2 Virginia Elementary Students Suspended For Pointing Pencils As If They Were Guns

Two Virginia Elementary school students have been suspended for two days for allegedly pointing pencils as if they were guns and uttering shooting noises. Second graders in the city of Suffolk, Va., just outside of Norfolk, were removed from their class for two days because they reportedly infringed on the "zero-tolerance" weapons policy at Driver Elementary School.

Paul Marshall, the father of one of the boys, Christopher Marshall, said his son told him that he and a friend were simply sharing a childish moment. "He said, 'well I was being a Marine, and the other guy was being a bad guy'," Marshall said, recounting his son's explanation to the AP.

A school district spokeswoman said the boys' pencil gun-pointing was a sign of times changing for the worse, "Kids don't think about 'Cowboys & Indians' anymore. They think about drive-by shootings and murders..." Bethanne Bradshaw said in-part. She later explained that the Suffolk school system's policy is geared to keep students from engaging in "any form of violence," including what she called "violent play".

"Enough is enough, I see it as the tail wagging the dog," Marshall, a former Marine himself, responded, to the AP.

Liberty News offered a commentary on the incident, saying that Suffolk's policy would translate to the ability for children to bring weapons (pencils) into class every day. "Literally anything that can be pointed at someone while making a gun sound [is a weapon as] determined by the district," the site's Eric Odom wrote.