A Parkland, FL high school student, survivor of the February 14 shooting that killed 17 people, and vocal pro-gun activist was questioned extensively by school security after going to a shooting range with his father.
Kyle Kashuv, 16, said he was called out of class at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Monday to speak to a school resource officer and a Broward Sheriff’s deputy about a recent tweet he had posted. In the tweet, Kashuv talks about his first time at a gun range, and the importance of the Second Amendment.
It was great learning about our inalienable right of #2A and how to properly use a gun. This was my first time ever touching a gun and it made me appreciate the #Constitution even more. My instructor was very informative; I learnt a lot. #2A is important and we need 2 preserve 2A pic.twitter.com/4rcOZbpl88
— Kyle Kashuv (@KyleKashuv) April 21, 2018
The teen said the officers drilled him about the tweet, why he went to a gun range, and everything else. He said he felt very uncomfortable during the interview. In a note to the Daily Wire, Kashuv explained the events:
Near the end of third period, my teacher got a call from the office saying I need to go down and see a Mr. Greenleaf. I didn’t know Mr. Greenleaf, but it turned out that he was an armed school resource officer. I went down and found him, and he escorted me to his office. Then a second security officer walked in and sat behind me. Both began questioning me intensely. First, they began berating my tweet, although neither of them had read it; then they began aggressively asking questions about who I went to the range with, whose gun we used, about my father, etc. They were incredibly condescending and rude.
Did you catch the part where Kashuv said the resource officer was armed? He asked if he could record the conversation, but was told no. He asked what he had done wrong and was told “nothing.” The teen did not have a parent or legal guardian with him during the questioning, and some of the Twitter commenters suggested his Constitutional rights had been infringed upon.
They continued to question me aggressively, though they could cite nothing I had done wrong. They kept calling me “the pro-Second Amendment kid.” I was shocked and honestly, scared. It definitely felt like they were attempting to intimidate me.
I was treated like a criminal for no reason other than having gone to the gun range and posted on social media about it.
Kashuv has been very active in promoting Second Amendment rights, as Liberty Nation’s Leesa Donner reported. And the brave young man has taken a lot of heat from the left for his views. Several of his schoolmates made their opinions known on his Twitter feed, claiming his tweet and images of him shooting an AR-15 was insensitive to the victims and survivors.
But that’s not even the worst of it, if Daily Wire’s teenage source is reliable. According to The Wire, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School said history teacher Greg Pittman compared Kashuv to Hitler in a 10-minute tirade to his seventh period class.
Kashuv and Pittman have been locked in a tweeting battle over the Constitution and, most recently, the teen’s action of posting a picture and videos of his time at the gun range (with his supportive father) on Twitter. Pittman publicly states that “Kyle only did it for attention” and claimed the intervention of officers was perfectly legal and justified. However, Kashuv argued being taken to a locked room without a parent or legal guardian and the derogatory discussion of his political beliefs was illegal.
While it may be insensitive to some to post shooting an AR-15 after such a tragic event, it is still within the teen’s rights to do so. It is doubtful his intention was to hurt or cause others any grief. Kashuv is only 16, but very passionate about supporting the Second Amendment. He and his father went on the outing together and he was excited to share the experience with others – as most any other teen (and even some adults) would have likely done as well. For a teacher to call him out so openly and condescendingly is beyond intolerable. For the school to allow the teen to be interrogated so fiercely is shameful, and probably illegal.
But the disgusting treatment he’s been receiving hasn’t daunted him. Kashuv’s passion and commitment to his cause is only growing stronger. The more the left complains, the more this teen fights back.
