THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. – News reports of frosted pop tart guns!  Paper guns!  Bubble guns!  Pointed finger guns!  Bang, bang, you’re dead!  OMG!

These days, everything’s a federal offense, so to speak, and no institution is ratcheting up the war-of-words like public education.

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This winter, public school administrators in Thousand Oaks, CA attended a “safe school” and “threat assessment” workshop, a collaboration of the local  Ventura County Department of Education and the Ventura County Sheriffs where the education code was redefined to include a 21st Century list of words, phrases and expressions that can hurt.  Literally.

Yes, the authorities have declared war on idiomatic classics like “I’ll get you,” “watch it” and “Don’t make me come up there.”  All veiled threats.  Perceived implied meaning of potential danger. But wait, then there’s “kill.”

Saying any form of the word “kill” on public school property is contraband and when overheard, it is the duty of every responsible child and adult within “earshot” to run directly to the proper administrative authorities and anonymously report this violation.  Hard to be anonymous, though, when the proper authority’s the one handing the kid the complaint form.

And it doesn’t matter that your child didn’t say the dastardly word, was daydreaming or oblivious of the violation, whatever it may be.  If she or he is in the group with the person who said or did the infraction d’jour, she or he is as good as guilty because she or he didn’t report the renegade word to the proper authority.  This is no joke.  The documentation cites the Secret Service’s “failure to act” credo as implied “permission to proceed.”  The Secret Service?  In the classroom?

Okay, so you spilled.  You turned in little Johnny for his pencil drawing of a rifle on lined notebook paper.  What’s the “upshot”?  A first warning to the entire little Johnny family.  But you must report the incident to an “appropriate” school official.  This is a principal, counselor, or mental health staffer.  Not the teacher.  This official will address the infraction and inform the family of the education policy.  Little Johnny’s parents  are then asked, “Do you have firearms in the home?”

Don’t let it happen again, though.  There is no second warning.  Just a write up and a search of your home by law enforcement.

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So, boys and girls, welcome to the “no humor” zone and if you are not in California, don’t worry, it’s already in the politically correct school district near you!  You are now living in a world where you won’t be “killing anyone with kindness,” “killing time,” “killing the goose that laid the golden egg,” or “killing two birds with one stone.”

Moms, you won’t leave the house “dressed to kill” and no “Killing Me Softly” retro mixes on the radio.  No “road kill” either and don’t even think about having a look that could “kill.” Dads, you’ll need to find a better way to describe dreaded honey-do chores because you won’t be saying “I’ll do it even if it kills me.”   At the office, political power plays will no longer be described as  moving in for the “kill” and you won’t be making a “killing” in the stock market.  Oh, and somebody, please call “Sit and Sleep.”  We’ll have no more of that “you’re killing me, Larry!”

While we’re on this semantic rampage, it’s about time we come up with a better name for the popular beverage “punch”!  And don’t you think it’s about time to institutionalize grandpa when he says, “I shot myself in the foot” or ship the teenager off to juvenile hall when he “jumps the gun” or tries to “bite the bullet” to all jerky adolescent behavior?

You know, I just may report my surgeon because I’m going “under the knife.”  And isn’t it about time to  report Santa Claus for coming to town because when you think about it, “you better watch out” may be a veiled threat?

Let me ask, when someone has “shot down your idea” or “killed the lights” should they be arrested? When you walk around like a “ticking time bomb,” “blow up” emotionally, or argue intently with both “barrels loaded” are you now a terrorist?

And what’s to do with all those toddlers and their newly redefined questionable “meltdowns”?   Is it now our civic duty to file charges when someone “jumps down your throat,” “pulls your leg,” “knocks your socks off,” “drops a bomb on your head” or “chews you out?”  Do we send a stand-up comic who “bombs” onstage to Gitmo?  And, me-oh-my, what to do about something called the parent “trigger” law!   It becomes overwhelming to think about all these words!  Sometimes it feels like my head will “explode.”  Oh, “shoot”… can’t say that no more either.

We must remember that the American lexicon is laced with rich, juicy idioms, phrases that string together a lot of out-of-context words mumbled and jumbled to connote meaning… but they are merely words, a lot of sound and no fury that signify one thing: if we allow ourselves to be sucked up into this insanity we will find ourselves being “driven up the wall” with ultimately “no leg to stand on” as the rug continues to be pulled out from underneath mere idioms and expression.

This is what’s happening. This is exactly what Mrs. Obama promised of her husband in May, 2008 in his first bid for the presidency when she said, “Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices; we are going to have to change our conversation; we’re going to have to change our traditions, our history; we’re going to have to move into a different place as a nation.”

How do you change the conversation?  Change the words.  How do we change our traditions?  Change their meanings of those words.

Don’t like this?  Then, sound the alarms but please, don’t “shoot” the messenger.