Two Virginia second graders were suspended from school last Friday, after the boys were playing a game in which they pretended pencils were guns. 

According to WNEW-TV, the kids were called out for violating Suffolk school system’s zero-tolerance policy on carrying weapons.

Paul Marshall, one of the boys' fathers and a former Marine said thought the suspension was silly. He told the station, "When I asked him about it, he said, ‘We were playing good guy bad guy.  I was the good guy. It's as as simple as that."

Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw was unapologetic, saying a pencil is considered a weapon when it's pointed, and accompanied by gun noises. She went on to say - "Kids don’t think about "Cowboys and Indians" anymore,"  "They think about drive-by shootings and murders and everything they see on television news every day."

Long gone are the days when you could do just about anything in school. Can you imagine if there had been a policy in place back in the day when lets say a certain war was going on in the 60's?  If there had been rules about no playing war or drawing pictures of war (planes dropping bombs, tanks shooting etc.) I would have been expelled.

But Suffolk Public Schools spokeswoman Bethanne Bradshaw the policy has been in place for at least two decades and it will not change nor go away anytime soon. Marshall, a former Marine, said he believes school officials overreacted.

What do you think?  Overreaction or safety minded?

 

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