Even Imagining a Gun Gets You Suspended from Florida School

Nothing is more precious–and more terribly dangerous!–than the imagination of a child. The mother of Jordan Bennett, a Florida 8-year-old suspended for a day from Harmony Community School in the Osceola County School District, is complaining to the press that her boy was suspended for a day from school (and she fears possibly branded as a violent problem child) for pretending his hand was a gun during a game of cops and robbers at school.

Orlando TV station WKMG has some video of the perturbed mom. While the school refused to comment on the specifics, it confirmed to WFTV, another local station, that their code of conduct forbids invisible (that is, nonexistent) guns.

Forbidding children's imagination from even conceiving of guns is a widespread enough practice that Texas Republican congressman Steve Stockman has proposed legislation barring federal funding from schools that punish kids for it.