After some 49 years of observation, I’ve come to the conclusion that history doesn’t flow in cycles.

It swings like a pendulum.

Many of us are familiar with the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis and synthesis. That is, if you control both the initial action and resulting reaction, you can arrive at the desired middle ground and guide society accordingly.

About a year ago, we got a welcome reprieve from the recurring rapid-fire reports of school shootings that left children maimed and dead from one end of America to the other.

Of course, the most famous incident of such classroom carnage was at Columbine High School in Colorado, where two gay, "Goth" teens vented their frustrations on Christian classmates and others atop their "hit list." When the smoke cleared, the sadistic shooters were left as lifeless as their victims.

Our nation collectively wondered, "Why?"

Rather than treating the causes of teenage hopelessness…a generation of Darwin’s children raised without hope or moral absolutes…school administrators chose instead to address the symptoms with a reactionary, knee-jerk pendulum swing.

It was called "zero tolerance." It sounded good at the time.

Signs popped up on school campuses, coast to coast, demanding zero tolerance for guns, alcohol and drugs. Suddenly, a teenager sharing a Tylenol or decongestant with a friend became a criminal. A child who drew a picture of a teacher being shot was convicted in criminal court. Kids who accidentally brought their Boy Scout knives to school in Seattle were expelled.

A young boy pointing a fish stick at a friend in the cafeteria and going "Bang" was suspended from school. Now, even the most elementary of symbolic guns, a child’s own fingers are considered taboo when they express the act of shooting.

The pendulum of schoolhouse violence has swung so far in the opposite direction that children can no longer be children. Thought and crime are one and the same.

I’m not prepared to describe this as some vast liberal plot to deprive Charlton Heston of future NRA members. Neither am I willing to ignore its potential, long-term impact, intended or otherwise, of stripping the Second Amendment from tomorrow’s Americans.

The bottom line? Let’s call the scholastic backlash of "zero tolerance" what it really is, "silly."

Just as each child is an individual, every child’s action should create its own custom-tailored response. "One size fits all" punishments don’t work with adults and they certainly won’t rehabilitate our kids.

It’s up to parents to remind our children not to hate, not to hurt others and certainly not to point real guns, loaded or otherwise, at anyone else. If we fail our kids or they fail society, justice must prevail.

But get real. I don’t want my seven-year-old’s first rap sheet entry to brand him for aiming a fish stick at a friend.

Count on it.

I’ll be first in line for a bumper sticker that reads…"When fish sticks are outlawed…only outlaws will have fish sticks."

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