First Grader Suspended for Making Gun Gesture

Last month a 6-year-old boy from Silver Spring, Maryland was suspended for playing with a handgun at school...but not the kind you might think. He didn't bring a pistol to his classroom, and he wasn’t showing off a revolver on the playground.

First grader Rodney Lynch made a gun gesture with his fingers, pointed it at a fellow student, and said “pow.” The Montgomery County School District categorized the boy’s behavior as a threat “to shoot a student,” and he received a day’s suspension.  

Lynch’s parents are now fighting the disciplinary action, hoping to expunge their son’s record.

PLUS: Should School Staff Carry Guns?

"His record says suspended for 'threatening to shoot a student' and that's a lie,” said family attorney Robin Ficker. "He wasn't threatening a student, he's never been around a gun, he doesn't know what a gun is, he doesn't know what killing anyone is, he had no intent to harm anyone."

According to ABC News, Lynch’s parents received a letter from the vice principal of the elementary school regarding the incident. The document said their son had been reprimanded three times on December 20 for pretending his fingers were weapons. After the third action, he was suspended.

"I don't think the punishment fits the crime," mother Jeannie Lynch told ABC News affiliate WJLA.

Rodney was back in school on Wednesday, and school officials are currently considering the family’s appeal.

On the heels of the Sandy Hook shooting, educators are hypersensitive to the threat of school violence, but do you think the Montgomery County School District went too far? Leave a comment.