Trapper your correct in your assesment, if you take away the parents right to dicipline a child, then remove the rights of the school teachers to dicipline a child, (I'm not talking about corporal punishment here), then what is left, the police. What should have been a stern talking to by the parents, and perhaps a detention and a bucket and sponge to clean the desk with, from the school, has been blown into a criminal offence which will harm the child, and achieve nothing. The child learns to become a victim of the state, rather than learning not to deface the property of others.
If you remove the flyswatters, all your left with is the sledgehammer.