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LACEY - Hundreds of gun rights advocates crowded a Lacey Township school board meeting to protest a district weapons policy they said was used to unjustly punish two students who took to social media to share a photo from a firearms training session.
The school board officials denied that any student was disciplined for violating a specific district policy on weapons, but refused to clarify whether students were disciplined for violating any other policy, citing privacy rules.
The denial notwithstanding, the Second Amendment advocates and parents insisted that students had been wronged, creating a furor that sent the story national. Fox News among other outlets picked up the story, even as advocates declined to identify the students or make them available to reporters.
Lacey mother Amanda Buron, who led the local protest, said two friends of her daughter faced five days of in-school suspension after they posted a photo on Instagram of guns. The photo purportedly was taken when the students were at firearms range. Buron said Lacey Township High School officials suspended the boys for sharing the photo.
“We were outraged, completely outraged,” Buron said to a Press reporter. Buron identified her family as gun owners and said her husband uses guns for hunting.
School Superintendent Craig Wigley said information circulated on social media about the incident was “incorrect," and noted that school officials were unable to talk about it because of the students' privacy rights.
Wigley and school board attorney Chris Supsie said the school’s weapons policy was not invoked, and no student has been disciplined under it. The superintendent added that no rights were violated but that the school district's weapons policy would be modified for clarity.
The school's Policy 5611 — now being revised by the district — called for barring students from having weapons for any reason on or off school grounds. Penalties included an evaluation by the Child Study Team and a recommendation that a student be suspended from school for at least one year, according to the association.
That policy has come under scrutiny by gun-rights supporters, who said the district violated the First and Second Amendment rights of students who lawfully use guns.
“My son is a skilled marksman” and competitive shooter in firearms sports, said Martin Naughton, a Lacey resident and member of the National Rifle Association.
Naughton worried that under the school's policy, his own son could also face discipline.
“They’re putting their agenda on my kids and it’s not their place to do so,” he said.
Lacey resident John Amoroso, a father of two children in the district, said school officials were "overreaching."
"Sometimes politically correct is not law-abiding," he said.
Related: Gun-rights advocates push Lacey high school to amend weapons policy
Supsie, the board attorney, said the policy was designed to align with the U.S. Secret Service Safe School Initiative, which was designed to prevent school attacks in the wake of the Columbine Massacre of 1999.
The policy also follows New Jersey's Zero Tolerance for Guns Act, he said.
Prompted by the controversy, Supsie said, the district's policy is being clarified so that it would apply to a student who performed a criminal activity, even off-campus, using a firearm; was found to possess an illegal firearm; or brought any firearm onto school property or a school bus. It would not apply to a student lawfully possessing and using a firearm off school property.
The controversy comes little more than a month since a gunman killed 17 people at a high school in Parkland, Florida, reigniting debate over gun control and fears over school safety. Last week, students across New Jersey and the nation held events remembering the Parkland slayings and advocating for more gun controls.
The narrative from Monday night's meeting at the district high school struck a different chord.
School board President Robert C. Klaus II said the board was not anti-gun, and noted that he and other board members are members of the National Rifle Association.
The school district has drawn criticism from numerous Second Amendment proponents, including the Association of New Jersey Rifle and Pistol Clubs and the New Jersey Second Amendment Society. Both groups sent representatives to Monday's meeting.
Daniel L. Schmutter, an attorney who represents the association of gun clubs, said he sees a pattern that violates students' First Amendment rights. For example, one Lacey student was forced to remove a sticker depicting a gun from his vehicle, said Schmutter and the student's father.
"We became very concerned that there appears to be a pervasive atmosphere of a suppression of speech here," said Schmutter.
The association threatened to sue the district if it did not rescind discipline of the two students they said posted the gun picture to social media as well as clear their records of the incident.
The association also demanded the district issue a formal apology to the students and their families. The group's demand that the district rewrite the weapons policy is already underway by school officials.
The school officials, responding to pleas from the New Jersey Second Amendment Society, told the audience that they would support student training in firearms at a local range.
Regina Discenza, a former member of the school board, was one of the few to object.
"I believe in all our constitutional rights; however, I also believe that 4,000 kids in this district should be able to attend school without worry," she said.
"I personally have no fear of guns," she added. "I just know there is a time and a place for such things, and school is no such place. In light of what just happened in Parkland, Florida, how can anyone say our administration did not do the right thing?"
The school is denying that it was for violating a weapons policy. yeah right.
