This week's outrage falls under the category of, "here we go again." A couple of seven-year-old Suffolk, Va. boys were recently suspended from school for violating their school's "weapons policy." Their violation? Pretending their pencils were guns.
Apparently, the two received the disciplinary action after they pointed their pencils at each other as if they were guns and made "gun noises" while playing in class.
You read that right. According to Bethanne Bradshaw of the Suffolk Public School system, "A pencil is a weapon when it is pointed at someone in a threatening way and gun noises are made."
Wendy Marshall, the mother of one of the boys, says they were pretending to be in the military and that neither felt threatened. Still, both were suspended.
There seems to be no end to these cases of "zero-tolerance" policies being applied with zero common sense. We recently reported on a seven-year-old Baltimore student who was suspended for two days for shaping a breakfast pastry into what his teacher thought looked like a gun. And then there was the recent case of another first-grader in Maryland who was suspended for holding his fingers in the shape of a gun and saying, "Pow!" while playing at school. Where does the ridiculousness end?
As we've noted over and over again, we all agree that we want our children to be safe at school, and that reasonable safety measures should be followed. But we must also exercise good judgment and discretion. When school administrators continue to allow zero-common sense enforcement of "zero-tolerance" regulations, we've bypassed reasonable and arrived at outrageous.
Outrage of the Week

Friday, May 10, 2013
Monday, August 1, 2022
Years after Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unilaterally imposed his “assault weapon” ban and confiscation (“buyback”), Canada’s responsible gun owners are still waiting for his government to disclose how this “buyback” will be implemented.
Monday, August 1, 2022
On Friday, after a last-minute rule change to allow its consideration, the United States House of Representatives passed H.R. 1808.
Monday, August 1, 2022
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives appears to understand that it has an image problem. According to a recent item from the Washington Times, the ATF has been handing out flyers at gun shows ...
Thursday, August 4, 2022
This week, the Boulder County Commissioners unanimously voted to pass a gun control package consisting of five ordinances to infringe on your Second Amendment rights. Commissioner Matt Jones claims these ordinances are “common-sense gun violence laws designed to ...
Thursday, January 1, 2015
CAUTION: Federal and state firearms laws are subject to frequent change. This summary is not to be considered as legal advice or a restatement of law.
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