Honestly, Jonathan, I think it's an outgrowth of a societal issue that is much bigger than the schools. As a teacher, I see way too many kids and teens who have no sense of personal responsibility, because they have not learned responsibility from their parents - and it is now multi-generational. We live in a society where blaming everyone but oneself is a national pasttime - look at the mess clogging our legal system, the ads for personal injury attorneys, the class-action lawsuits for medicines proven to be harmful too late, lawsuits against McDonald's for "making people fat" - all the ways people are encouraged to blame those around them for the ills of their lives - all of this is part of a bigger societal issue: if you don't like something, get together a big enough group of of people, and get a law passed against is; if you're a legislator, and your constituents - especially the noisy ones - don't like something, pass a law against it; if something happens that you don't like and don't know how to fix, pass a law against it... if you can't pass a law, file a suit... the fact that many of these laws are unenforceable, and many of the lawsuits cost more than people involved will get (except for the attorneys) doesn't stop anyone, because they see it as action, when it is really a knee-jerk reaction that has little or no effect, and often backfires more than it works as intended.
To get back more directly to schools - I agree. There was a case in Colorado (well before Columbine, I might add), shortly after the "zero tolerance" for weapons law had been passed, about a 3rd grade girl who got to the school cafeteria and found that she had her mother's lunch instead of her own - and inside the bag was a paring knife her mother had packed to cut up an apple. The student took the knife to a teacher and asked what she should do with it - the teacher took it, and went to ask the principal, who, reluctantly and with a great deal of distaste for the law he had to uphold, had no choice but to expel the girl - who had done exactly as she should have - for bringing a weapon to school. To have not done so would have cost his job. To his credit, he did the best he could - because the law requires expulsion, which, in Colorado, cannot exceed a year's time, but doesn't have a minimum - so he expelled the girl for one day, to meet the requirements of the law while attempting to not punish her unduly for something that was truly not her fault. Nonetheless, the child went through all her elementary and secondary schooling with an expulsion on her record, her parents filed suit against the school (and rightfully so, in this case)... but the law continues to state that anything that even looks like a weapon be treated as if it really were one.
On the other hand, I work in a middle school where students have brought guns, knives, drugs, or alcholol to school - and when their parents are contacted, they blame the child's actions on anything but themselves... "well, he knows better, so he earns what he got... wait, what do you mean, expelled - you mean I have to keep him at home!?!?! But that's not fair to me!" or "but you just don't understand my child - s/he just wants attention" or "how dare you blame my child for starting that fight, just because the security camera shows him deliberately bumping into the kid who hit him" (and the only thing sadder, to me, than needing security cameras in schools is needing them in places of worship). And on and on and on...
Are new laws the answer? No - although enforcing the existing laws instead of passing ever-more restrictive and unenforceable laws might be a place to start. But nothing will work until society decides to change itself and its attitudes from within, rather than trying to control the behavior of others from without.
