It hurts less if you're shot by a minor...

In today's Review Journal, we read abour Gerald Davison pleading guilty to first degree murder. Davison is 17 years old. This come on the heels of an article in Las Vegas City Life detailing our County's reluctance to allow youth probation officers the right to organize.

I was a substitute teacher for a while. A few times I taught kids that had been kicked out of regular school either for drugs or violence. The school had metal detectors and officers "wanded" all the kids before they got to the class room. The teacher I was in for had the classroom set up in such a way that her desk was part of a barricade, along with a television stand, a bookshelf and two overturned tables. She also left explicit instructions not to allow pencil shapeners, as the children would attempt to use them as weapons.

These are the kids that got kicked out of school and are trying to come back. You think the ones on probation are better or worse? I won't make a blanket statement, but you can guess which way I'm leaning.

Now, Ron Newman and his fellow juvenile probation officers want to organize so they can get things like bullet-proof vests and extendable batons. My feelings on unions aside, it seems like the County should think ahead a little.

Do you send a construction worker on a jobsite without a hard hat? You ever seen a lion tamer without a whip and a chair? It seems to me that some kevlar should be standard for the work environment when you're talking about the guys who go out and round up gun toting children.