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XBox (Games)

Washington School Bans Halo 2 Tournament 126

Posted by Zonk from the not-terribly-surprising dept.
Pluvius writes "A couple of high-school students in the Washington city of Puyallup wanted to raise money for the tsunami disaster in South Asia, and figured that the best way to do so was to hold a tournament using Bungie's hit XBox title Halo 2. Their school district disagreed, citing an anti-violence policy. Even though all of the parents of the children who would've taken part in the tournament signed waivers acknowledging the game's violence, Puyallup School District felt that due to school shootings across the country, 'anything we do that even looks like we're endorsing violence is not appropriate.'"
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Washington School Bans Halo 2 Tournament More

Washington School Bans Halo 2 Tournament

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  • A mod, please? (Score:4, Funny)

    by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:43AM (#11455138)
    Is there a mod for this that changes the weapons systems to Nerf guns?
    • yeah, a shooter with sponge bullets i hope they come up with a good alternative to raise the money..
      • "yeah, a shooter with sponge bullets i hope they come up"

        Even if they don't raise any money, this is sure to reduce the teen pregnancy rate at the school.

    • If they used a mod for Halo 2 (XBOX only), then the school would be accused of endorsing piracy because it would have to be run on a modded XBOX.
    • Well, there is a game called Nerf Arena Blast that was derived from Unreal Tournament (1999 version) but I don't think that would've been popular (though the demo was somewhat nice). Or perhaps Laser Arena (Quake-derivative) or Southpark: the Game (c'mon, cows aren't lethal weapons, are they?)?
    • You laugh, but there was an Unreal Tournament-based Nerf game (Nerf Arenablast! if I remember correctly) a few years ago that was loads of fun.

      Had a great mode where you had to collect balls worth a certain amount of points and shoot them through a target using a special gun. If you got fragged, your balls would scatter for the other folks to pick up.

  • *sigh* (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Dragoon412 ( 648209 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:49AM (#11455196)
    Yes, because each and every person out there would make the obvious cognitive leap that raising charity money via tournaments of a futuristic game based on fragging aliens equates to condoning kids bringing guns to school and shooting their classmates, right? /sarcasm

    This is asinine. Does the school have a football team? A wrestling team? Or do those not count as violent?

    • RTFA (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:52AM (#11455237)
      The school *did* have a football team, but they deemed it to violent and closed it down. They now play a form of "peaceball" where opponents hand each other presents, then gently insist the other team is better than their own, and has won.

    • Re:*sigh* (Score:3, Insightful)

      by nes11 ( 767888 )
      It only takes one person, not "each and every person." The fact is, most of the parents are probably paying enough attention to their kids for it not to be a problem, but it only takes that one.

      This is a wise move for the school. If something bad happened, they would be held responsible by the public & the media whether parent's signed permission slips or not.

      • Re:*sigh* (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Dragoon412 ( 648209 )

        This is a wise move for the school. If something bad happened, they would be held responsible by the public & the media whether parent's signed permission slips or not.

        Really? How is it different from taking field trips to the zoo, or funding violent sports?

        Parents need to sign wavers for their kids to play football; you don't see the school district being sued every time some kid breaks a bone. You don't see the school being sued over teen pregnancy because they teach anatomy or sex ed.

        There's no

        • Re:*sigh* (Score:2, Insightful)

          by nes11 ( 767888 )
          "How is it different from taking field trips to the zoo, or funding violent sports?"

          Kids break bones
          Kids shoot others.

          Can you really not see the difference here? Are you just completely retarded? Tell me something, when was the last time the media spent a full week covering a broken bone or teen pregnancy? Compare that to the uproar over columbine and similar incidents. There is a HUGE difference.

          you said:
          "There's no media frenzy over video games; there's just a select group of idiots like Lieberman

          • Kids break bones
            Kids shoot others.

            I find it interesting that you imply that kids shooting each other after playing computer games is as natural as kids playing sports get hurt. Despite a lot of effort there is still no evidence than can demonstrate a causal relationship between playing violent video games and violent behaviour.

            Now media doesn't care about this and apparently you think it's a good idea to avoid this confrontation as it "looks bad" instead of trying to do the right thing.

            I'm flattered th

            • Maybe you should read the posts before you reply.

              I made the comments "If something bad happened" and "it only takes one person".

              The guy replying to me ignorantly translated that to comparing every kid playing video games with playing football or getting pregnant. I made no such direct correlation or suggested it was "natural". The fact of the matter is that occasionally, yes rarely, it does happen and as I pointed out, it only takes one person freakin out to cause alot of problems.

              My comparison of "Kid
      • Doesn't matter anyway since the school will be held responcible anyway no matter what they do. People do not want to take responcibility for their actions.
    • 100% AGREE with you. I find the "organized" sports to be violent and are non-inclusive based on physical stature. At least in games, everyone can start on equal footing and actually forces teamwork. If you have parental concent and the players/spectators are over 17 years of age as specificed by the ESRB rating on the packaging, what's the problem? This also could have been the chance for a public institution to stand up and demonstrate that just because people engage in violent games does not mean that
    • I put one last line at the end of my submission, but Zonk took it out:

      "One wonders if intermural football has been banned in these schools using the same logic."

      You're definitely not the only one who smells hypocrisy here. I think that the supposed difference is that football is "cool" and "popular" and "lucrative for the schools" and Halo 2 isn't.

      Rob (Guess which of those three is most important)

  • We suck. (Score:4, Funny)

    by keiferb ( 267153 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:50AM (#11455217) Homepage
    Are they really expecting the kids to go home, make a needle gun, and bring it in to school? All the Halo games teach is that you should kill aliens. It says nothing about school teachers or other students.

    Here's a spoon, America. Let's dig our heads out of our asses.
    • I don't think this is like America's Army where the opponents are always displayed as evildoers. A Halo 2 tournament would obviously involve deathmatches and other competitive gametypes.

    • Re:We suck. (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gl4ss ( 559668 )
      try to play it in coop in a lan setting for a weekend.. gets real old real fast.

      man vs. man.

      anyways.. what's the sad part is that they're disallowing it because they think that somebody might say to them later that they're endorsing violence.. they KNOW that it should be 100% OK - but are too afraid to let it happen.

      bunch of sissies.

  • What a non-story (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Matt Perry ( 793115 ) <[moc.oohay] [ta] [45ttam.yrrep]> on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:51AM (#11455225)
    What a non-story (not slashdot but the article). The students want it, the parents signed off on it. So what if the school doesn't want it? Then don't involve the school. I'm sure there's plenty of other locations where one could hold the tournament. Maybe a local community center?

    • You have a point but what worth is a school that refuses video games such as HL2 deeming them violent, where the actual goal is to raise funds?

      What does that teaches to the kids? Better be censored and/or politically correct rather than be generous and donate?

      If it the "stellar" coming of Bush that produces such nonsense, I suggest you jump out the mothership and land in Canada. [cic.gc.ca]

      It is not because you are not paranoid that Aliens are not out to get you.

  • So what? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GoofyBoy ( 44399 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @09:57AM (#11455302) Journal
    School's policy, school's decision.

    Just have the fundraiser outside of school property.
    • Parents' tax dollars, parents' decision, I didn't RTFA(big surprise) but I didn't think this was a private school. This is a result of CYOA so some school board member can run for higher office without looking like they support kids bring guns to school.
      • >Parents' tax dollars, parents' decision

        But then, using this idea, the parents are the ones who did decide to have a "no violence" policy before this issue.

        The school was correct in what they were doing. I realize that a few parents did permit the event, but what about the majority of parents?
        • "I realize that a few parents did permit the event, but what about the majority of parents?"

          Rarely trust the mayority; there are places where children are taught that evolution is not science, and creationism deserves equal time. There are places where kids aren't taught propper sex-ed, and teenage pregnancies rise.
          • >Rarely trust the mayority

            So we should trust the minority?
            • Well, usually it's a tiny minority who actually know what is going on/how something works/have studied a problem for a large part of their lives. The mayority only has the information which is derived from this minority, and is filtered by politics and media.

              So, yeah: put your trust in the minority who's expertise is somethng they've worked hard to get, instead of the mayority who has no clue.

              Of course, there's the problem of identifying the minority who actually know what they're talking about, and aren
    • Bingo. And then write to local newspapers and get plenty of press about it, and don't forget to add that despite the school trying to prevent you from raising money, you're doing it anyway.

  • If they refuse to endorse viloence.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Landak ( 798221 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @10:01AM (#11455351)
    If they refuse to endorse violence in any way, shape, or form; then bye bye Shakespeare, Dickens, Tolstoy (?), Nursery Rhymes; etc, as well as almost all forms of organised sport; modern art, some forms of modern music, etc; etc.

    It's a video game. Just as Romeo and Juliet is a book. Where one has you not-so-elegantly killing your opponents; the other has a very elegant description of someone killing his opponents. Where you conspire with your friends to best your enemies in Halo; the two houses "teams" conspire to best each other in Romeo and Juliet.

    Humanity is violent; its' roots are violence, and if you cannot control your own desire for violence then *you* probably *will* do something stupid at some point in your life- which has nothing to do whatsoever with Halo 2; Half-life 2; Doom 3.....

    • Look, think about it from the school's perspective. Lawyers will try to find even the most obscure link between a shooting and the video games the shooter may have played. If the school *did* allow this tournament to happen, you just know that if there was a shooting five years down the line that the school district would be the first in line to be sued.

      Don't blame the school, blame the sue-happy culture and the negative stigma of videogames for forcing their hand.

    • Re:If they refuse to endorse viloence.... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Romeo and Juliet is a tragedy. It demonstrates how the violence between the two houses leads to ruin and unhappiness for all.

      Halo 2 is a video game. It rewards people for actively commiting acts of virtual violence.

      See the difference?

      The books you've listed contain violence, but they don't endorse it - very much the opposite. Halo 2, on the other hand, is an endorsement for commiting violent acts, albiet of the virtual variety.
    • I'm not one that would ever say violence in videogames causes school shootings or any of that, but I think the link you're trying to make is tenuous at best, and probably just downright wrong.

      While it can be argued that there are redeeming factors in Halo 2 (strategy, hand-eye coordination, etc), most of them pale in comparison to the literary value of a Shakespeare play. I think you would find it difficult to argue that the lessons of characterization, tragedy, meter, poetry, and theatre are somehow equiv

  • Should... (Score:2, Funny)

    by DrJonesAC2 ( 652108 )
    ...have stuck with MonkeyBall

    • Re:Should... (Score:2, Funny)

      by ayersrj ( 701333 )
      I for one will not condone a game that encourages the capture and exploitation of animals from temperate climates for your enjoyment. I refuse to hold a tournament in my school.

  • Sucks, but... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by eviltypeguy ( 521224 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @10:13AM (#11455486)
    I can't really blame them. All it would take is some bleeding-heart political activist and suddenly it would look like the school is endorsing violent activities. The school is protecting themselves from possible litigation and some possible embarassment. As much as it sucks, it's the safer decision they've taken.
    • But does the school have a football team?

      We had a FPS tournament way back in high school (before the whole school shooting thing) and wow, I considered bringing a rocket launcher for a whole 2 seconds before realizing i didn't have access to heavy artillery.

      Maybe the parents should have to sign a waiver if they have a gun in the house.

      I, _________ as a responsible parent with possession of (a) firearm(s), promise to teach my child/children that firearms are not to be used on school property and are
      • If the kid is a minor, will anything he signs stand up in court?

        In my humble opinion, a lot of violence comes from the fact that we tend to put to much weight to fictitional imagery (me fail english... ;-)

        Lets expose kids (in a safe way) to the consequences of real world violence. Take them to an ER, or a community center for victims. Let them volunteer some of their free time helping others.

        It's a parent's work to protect their children, but excesive sheltering is a disservice to them and perhaps to t
    • Not safer, more cowardly. Too chicken-hearted to stand up to the ignorant(school administrators) and the greedy (lawyers). Schools are now teaching kids to be cowards. How long can a nation survive the consequences of that?
    • The school is protecting themselves from possible litigation and some possible embarassment.

      We're not talking about a huge city like New York City, San Francisco or Los Angeles where you can't say the word 'God' without offending 5 different religions. This is Puyallup, Washington. Not a large, metropolis where no one knows your name and no one cares enough to bother knowing your name. Just look at the article :

      But the boys remind us that the district canceled Halloween celebrations because they were ins

      • Wiccan religion?! Comon! There are probably more Buddists in the city of LA than there are Wiccans in Washington state!

        For what it's worth, in the Seattle suburbs students practicing 'alternative religions' make up a larger piece of the student body than you might expect. Perhaps 2-5% of the student body at my highschool was "out of the broom closet" and openly Pagan, most of those Wiccan.

  • He's on the line (Score:2, Insightful)

    by czarangelus ( 805501 )
    I know this isn't going to be the most popular opinion, but I sort of feel sorry for the school district here. I mean, imagine if they did allow this and a parent complained, and you know one would. In a society that values censorship over responsibility, these people just did what they needed to to keep their jobs. As asinine as it seems, the district people were taking the safest route for all involved, politically. One more thing- imagine that a week later some nutball came to school and started shootin
    • Mr. Teacher, I really don't want MY kid hearing about that World War II thing. Its very violent and I don't want him to get any crazy ideas like marching across Europe.

      Now if you don't mind, i'll let little Johnny get back to his TV set.
    • But that's just the thing... It's all politics. Politics do not belong in our schools. We Americans need to get over ourselves and start being real people again, forget all the politically correct bullshit. Seriously... This stuff is ruining our country. Secondly, if every single parent signed a waiver, then the school has no responcibilites anyway. Also you have to think about the fact that Halo is rated M (17+), how many of those kids are old enough to play the game without their parents consent anyway?
      • I totally agree with you. However, the way things should be are very rarely the way things are.
      • "Also you have to think about the fact that Halo is rated M (17+), how many of those kids are old enough to play the game without their parents consent anyway?"

        All of them are old enough. A game rating says nothing about who is *allowed* to play.

        "Halo 2 is not really meant for children in the first place."

        Ridiculous. Halo/Halo2 are written and intended for exactly those age groups in high school. The fact that it has an M-whatever rating is solely because the manufacturers and stores need to cover *th

  • A Call from the ACLU May Fix This (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Doug Dante ( 22218 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @10:51AM (#11455932)
    While getting a bad rap for taking on the boy scouts, the ACLU is probably the most useful defender of students' rights in America (defending students rights to wear black arm bands, publish independent student papers, etc).

    IIRC, it's their legal position that student organizations all have an equal right to school facilities (yup even the Boy Scouts - just no 'special rights').

    You may want to contact them via their students' rights web site at ACLU student rights [aclu.org]

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • It's funny, but I don't remember anything about an inalienable right to run Halo 2 tournaments at school. I mean, video games are chock full of amazing educational lessons (aliens bad, guns good), but I can find many reasons to not let people play games in school. Even if it's not a question of violence. Just host the tournament somwhere else. I'm close to Puyallup: host it at my house.

    • The real answer to this is in the last sentence of the article. The school system says they'll support the fundraiser if a less violent video game is played. The decision doesn't deny any students access, it regulates what they can do in the building. The normal school day is full of this kind of regulation.

  • I had to read the Red Badge of Courage in 9th grade. However, I didn't feel the need to shoot southerners immediatly after finishing the book.

  • Rated M for Mature (Score:5, Insightful)

    by CoreyGH ( 246060 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @10:59AM (#11456023) Homepage
    Halo 2 has an ESRB rating of M (17+). Most of the kids in highschool do not fit into that category. If they wanted to have a Mario Party tournament then I would understand people being upset over it being canceled but we have to face facts. Halo 2 is not for kids.

    • An M rating shouldn't be the concern of the school if the parents don't object. There's no science behind these letters, beyond anthropology/sociology. They're less significant, I'd say, than the 'For ages 7-10' one find on non-computerised game boxes.

      • An M rating shouldn't be the concern of the school if the parents don't object.

        Yes it should. Little Timmy's parents may sign off on letting him watch porno, but that still doesn't mean that it's appropriate for school.
      • There's no science behind these letters, beyond anthropology/sociology.

        That may be true, however that doesn't change the fact that it's the only ratings system we have. When we have arguments on why these types of games shouldn't be banned from store shelves everyone always shouts "But look, we have a RATING system!" We can't now call that system useless in this situation. You can't have it both ways.
    • Doesn't matter if it's Mario Party or Manhunt. Parents of all kids said they recognize the violence in this game and allow their children to participate. Ratings are only there to give parents an idea of what is in the game, nothing more. Case closed.
      • If the school district is supporting the fund raiser then it isn't the parents' call. The school district is responsable for kids, Halo 2 is not for kids so district pulls its support for the event. If they parents and kids want to hold their own tournament that isn't supported by the district then they are welcome to.
    • Well, gotta agree on this one. While I don't believe that playing violent video games breeds violent people any more than any other popular media, at least there isn't any solid proof of that yet, there was no way a high school based Halo 2 tournament was going to fly. Even if all of the participants happened to be 17+ and had parental permission and endorsement, our schools have become hypersensitized , especially since the Columbine tragedy. This isn't necessarily a bad thing. If the students still want t
  • Instead of the school admin worrying that this might lead to school shootings, maybe they should examine the other side of the spectrum. Perhaps, just perhaps, letting these teens take out some frustrations on some virtual characters in some game will help alleviate some stress.

    I know I always feel better when I riddle some poor nameless sod with a few hundred rounds from my MG3 in Ghost Recon...
  • At my school, we have a club that meets every wednesday to play Unreal Tournament on school computers. The administration allows it, and we aren't even as noble as these guys who were working for tsunami releif.

    What some people do in the name of "zero tolerence"...

  • This is horrible... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TJ_Phazerhacki ( 520002 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @11:40AM (#11456573) Journal
    Back in the day (wow - that sounds corny), we managed to bring in an external drive with UT:GOTYE and "forgot" to leave it plugged into the network. Great times, UT'ing during open lab at lunch. The best part was when a few of the male teachers found out, and "Annonomously" joind games during their breaks.

    It had little effect on productivity, grades didn't change, and we were using otherwise unnocupied resources. And I don't need to tell you the effect it had on morale...

    Few months later, in the next semester, we had some county people in the school. One of them was checking email in the lab. Someone else walked in and booted up UT.

    Not only did we recieve a ridiculous lecture (understand, we are 15 mins from Columbine, maybe 18mos later) but there were suspensions, the lab tech was reprimanded (later left the system - now makes twice the $$ dev'ing software!) And we made the district newsletter.

    Schools over-react to everything, because by default, the only people in district management are the ones who think there is something intrensically wrong with the way the system is run - they do not understand logic - They comprehend only liability.

  • Students at a school go on a shooting spree when officials told them that they couldn't play Halo 2 for a good cause.

    Idiots
  • but not for tsunami relief. My English 10 class ended up bringing in two X-Boxes, 8 controllers and 2 copies of Halo 2. I brought in a crossover cable and we used school projectors. Teacher sanctioned it and maybe five teachers knew about the whole thing. We had a blast, and nobody was the wiser that would have caused us to shut down.

  • Understandable (Score:3, Interesting)

    by g0bshiTe ( 596213 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @11:50AM (#11456677)
    I completely understand and agree with teh schools stance. Should anything have happened after the event, months or even years, you could bet that some parents group somewhere would have held the school liable for it.

    I also think that the students should be commended for wanting to do something to aid the victims of this disaster. It proves that their generation isn't as disenfranchised as we are lead to believe.

    Good job gamers!
  • I agree that it's stupid that they have to turn this kind of thing down. But I would do the same thing given today's society. If someone playing the games shot someone later, you know the district could get sued because they "promoted violence" and probably win. Not because it's true, but because we live in a "blame others first" society. It wouldn't be worth it to me to take the risk. Stupid society.

  • What this really teaches us... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Black Art ( 3335 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @12:24PM (#11457179)
    This is only one small part of a much bigger problem.

    American students are not taught how to distinguish fantasy from reality.

    This has been going on for at least one generation, maybe more, depending on what criteria you use.

    This is why Americans are not allowed to see real phone numbers in fictional movies. If they do, people call the numbers trying to reach the fictional characters. (A film that had a story about God helping people had a real number in it and the people who happened to have that number were swamped by people trying to contact God.)

    Some people say our last election was an example of people who cannot tell fantasy from reality.

    Some of the people who want to protect us from real violence seem to believe that fantasy violence either causes it or encourages real violence when the statistics show no such correleation. Just because they cannot tell the difference does not mean that others do not.

    I can give other examples...

    I doubt that this problem will be solved soon. Too many parts of American culture derive their power from the confusion of fantasy and reality for their to be any real incentive to change.
    • Actually the phone number bit is more an issue of pranksterism than failure of fantasy distinguishment.

      KLonkdike 5 numbers, the predecessors to our "555-01xx" (usually implemented liberally as "555-xxxx" ), were in the movies over fifty years ago for this reason.
    • "Too many parts of American culture derive their power from the confusion of fantasy and reality for their to be any real incentive to change."

      And I'm sure reality TV doesn't fuel that fire in the least bit.

  • Why have I not heard of all these school shootings? I cannot recall hearing of even one last year!

  • and here WA was on a good role maintaining it's stature as one of the more intelligent states. Oh well, Puyallup's not really known for its worldliness.
    • Actually, your massive election recounts had already begun to chip away at it. We Californians will drag you down yet.

      Actually, I lived in Puyallup for a while, so it's pretty crazy hearing that the high school I almost went to was where this was going to happen.
  • They should just have an Animal Crossing tourney instead! That would rock!

    "TAKE THAT ASSHOLE, I just got the Purple Flower Stationary! BUUYAH!"
  • This is the same school district that cancelled halloween this year. And they did it to avoid offending Wiccans. An independant survey of Wiccans in the area didn't reveal any who would have been offended.

    http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,136946,00.ht ml

    This is an issue on which Republicans and Democrats should be able to agree. What we have here is a group of school administrators so extremely left wing and paranoid that they'll cancel just about anything.

    • Here's [komotv.com] a better story on the issue you cite.

      I'm not sure where you got the information about an independent survey ... it's contradicted in the article. And the other reasons for the cancellation are also covered in this story.

      • That was the quote from my article...

        A real-life witch who lives in nearby Tacoma agreed that the superintendent in Puyallup must be off his broomstick.

        "I see Halloween more as a holiday, a fun time for them. Some of us Wiccan have a deeper meaning under it, but I don't think we should take away from the kids," Wiccan Marjenna Gittings said.

        And the independent survey...
        1) I know a bunch of Wiccans
        2) Call in radio shows were unable to locate offended Wiccans, but managed to find plenty of Wiccans that *we
    • What we have here is a group of school administrators so extremely left wing and paranoid that they'll cancel just about anything.

      "left wing" =/= "dipshit", dipshit.

  • And now for extinction news. (Score:3, Funny)

    by pauldy ( 100083 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @01:36PM (#11458194) Homepage
    The newest entry into the endangered lists, common sense. While everyone has been out ranting and raving about saving this animal, that plant, protecting minorities, and not hurting people's feelings we forgot to save one thing.

  • Kids, we can't do anything that looks like we endorse violence. So no video games.

    Now, get your football helmets on, get out there, and you POUND that other team into the GROUND! GO TEAM GO!

  • The school's right. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by phouka ( 224269 ) on Monday January 24, 2005 @02:49PM (#11459335)
    I'm guessing that a high percentage of the folks here condemning the school don't own homes.

    Why? Because homeowners go through this sort of painful deliberation regularly.

    I live in a cul-de-sac and my yard happens to be the recipient of all the snow for the entire street. For a kid, it presents awesome potential for king-of-the-hill, snowball fights, digging tunnels, etc. It's truly a massive amount of snow.

    But can I really let the neighborhood kids play in it? No way. The second one of them got hurt, it's MY homeowner's policy on the line. It's MY insurance that's going to not get renewed, forcing me to double my cost for homeowner's insurance when I have to resort to the state 'pool'. In other words, if I want to be a nice guy I have to accept an unreasonable risk.

    The school is in the same position. You can bet that administrator and the school officials really thought what the kids were doing was cool. You can also bet that they sat back and said: "When we get sued, it's going to require resources in time and money that we *really* can't afford, given ever-tightening school budges."

    So they came to the only reasonable conclusion.

    To all these folks screaming about the state of our country, I pose this question: Are you really, honestly ready to stand up and say "I won't sue my neighbor, even if he's technically culpable"? Because until you are, people are going to be more concerned about protecting themselves than in freeing up their resources to share.
  • I wonder what you'd have to do to start an offical rifle team (or pistol team, or trap team, or any other Olympic shooting sport team) at that school?

    Have high school shooting teams become completely extinct?
  • this was a school event that was being funded by the district.

    They are well within their rights to say "no" to anything they feel is inappropriate. Just because the parents signed the waivers wouldn't really solve anything.

    And apparently, as far as I can see, they didn't clear WHICH game they would be playing with the board. Just switch the fucking game. Jesus.
  • " Puyallup School District felt that due to school shootings across the country".

    I did a check and found 29 shootings in 10 years. Okay maybe they have a point... But maybe if teens could not get a hold of guns... Naw guns do not kill people video games do? Okay this is just too strange. I give up schools can prevent a wacked out teen from getting a gun from his "parents, uncle, or friend" and shooting up the school by banning violent video games.

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