It started way before Common Core. The school shootings of the late 1980s and early 1990s caused legislatures to pass Zero Tolerance and school safety laws. I still remember the day that the superintendent came to speak to the student body and inform them that knives were no longer allowed under zero tolerance. As soon as he said it, half my students started pointing at me. I smiled and reached into my pocket and handed him my knife. He looked at it, smiled and handed it back to me.
For the first twenty or so years that I taught, I normally had a firearm in my vehicle on school grounds. There was no time to go home from work and get my hunting gear if I wanted to hunt that afternoon. Suddenly it was a felony and I would lose my job if caught.
