(This is Page 2 -- reader comments. Page 1 is here.

Note: This collection of letters is not representative of all letters received. The balance is actually a much higher percentage of agreement than disagreement than shown here!)

• My friends and I were just talking about this the other day. The subject came up over a boy that was suspended for bringing a butter knife to school. His mother placed it in his lunch box (i.e., he didn't know he was even bringing it) so he could use it to spread something for his lunch. Peanut butter or something, I don't recall. But due to the school's "Zero Tolerance" policy, he was suspended. --Dave, Ohio

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• Just a little true story for you here in Pennsylvania. A local high school in Boyertown, PA received a bomb threat yesterday a.m. and they apprehended the kid who did it rather quickly. I thought, what a dope another copycat in an already tired scenario of people seeking attention on the heels of a terrible tragedy. Then I remembered that one of my coworkers is married to a local cop in that area. Sure enough, when we get to work and start talking about this, she gives me the REAL scoop. The kid who called in the threat is 18 years old and about to graduate this summer. Yet his own stupidity led to his almost immediate apprehension. He called INFORMATION for the high school's phone number so he could make the bomb threat, then LET INFORMATION DIAL THE NUMBER FOR HIM, so it was a totally traced number as information bills the caller's phone for giving out the number and again for making the call!!!!! This boy was arraigned yesterday and because he is eighteen, will be tried as an adult. Too bad his brain had not matured with him. He has now managed to ruin his life quite thoroughly, but sadly it's funny because he was so damn stupid!!!! --Debra, Pennsylvania

• You are right about the 'zero tolerance'. While the tragedy in Colorado, was just that, a tragedy, there was no amount of rules or legislation that could prevent it. It seems that people are too quick and easy, these days, to give up their rights, to try and gain some false, hollow feeling of security. What we need is more common sense and less rules like 'zero tolerance'. Keep up the good work. --Andy, New Jersey

• What a hornets nest you uncovered. Although I didn't agree with the story, I can still tell the difference between a finger and a gun, be it toy or real. We had a girl suspended because she said she was going to wear a trench coat on Friday. That is overboard.

  The people having trouble with the Colorado incident are not in touch with reality: those boys did what the did in spite of the law. They didn't leave home their SKS with 30-round clip and composite folding stock because it is illegal. They weren't concerned with law at that point -- they had been "picked on". --Kevin, Michigan

• You have to stop making sense, and stop employing your uncommon good sense ("common sense" isn't common so I don't use the term) or someone will ask you to run for office! (If nominated I will not run; if elected I shall not serve. -rc)

  Your statements on "Zero Tolerance" seem to parallel my thoughts; I've seen it in action and it does not work. It is an abrogation of thought in favor of rules, and sends all the wrong messages.

  I just sent off a column to my editor about kids killing kids. I've spent a reasonable amount of time talking with (not to) kids in the last few years, including my own teen, and the problem I see is that they see no future. The world/political/job/industrial concepts I grew up with are no longer applicable, and thus the kids don't believe a word I might say about their future because they *know* I have no realistic reference points. My final lines, which chill me to the core, are: Why do kids kill kids? Because they see no reason not to. --L.D., Ohio

(Shocking, but you've got a good point borne of true insight!)

• In the last issue of "This is True" you wrote: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in wars to protect our freedoms. I have no interest in trading them away for the FALSE security these silly rules provide."

  It continually amazes me how the American people can fall into such traps. And how public opinion can be so easily manipulated when such an incident (like the Colorado shooting) occurs. --Wilson, Brazil

• I, for one, agree with you 100% on your views of these so-called 'zero-tolerance' rules. They are all absolute nonsense. This is the same type of thinking that has produced mandatory sentencing laws, filling our jails and prisons with scores of young men and women with relatively minor drug crimes.

  When you remove discretion from those who hold authority, then you have removed any hope of justice prevailing. As Gerry Spence once said, "...justice lies in the gray areas between, not in the black and white on each end." I like the way you put it, 'zero-tolerance' = ZERO thought and ZERO discretion.

  As I am an American fighting man serving my 16th year in the service of our country, it just makes me ill to see such crap like this permeate our schools and the justice system.

  Keep up the good fight. Let freedom ring while it still can. --Charles, U.S. Navy

• I am so glad you wrote that reply to "Diane" in the south about zero tolerance. I am from Kentucky and now live in Tennessee, and I really get tired of hearing southerners write inane things. We're not all like that. In the elementary school in Crittenden county the kids are not allowed to carry book bags, backpacks, and fanny packs because they might conceal weapons, nor are they allowed to wear braids, since that's a gang symbol. Guess the next thing is they won't be allowed to wear red and blue. Whatever happened to parents teaching children about moderation and good old self-control? --Janice, Tennessee

• You said: "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in wars to protect our freedoms. I have no interest in trading them away for the FALSE security these silly rules provide."

  Well said. Thank you for clearly stating this point. People forget they are trading freedoms for legislation. What happens when there are no more freedoms left to trade? Many haven't thought that far ahead. --Richard, California

• You're right on target about the "zero tolerance" crap; I even heard an account of a kid suspended for bringing a 1/2 inch plastic "GI Joe" gun to school.

  My own position: the only way to prevent a recurrence is to arm all the teachers. Then we won't have teachers groveling for their lives at the barrel of a gun waiting for the cops to finally get around to showing up, or entering the building. They can shoot BACK at the little bastards. Hey; it works in Israel! --Kenneth, California

• Perhaps the most ridiculous example of zero-tolerance I have heard is the young girl who noticed a school-mate having an asthma attack a few seats ahead of her on the school bus, and so offered her the use of her inhaler. Her reward: The school suspends her as a drug trafficker. You're right - what are we trying to teach our children? --Stephen, New Zealand

While it's right to suspend those genuinely involved in narcotics, and those bringing weapons, or indeed replica weapons (when you are threatened by a person holding a gun, the mental torment is the same whether that gun is real or just lifelike enough that you believe it's real). But frequently, these zero tolerance rules seem to be designed merely to prevent teachers having to think. Despite all the ridiculous claims of those who somehow believe that suspending children holding their fingers in a pistol-shape will help prevent high-school massacres, what is more likely to prevent these massacres is an environment that tells children that they matter, not one which tells them they are less important than the rules.

• I thought you hit the nail on the head with your comments regarding zero tolerance and the kids with the water pistols. Zero tolerance indeed leaves us nowhere to go when we are faced with real problems. And I'm an anti-gun nut. --Michael, President of an Elementary School PTA, Oregon

• As to your stance on zero tolerance... good for you. I am a teacher in PA, and I am horrified by the events that have occurred in our schools. I even have some good, healthy fear of what may happen in any school, including mine at any time. But the inanity of the response to these events has amazed me. Just last Hallowe'en, right here in Pittsburgh, PA, a kindergarten boy was sent home from school and suspended. Why? He showed up at school dressed as a fireman, and his costume included a plastic axe.

  Meanwhile, schools across our country, particularly junior high and high schools, are doing little to nothing to promote tolerance, end name-calling and promote a sense of ownership and respect among their student body. Students end up isolated, angry and mentally ill enough to kill their classmates, but we can't teach about "values" because -- god forbid -- we may teach our children to tolerate people that we ourselves hate -- people of other races, religions, orientations or creeds. Lawmakers, parents and policies cripple a school's real ability to teach about these issues, and then blame teachers and principals for doing nothing. It makes me sick. --Rachel, Pennsylvania

• Just a note to let you know that I support your views on this matter completely. I came from a state (New York) that had, at that time, the most restrictive gun laws in the country. Those laws didn't stop people from murdering each other then and they don't now. I'm not a fan of the NRA but I do believe in the Bill of Rights and the Constitution of the United States.

  When something like the murders in Colorado happen, people tend to look for something to blame possibly to ease their minds and gain some kind of control over a terrible situation. We will probably never know exactly why those kids reacted the way they did. A lot of people are unable to accept that kind of uncertainty because it implies that such an incident could happen again. Well, I live 10 miles east of Gary, Indiana and 40 miles from Chicago -- I can tell you that the equivalent happens monthly, a few at a time in drug killings, drive-by killings and gang wars. Much of the human tragedy in these killings is ignored or mentioned on the news for a single day until the next incident occurs. However, banning guns from Gary or Chicago, even if you could, wouldn't stem the tide. When I was young in New York, there were gangs and there were gang wars and -- there were zip-guns, a term almost forgotten today. The gangs made their own guns in those days because guns were so hard to get in the city. No amount of crippling of the Constitution is going to thwart human ingenuity. --George, Indiana

• You said, "Hundreds of thousands of Americans have died in wars to protect our freedoms. I have no interest in trading them away for the FALSE security these silly rules provide." As a friend of mine said in respose to a similar question "Yes, I'm willing to sacrifice your children for my freedom. We've already done it in a number of wars, haven't we?" As a vet, I had to applaud him. --Fred, Illinois

• I could not agree with you more regarding your comments on the Zero Tolerance insanity. It makes me breathless with amazement and frustration to see presumably intelligent people conclude that treating children like criminals for playing with certain toys will magically "do something" to prevent teenage psychopaths from killing their peers. All it will really do is convince bright kids that adults haven't got a clue as to how to control bad behavior, and seriously erode respect for adults and adult judgment at a time when kids badly need it.

  Zero Tolerance is actually a means for emotion-driven adults to pretend to one another that they are accomplishing something. It's easier than to have to admit they have no answers, or worse, that 30 years of a valueless education philosophy has proven itself bankrupt. --Ed, Massachusetts

• A resounding kudos to you! If this nation is defeated, it will not be by an outside enemy. We will be destroyed from within by a total loss of common sense and personal responsibility. Thanks for your contribution, and keep up the good work! --(Episcopal) Rev. Richard, Alabama

On the other hand...

• Just for the record, I had to unsubscribe from your list because of your social commentary...I was not aware when I subscribed that you were using your list for that purpose. Whether I agree with your opinion or not, I didn't like the idea of your views being attached to a potentially funny and enjoyable list. -- Tony, Nevada

Huh? Tony, you may be shocked to learn that all of This is True is social commentary!

• You released the story about expelling the kid who brought squirt guns to school and made fun of the principal for eollowing the School Board rules! The principal in Littleton should have been equally hard assed. If he had there would have been a totally different outcone in CO. --

  You parrot the party line over and over again. Hell man there's nothing wrong with inflexible rules. If you wanna play in those schools, follow the rules! If not, send the little monsters to a wishey-washy school like Littleton where breaking the rules is OK because they are inflexible. Bullshit. Read the 10 commandments. You will find that they are inflexible. So, are they wrong? "Yes" is the Clinton administration view.

  We here in California suffered through the Rose Bird State Supreme Court where she and her cronies did irreperable harm in rewriting the law and freeing death row inmates because she didn't agree with the (inflexible) law she was sworn to uphold. So, she freed killers to kill again. Rationalize that to the victims and the next of kin!

  I believe that if you give a bleebing heart left wing liberal high school principal the power to re-write the regulations, he will do so with a vengance! That has been the case time after time, here in CA.

  Hell man, when I went to school, teachers taught! Now all they can do is to desperately try to maintain order- there is woefully little time to try to teach when you are constantly trying to stop a riot in the classroom.

  So, the first kid brings in a squirt gun when they are banned. The bleebing heart left wing liberal high school principal slaps his wrist. Then someone brings in an equally non-lethal slingshot. Now where does this lead? Exceptions for knives because they are not guns?

  The realistic way is to expell the kid who intentionally brought a "gun" to school, just to bug the administration. Then let him apply for re-admittance and explain to the School Board, just why he had to bring a squirt gun to school in the first place. If he's got a good reason for bringing it to school, make damn sure he understands how much trouble he is in, and that he knows that he had better not play that game again, and re-admit him on probation. If, on the other hand, he had no justification for bringing a banned object to school, why not kick him out? He knew what he was doing and he did it deliberately. It was he, or some other influncial person who who decided to test the rule that says no guns in school. The kid may well be the victim of parents who don't want the school telling them and the little darling that they can't do something, period.

  Just remember that "Stoplights", a very necessary traffic feature of our every day lives are 100% inflexible. Don't ban stoplights just because they don't consider who they stop, caution, or let go! --John, California

What a confusing mishmash of unthinking! First, part of my point all along is that Colorado is at the forefront of the ZT trend! Here, it's not a "rule", it's the law! A law that did nothing to help the kids in Littleton. Littleton proves my point!

Second, what does the Ten Commandments, or "stoplights", have to do with my position? This is the weakest argument in the world -- one that I've heard before. What I've said from the beginning is this: punishments should fit the "crime". When there's no crime, there should be no punishment. So should people who run stop lights be punished? Of course they should. Should people who think about running a stop light be punished? Of course not! Should kids who bring guns to school be punished? Of course they should. Should kids who bring a picture of a gun to school get the same punishment that a kid who brings a real gun gets? The Zero Tolerance proponents say yes. I say of course not!