A veteran’s group in Wisconsin has been forced to move their traditional Veteran’s Day ceremonies from a local public school to a Burger King because school officials are concerned that the ceremony — which includes a traditional 21 gun salute — uses guns.
As reported in the Week , the Eau Claire School District made the decision in late October to ban the Veteran’s Day ceremony over the 21 gun salute. Parents and students reported feeling “uneasy” about the prospect of guns being fired on campus.
However, as the Iowa Firearms Coalition points out , the bullets fired in a 21 gun salute are blanks, and the guns have been mechanically altered so as not to be able to fire a real bullet. But Tim Libham, the Executive Director of Administration for the Eau Claire School District, felt that firing guns on a public school campus sent the wrong message.
“There are just some conditions that we have to adhere to and the shooting of guns, even with blanks, is something we don’t feel is appropriate given society, and the concerns that we have and that the community has, on school premises.”
Kaye Olsen, the Vice President of the Eau Claire Patriotic Council (the veterans’ group that performs the traditional 21 gun salute ceremony), said that her organization has been performing the ceremony for some 80 years.
“It’s really hard to tell the veterans they’re not allowed to bring those rifles in… the only purpose is to honor our flag and our country and teach the kids.”
The Eau Claire School District, however, refused to budge when it came to guns.
“I was hoping maybe we could find a compromise, but when it comes to the weapons, there was no compromise.”
The decision to ban the Veteran’s Day 21 gun salute comes as gun violence occurs on a staggeringly-frequent basis in the nation’s public schools. Most recently, a school shooter attacked his school in Marysville, Washington, killing four other students and himself, according to this Inquisitr report.
For reasons that are not clear as of this post, the original news outlet that broke this story, WEAU (Eau Claire), has taken down the story — which was quoted by the Week and the Iowa Firearms Coalition — from their website.
Because the veteran’s group was banned from performing the traditional 21 gun salute on school grounds, they instead performed their ceremony earlier today in a Burger King parking lot.
[Image courtesy of U.S. Army]