Because Revere kids are pure as the driven snow, that's why

Revere Beach was inundated with class-skipping Boston teens on that wicked-hot day last week. One terrified Revere city councilor wants metal detectors at Revere Beach station because "every other teenager who got off the train had a knife or a weapon." How does he know?

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And what good would metal detectors do?

If the kids have to pass through them to get from the street INTO Revere Beach station, it's too late.

If the kids have to pass through them to get OUT OF Revere Beach station and onto the street, what are you going to do, send the kids back to Eastie?

Also, it's not an especially long walk to Wonderland station for any kid who is determined to avoid the detectors.

Ron Newman | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 2:58pm

It's not illegal to carry a knife

Not that I am for kids carrying knives, but there is no Massachusetts General Law making it illegal to carry a knife. Yes, it is against Boston Public School rules but not against the law. The ACLU would have a field day on this issue. But, why not make it against the law for a juvenile to carry a knife? What is a kid doing with a knife anyway?

operator | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:13pm

Really?

Because I seem to recall more than one blotter item about people getting charged with possession of a knife above a certain length (so Crocodile Dundee should stay the hell out of Dorchester).

adamg | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:16pm

Revere Beach isn't in Boston, right?

There's a Boston city ordinance against blades longer than 2.5" (unless you're a chef, hunter, fisherman, etc...). Revere is its own town and there is no rule on fixed blade knifes in the MGL. Switchblades, etc. longer than 1.5" are outlawed, but not if the blade is fixed.

Kaz | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:26pm

Ah!

Thanks, didn't realize it was a city-specific law.

adamg | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:31pm

Further checking

Found Revere's city ordinances online (their city website with the <blink> announcement that they were "up to date for April 2007!" was very quaint...hehe.

They enacted an equivalent ordinance to Boston's: no blade longer than 2.5".

Kaz | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:00pm

Adam, I meant "Average folding knife"

(I was just editing my post to say that as you wrote yours) That is the type of knife that these kids are carrying nowadays. Under the possession of a dangerous weapon law there are certain kinds of knives prohibited (dirks, double-edged, etc.) but I am talking about your regular run-of-the-mill folding knife. Please lets not make this post about the semantics of what I was saying. Let's just keep it to "kids" and "knives" please? Thanks.

operator | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:32pm

Sure

I wasn't spoiling for a fight, just looking for clarification (honest!).

adamg | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:32pm

thanks

Well, what do you think? Should it be illegal for kids to carry?

operator | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:33pm

Slippery slope time... what

Slippery slope time... what constitutes a knife? Will Boy Scouts be stopped on the trail and asked to throw out their knives? What about kids in shop class who carry knives for any number of reasons? I understand the knee jerk reaction but you have to be careful not to create mass hysteria.

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:27pm

+1 In the U.K. you need to

+1

In the U.K. you need to be 18+ just to buy a butterknife.

Say no to the nanny state

my_left_foot (not verified) | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:07pm

Nannystate?

In the US you have to be 21 to buy a beer!

That's way more nanny state.

SwirlyGrrl | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:28pm

ironic isn't it?

A kid can buy a knife but not a beer?

operator | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:43pm

Pocketknives

A pocketknife is a great tool for kids to have, as soon as they're taught to be responsible with it.

Alcohol, they also have to be taught to be responsible about, but that one's a lot harder to do (due to progressive judgment impairment and peer pressure, I think), with less benefit than a pocketknife.

Teach them responsibility about both, but one being allowed to buy a pocketknife before one is allowed to buy a beer does not seem ironic to me.

neilv | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 5:04pm

+2 and they can have pot

+2

and they can have pot (although I'm not sure of the details of underage kids w/ pot)

Beer, pot and knives. Sounds like a party to me

my_left_foot (not verified) | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 7:01pm

A Boston politician?

A Boston politician? Racist? NAAAAAHHHHH!!!

anon (not verified) | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:20pm

Did you even read the post?

It was not a Boston politician. It was a Revere politician.

Neal | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 3:39pm

Townyist

I think it would be a tad difficult to distinguish between Revere youth and Boston youth with regard to race.

I think this is townyism: the belief that anybody from "outside" your small rural town town lines must be evile and bent on doing bad things to the very good people that live in your particular lake woebegone town, isolated as it may be from the bad rest of the world by thin borders and the occasional marshland.

SwirlyGrrl | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:26pm

With all due respect if the

With all due respect if the kids did truely cause as much chaos as they did then it would impossible for the Revere youths to have done it on their own. Revere is a city of less then 50,000 so to get that many kids to skip school and head to Revere Beach would require 100 percent participation rates, plus the admins would be suspicious when the students were missing.

I would disagree on distinguishing between Revere and Boston on race. Revere is a majority Italian/Cambodian city a mix of spanish and other european influences for the most part. Its a different racial set up then Boston, or even East Boston... not that that means anything, it just is true that the racial makeup is not at all similar.

ShadyMilkMan | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:30pm

Meh, same difference,

Meh, same difference, effectively speaking.

anon (not verified) | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 9:01pm

Y'all missed the obligatory "hypodermic needles" reference

Speaking of the crapfest of righteous indignation this has triggered, I love this line:

“I walk the beach every morning and afternoon, and I see a lot of the garbage that’s left behind late at night - the whiskey bottles and hypodermic needles in the sand,” Cuoco said.

... cuz I do no believe it... unless those needles washed up from some clandestine hospital disposal operation. I mean, for starters, needles need people. People, being pretty large, are not so hard to spot, even at night, and should be even easier to spot since Cuoco probably walks the same route every day. Now, I'd expect that people who'd just shot up with (whatever injectable drug) would be pretty slow-moving if not just collapsed in the sand.

So, we've got a target that is large, slow-moving if moving at all, and in the same place every single night.

Yo, Joseph Cuoco, you alarmist storyteller... call that beacon of devoted Community Service, the Revere PD, eh? or.... were you making it all up, because you once picked up a beer bottle from the sand and then, over time, the story grew out of even you control?

zbert | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 4:57pm
independentminded (not verified) | Mon, 05/04/2009 - 6:38pm

They're actually very well organized

One terrified Revere city councilor wants metal detectors at Revere Beach station because "every other teenager who got off the train had a knife or a weapon." How does he know?

They're actually very well organized and line up that way, so the councilor can tick them off as they go by: armed, unarmed, armed, unarmed, armed, unarmed, has an LED sign...

Spatch | Tue, 05/05/2009 - 7:18am

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