Reader "Pasty", sends this red curtain of blood™ moment, whereby a senior honor student in high school just had her life ruined because of her mom's stun gun. Amanda Conroy is a high school senior, and when her car broke down her parents told her to take her mom's. When police conducted a "random" search looking for drugs, they found her mother's stun gun. That's when school officials went into idiot mode.

Bob Conroy said his daughter's punishment increased throughout the day as he talked to an assistant principal, the principal and then an assistant superintendent: from a five-day suspension with no prom, to a 10-day suspension with no graduation ceremony, to expelled from school and no diploma.

"Her whole life is ruined because she took the wrong car," the father said about his only child.

The district's zero-tolerance policy, as it reads now, leaves no room for appeal.

"Based on similar circumstances, the principal will recommend expulsion," Assistant Superintendent Michele Lugo said.

What kind of message does this teach children? Zero tolerance rules treat aspirins the same way they treat crack cocaine. Punishment for plastic water pistols is the same for machine guns. Zero tolerance=zero thought=zero responsibility for school administrators. And of course the rules and punishments meted out are not subject to appeal.

Zero tolerance has turned public schools into socialist authoritarian regimes. The lesson starts on day one when teacher takes away your individual school supplies to "share" with the rest of the class, and continues through to graduation where seniors are subject to expulsion for frivolous reasons with absolutely no grounds for appeal. My what a wonderful utopia the government has created.

Anyone for school vouchers?