America's kids have been suspended for pretending that pencils were guns, but an Ohio school may have topped that. A 10-year-old student at a Columbus elementary school was handed a three-day suspension for making a finger gun and pretending to shoot a classmate. The suspension letter more formally referred to his weapon as a "level 2 lookalike firearm," reports the Columbus Dispatch. Devonshire Alternative Elementary School's principal says students have been frequently told not to play pretend gun games, with a district rep saying kids were warned consequences would follow.
Those consequences hit hard last week for fifth-grader Nathan Entingh, who says he was "just playing around"; the rep said Nathan pretended to shoot another student "kind of execution style" in the head. And the "victim" didn't even see the mock execution, which was instead spotted by a teacher. Nathan's dad seems dumbfounded: "It would even make more sense maybe if he brought a plastic gun that looked like a real gun or something, but it was his finger." (Almost exactly a year ago, a Georgia teacher was suspended over a finger gun of his own.)