstss January 5, 2011 at 4:27 pm: mhmmm got that right

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Darrell January 5, 2011 at 4:50 pm

Is that what you use, ponce?

nicholas January 5, 2011 at 8:21 pm

“Actually they are the same issue because the paring knife was allegedly being used to prepare some type of illegal drug for ingestion, not to cut up an apple…”

So disappointing then when they did not find any illegal drugs. What they did find was (gasp) cigarettes.

I have a hard time understanding what is driving the school to take the action it took. Dr. Moss claimed she had not been suspended but was ‘enrolled’, and now they admit that the the school principal asked Dr. Moss to punish Ashley with a long term suspension. He states he did not, but the truth is she cannot set foot on campus. The school states they searched Ashley’s bag because they were looking for marijuana or pills. Instead they found a lighter and some cigarettes. There was a pairing knife found in her lunch bag, which the school earlier claimed was not in her lunch bag but was in her purse, but now we find that it was in fact in her lunch bag, which in turn was carried by Ashley inside her rather large bag or purse. The school purposely mischaracterized what they had found and how they went about finding it. That speaks to their credibility.

It appears the discovery of the paring knife was of great interest to the principal, not because she thought anyone was endangered from Ashley, but because she thought it would provide Moss with an actionable offense which could be used to issue Ashley a long term suspension. And these are the people that say they are ‘surprised’ that the Smithwick’s are discussing this in an open forum.

‘Rules are rules’ says Dr. Moss, in true form as a man who has lost confidence in his ability to make a sound judgment. Asked about the exception in the law for tools used to prepare food, he says “If you would look at everything in your kitchen drawer, would you think that would be considered okay to take to a school” What, is he talking about the cheese grater? An egg whip?

This guy knows that Ashley had no intention of harming anyone in the school with her Dad’s paring knife, or any other kitchen implement that might have found its way into her purse. If there is no intention to harm others, what would it matter if she had stuffed a pie tin into that purse? Moss doggedly defends his actions, and looks a fool for doing so.

How do these people end up running our schools?

Darrell January 5, 2011 at 9:33 pm

Nicholas, Nicholas. . .They didn’t have to find anything, the Left knows what evil lurks in the hearts of little girls.
Not one song to Obama in her school record. No “hmmm, hmmm, hmmms” or even oceans healing.
Unrepentent. Shameless. Incorrigible.
In the future, we all will be brought to the Hall of “Justice” and a panel of three new graduates of the State Inculcation System will give us a look-see
and write three tales solely from their fertile minds. The judge will choose one on which to pronounce a sentence. We spend $trillions on collecting, processing, and testing evidence, gathering witnesses etc. and the new sytem will eliminate all of that. Three tales, one fate. Pity the people that aren’t part of some protected victim class. You will star in a totally fictional tale that will make your mom want to slap your face. And just try and prove that you didn’t do it. Not that you would be given the chance.

ponce January 6, 2011 at 12:57 am

“Moss doggedly defends his actions, and looks a fool for doing so. ”

Sure he does, Nicky.

Smoking, drugs, suspended from school for assaulting another student.

Quite a girl.

The decent thing for the wingnuts who wrongly accused to school officials of overreacting would be to apologize to them.

But, of course, wingnuts never do the decent thing…

Darrell January 6, 2011 at 1:32 am

Free ~~Mumia~~ Ashley!

The Den Mother January 6, 2011 at 1:06 pm

Interesting discussion. I don’t think I’ve run across this blog before (got to this post via a Google search on “Ashley Smithwick”) but the comments are interesting. Clearly there are some relationship issues amongst the commenters.

Ponce, are you saying that carrying a paring knife warrants suspension if the carryer had committed prior offenses for which a suspension wasn’t warranted, i.e. a sort of cumulative guilt? Or do you thiink it warrants a suspension because right-wingers are defending her? It doesn’t seem to me that you are advocating punishment not for a serious offense but rather for multiple less serious offenses. Rather like a high school form of three-strikes-and-you’re-out. Egad.

Darrell, whence comes that great big chip on your shoulder? You might come across as more reasonable if you acted, um, more reasonable.

nicholas January 6, 2011 at 2:06 pm

Well ponce, you fit right in with the esteemed Dr. Moss in his lack of any sense of proportion. I suppose the crime of pushing a classmate sounds like assault to you. It does not sound that way to me, nor would it to most people. The world of zero tolerance is a world of zero judgment. That would seem to be the case here.

My word ponce, does not our President smoke cigarettes? Why so judgmental? Do you think he may have ever had the indiscretion of smoking in the boys room? Or even of smoking some roll your owns? Maybe Ashley needs a presidential pardon?

I think all she really needs is to have some sensible people in charge of her school – but from everything I have heard out of the mouth of Moss it appears the presidential pardon is the more likely possibility.

ponce January 6, 2011 at 2:09 pm

nicholas,

You wingnuts constantly whine about teachers not doing their job and yet here you are whining about them forcing an obviously disruptive student to finish up from home.

You, along with every other wingnut, have no sense of decency.

Sean D Sorrentino January 6, 2011 at 3:21 pm

Ok, if it’s just going to be name calling, I’d like to join in.

Ponce, you loony lefties are always yammering on and on about civil rights and innocent until proven guilty, but as soon as some chick with a disfavored skin tone shows up you want to crucify her on trumped up charges!

Now, did that solve anything? I know that ranting is fun, but in this case we all need to sit down and make personal decisions about what we think is fair. And then we need to insist on that fairness for all, regardless of race, color, creed, or social background.

This case is starting to look like a girl who was disliked by the administration, and targeted for removal. The knife was just the pretext for her removal. It may be that she was deserving of getting kicked out of school, but according to NC law, a paring knife most likely falls under the exception to the sharp objects in school law. Also, as a matter of fairness and equity, getting the boot in October for the remainder of the school year and facing 1 year in jail for (possibly) accidental possession of a tiny knife seems excessive, even to the law and order crowd.

Ponce, if you really believe in fairness and equality before the law, you could be using this opportunity to remind us white folks that this sort of railroading happens all the time to minority kids who don’t have the internet legions trying to help them out. You could use this as a “teaching moment” about the dangers of unchecked police powers granted to school administrators. You could be seriously cementing our new-found libertarian feelings. You could be telling us “see, it can happen to this pretty white girl, it can happen to anyone.” You could be helping build empathy for the poor minority kids that get screwed every day, the same way.

We conservatives, who were badly burned by the big government, nanny state “conservatives” that ran the GOP, are moving your direction and all we hear from you is “Fuck you, racist.” We’re so damned mad right now that you could even engage in a few victory laps of “see, I told you so” while you welcomed us out of Law and Order(tm) and into a newfound respect for civil liberties.

You’re missing a real opportunity here, mostly just to be a jerk.

ponce January 6, 2011 at 5:29 pm

Sean,

This story started with Instacracker and his legion of slack-jawed cut-and-pasters bad-mouthing the school authorities without bothering to check the facts first.

Sean D Sorrentino January 7, 2011 at 4:43 pm

Ponce,
No matter what she did or who she was, the school pitched her out for a tiny knife. We both suspect that the knife was used as an excuse to rid themselves of her. They suspect that she was using drugs. They didn’t prove that she was. Zero Tolerance policies are being used by schools to get rid of students without regard to whether or not it makes sense to get rid of them. From the Conservative perspective, ZT seems like a way to abuse (mostly) boys for being boys. But no one seems to care that boys are being drugged into oblivion and labled ADHD. No one seems to care that the environment of schools has been made toxic to boys, leading to a mass exodus of young men from the college track.

I can only assume that from the Liberal perspective, Zero Tolerance should be offensive because it is an assault on the basic civil rights of students. If this had happened to a black male student who would have stood up for him? Take a look at the case histories of the ACLU. You will find that in most cases, the people whose free speech rights they have championed are not what you might call pillars of society. But in the end, the rights guaranteed to the trash of society (Nazis marching in Skokie?) will also protect the rest of us. So in this, you have the perfect storm. You have, on the surface, a sympathetic person getting punished excessively for a very minor problem. The conservatives are mad about zero tolerance, the libs are mad about minorities getting screwed over by their schools. We should be on the same side.

It would be nice if there was a clear hero and villain, but in this case, we will probably find out that we just have two villains. Unless you can show that the knife she brought was legally a weapon (dirk, dagger, bowie knife) she got the shaft by people out to get her. That makes the administration wrong. She may turn out to be exactly the sort of person described by “starburstss.” That would make her wrong as well. If she was a drug addled discipline problem, she should have been punished for that, not on what amounts to a trumped up charge that carries a possible year in jail as a punishment.

I will leave you with this. Imagine that you could write whatever sort of laws you liked to order society how you wanted it to be. Now imagine that those laws would be strictly enforced by your worst enemy. If this can happen to her, it can happen to you. Or to people that you care about. Maybe it’s time to dismantle the drug laws that started this whole mess. How differently would this all have been if it wasn’t illegal for her to get as stoned as she liked? No one would have been searching through her bag looking for drugs. In your haste to condemn Glenn Reynolds, you have forgotten that he, and many others on the right are not drug warriors. We have come to believe that the drug war, as well intentioned as it may be, has done tremendous violence to civil liberties, and to whole sections of society who don’t have 10,000 keyboard commandos ready to leap to their aid. If you truly cared about civil liberties like the left always says, you should be with us on this. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that we are joining your side in this.

ponce January 7, 2011 at 7:37 pm

Sean,

I think we’ve all seen news stories of someone getting arresting and we learn they’ve had 20-30 prior arrests and we think, “Why the heck wasn’t this person still in jail?”

You must admit there’s some number of school violations Ashley could have committed that would justify using he knife to keep her off campus…

Sean D Sorrentino January 7, 2011 at 8:05 pm

Yeah, probably. I can understand the desire to railroad her, I just can’t agree with actually doing it. When I was in the military, it was driven into our heads, document, document, document. Have all the info written down so that you can use it all when the time comes. The appropriate thing to have done is to make a long list of things she had done and put it all in the form where the Principal requested long term suspension. Instead, what they did was charge her with carrying a weapon after finding it in a failed search for drugs. They thought that the knife charge was a slam dunk, and instead they are finding the neither the public nor the law think it should be criminal to have a little knife on school grounds. It must really suck to play a card you think is an ace and find out that the world thinks it’s a joker.

Assuming that the allegations about her discipline and drug problems are true, I have a lot of sympathy for the Administration’s desire to get rid of her. My problem is that it we can’t pick and choose who gets treated fairly. If she really has drug problems, I can only hope that her parents have sent her to rehab. If she acts like she has been accused of acting, she’s headed to jail. Maybe not on this charge, but certainly the next one. Sooner or later she will do something for which there is proof beyond a reasonable doubt, and the next time I see her after that will be in the Women’s prison. It sucks having principles. Sometimes guilty people get off. It’s the price we end up paying for living under the rule of law rather than the rule of man.

ponce January 7, 2011 at 8:11 pm: Sean,

Ashley was also arrested by the police and charged with a crime by the prosecutors…are you accusing them of “railroading” Ashley, too?
Sean D Sorrentino January 7, 2011 at 8:23 pm: I am talking about the suspension for the rest of the year.

As for the police, I think that they are wrong as a matter of law. I can only assume that you have read the post about what the law actually says. A paring knife falls squarely into the exception of a tool used solely for food preparation. This means that in a fair trial, she’ll walk.

Since a competent DA shouldn’t bring a charge that she (the Lee County DA is female) can’t prove, she should have never filed the charge in the first place. I can only assume that they will try for a plea bargain. You understand that, short of felony charges, carrying a knife on school grounds is the most serious class of crime. If I had money riding on the outcome, I’d bet on them offering her something like a summary charge of Disorderly Conduct, with a promise of sealing her juvenile records with good behavior. I am not a lawyer, and I’m not privy to any secret information, so I’m not betting any money on the outcome.

Before you mention the “shaving pills” use for the knife, I can only assume that the Lee County DA has enough sense to test the knife for drug residue. Since we don’t have any associated drug charges, I don’t think that they have any evidence. Note how I phrased that. No evidence, not “she didn’t do it.”

Basically the only thing left for us to do is sit back and wait for further info.
ponce January 7, 2011 at 9:05 pm: “the exception of a tool used solely for food preparation. ”

So you’re okay with a kid bringing a butcher’s meat cleaver with a 12 inch blade to school?

I think the odds that a random blog poster is more knowledgeable of North Carolina law than the local police and prosecutors is quite small.
Sean D Sorrentino January 8, 2011 at 5:34 am: First, it sounds very much like you are asking serious questions and taking my answers seriously. Thank you for that. Your question had two parts, and I will answer them in reverse order.

First, you would think that I should have less knowledge than the Lee County DA. In a perfect world, you would be right. You would also think that the Police would have vast encyclopedic knowledge of the laws that they enforce. Unfortunately, the difference is one of general vs. specific knowledge. In the vast sweep of law that affects NC, I am sure that the DA (and probably the police) know way more about the law than I do. In the specific area of gun/weapon law, I know quite a bit. In this specific law, it is written down, easily accessible, and not all that complicated. I think that there is one of two scenarios. Either they simply didn’t read the full text of the law before they charged Ashley, or they deliberately over-charged her to help their ability to get a plea bargain. People are only human. In life I have personally applied a general principle and found out that I was dealing with one of the exceptions. I’m sure that happens to other professionals too. I am also aware that over-charging for plea bargain purposes is a common tactic. I don’t know the DA, so I can’t tell you what she is doing. I do know that were I facing a year in jail, I’d probably want to plea out to something simple and pay a fine and do community service rather than take a chance on getting an unsympathetic jury. I go in and out of prisons as part of my day job, and it has only deepened my commitment to following the law so I can stay out of places like that.

The first part of your question is much more philosophical, and is likely to be one where we don’t agree. I am ok with that. I don’t agree with banning any weapons on campus, or most anywhere else either. My concern is not who has what weapon, but is anyone hurting anyone else with that weapon? I don’t really mind if the local school has enough weapons to resemble an armed camp. I am only concerned that no one gets hurt or is threatened with weapons. If the teacher wants to carry a Glock, I’d let her. If the students have their shotguns or rifles in gun racks in their trucks in the parking lot, I don’t see the problem. I understand that many people believe that weapons increase violence, I just don’t subscribe to that belief. So no, I don’t personally care if every student in the place is carrying a Bowie knife. As long as they don’t use it to threaten or harm anyone else. It isn’t the tool that bothers me, it is what people do with that tool. I understand that you may have a very different view, and that your view is well reasoned, and sincerely held. I assume your good intentions in holding that view. I just don’t share it.

I am a small time gun blogger, and when you think about it, this is what my blog is actually about. The dominant theory for the last 50 years is; weapons cause violence and we must take them away from everyone. The competing theory is; violence comes from what is in your heart, not what is in your hand.

Again, thanks for taking my answers seriously and for considering them seriously. This sort of exchange makes much more sense than the previous slanging matches.
ponce January 8, 2011 at 10:40 am: “I don’t agree with banning any weapons on campus, or most anywhere else either. ”

You would be in the minority on that Sean, particularly after Columbine.
Sean D Sorrentino January 8, 2011 at 10:51 am: I know, Ponce, I know.

I have faith that eventually logic will win over enough people that the conventional wisdom will change. It’s a slow process, but ultimately, the only process that’s fair in a democratic society.

I have faith, also, in humanity. The vast majority are decent people who aren’t a threat to me, nor to others. That’s why it doesn’t bother me to see them all armed.

Be that as it may, this has gone too far off topic to fit in the comments of LMA’s post on Ashley Smithwick. It’s been good to discuss this with you. If you want to talk more about this particular subject, you can find me at my blog.

cathy January 6, 2011 at 6:34 pm

Smoking, drugs, suspended from school for assaulting another student.

I may have missed something — I thought there weren’t any drugs. Did she have pot or pills after all?

Azmat Hussain January 6, 2011 at 7:32 pm

The knife was planted on her, check and see if Mr. Fuhrman was near the school at the time.

Darrell January 6, 2011 at 9:56 pm

Old news, Cathy.
She released her entire record from first grade on.
ponce has to pile it on high and deep to save face for just slandering her with “make-believe” when the story broke.
No word though about Moss implying that her story of a long suspension was false.
No word on when we get to see Obama’s record. In ponce’s words he should be rarin’ to sign those release papers if he has nothing to hide.
Ashley and her parents did at first chance, and they just let the Press pour over them.
We can’t expext our POTUS to be as brave as this little girl, though.
Now if she were a Kennedy, they would be ordering a DNA test to see why she had fallen so far behind in the felony and misdemeanor count.
Even with most of the incident not making the record, most Kennedy kids need a dolly to wheel their files. Al Gore III would just wait for his dad to make it all go away.
Breaking and entering and stealing cases of booze from the country club? No problem. Driving 97 MPH after? We’ll just wait for after the election for the token public service sentence, especially when we are trying to lie about George W. getting “special treatment” when he got the book thrown at him for a single DUI, when most people at the time were given a ride home by police. How’s that prosecution going of the Dem operative that committed a felony by releasing the expunged records? Still working on it? Good.

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