Yeah our millennial era zero tolerance horseshit was such garbage. I saw kids get suspended because they got punched. That kinda injustice was asking for kids to snap, when in reality kids should have been given a firm handshake for defending themselves.

In the age of zero tolerance, my son discovered that the school security will respond to fights, but not punches.

He had someone bullying him in high school, making fun of him for having a big nose. Told the guy he was done, and didn't want to hear it anymore, and said if he said one more thing, there'd be trouble.

The guy opened his mouth again, my son stood up, punched him in the face, and sat back down. There was a security guard walking by at the time, and he saw it, and just kept walking.

I've felt my son's punches in karate class, so my first reaction when he told me about it was to ask if I should prepare for a visit from the police, but he said he pulled the punch.

No one ever said anything about his nose again.

It amazed me that anyone would ever consider bullying him. 6'5" tall, solid muscle, about 12 years of Karate classes. It seemed like bullying him would be obviously suicidal, but he is a good kid who didn't want to hurt anyone, so bullies irrationally thought he was an easy target.

I think you're right. I grew up right before that... got bullied a lot until about 6th grade. Got into fights at the bus stop probably once every two weeks or so. Got beat up pretty bad when we had deep snow one time.

Once I got home, I got a knife and a bat and went over to his house where he was outside with a neighbor. I chased that SOB around with a steak knife and a bat until he ran out of breath... didn't hit him when he started crying and begging me not to hurt him; but I sure instilled the fear of god in him.

He's a Baltimore city police officer last I heard.

That policy lead to a LOT of abuse from the staff at my sped-ed school as-well. "You looked at me funny? Calls timeout staff to drag you by each of your limbs to the carpeted room"

My high school in the latter half of the 90's tried zero tolerance... briefly. Fighting got worse under the policy, cuz us kids figured if we're gonna catch a suspension, might as well earn it.

i didn't fight back and i still got suspended because he scraped his elbows when he was beating the fuck out of me. then i got grounded for being suspended, and grounded more for 'lying to try to get out of it'. 'zero tolerance' was some fucking bullshit.

And the people responsible for that were thr columbine shooters, who were actually remarkably aggressive bullies themselves and not the victims people make them out to be.