A six-year-old Alabama boy was suspended from school and had his “permanent record” threatened for making ‘finger guns’ during a game of cops and robbers.
“They labeled my six-year-old as a potentially violent and dangerous student because he was being a little boy and playing cops and robbers with another student (who was also suspended) and using his fingers like a gun,” said the boy’s father, Jarrod Belcher, in a statement released on Friday, Sept. 8.
According to the Epoch Times, a Jefferson County Board of Education “Due Process Referral for Class III Infractions” form released by Gun Owners of America (GOA) reads that Belcher’s son was “using gun fingers to shoot at another student.”
The boy was subsequently suspended from school pending a hearing with his parents.
According to the letter, on Sept. 1, 2023, two boys were playing “cops and robbers” during recess at Bagley Elementary School.
“During the course of their play, the children reportedly extended their index fingers and thumbs and said ‘bang-bang’ at each other,” the letter reads.
The child, identified as J.B., was suspended and accused of committing a Class III infraction. This is the district’s most serious infraction. According to the Jefferson County School District’s Student Parent Handbook, Class III infractions include possession of guns or explosives, sexual battery, battery of a school district employee, and robbery, among others.
The boy would only be allowed back in school after a hearing with his parents and the district. -Epoch Times
Following a complaint from the Belchers, the disciplinary action was downgraded to a less severe Class II infraction, however Belcher is still calling BS.
“It should be noted that punching or hitting a student would have only been a Class II violation, so in the eyes of these school administrators, a finger gun is more serious than punching a classmate in the nose,” said Mr. Belcher, adding that his son shouldn’t be punished for something in which no harm was done.
“Many noses have been broken by fists, but in the last 600 years since the invention of firearms, not a single person has been so much as bruised by a ‘finger gun,’” he wrote.
Both GOA and Freeland Martz Attorneys of Oxford, Mississippi are backing the Belchers in demanding that the Jefferson County School District clear the boy’s record.
“This incident just goes to show how embedded the anti-gun mindset is in so many communities, including in red states like Alabama. I imagine most men … can recall having played in a similar fashion in their own youth,” wrote GOA senior VP, Erich Pratt, in a Friday statement. “We will continue to demand action until a full apology is made and all disciplinary records tied to this incident are permanently destroyed.”
In a demand letter on behalf of the belchers, attorney M. Reed Martz wrote: “Candidly, I thought the story may be a hoax until I reviewed the paperwork generated by the school.”
We’re sure Russian and Chinese schools are just as proactive in eliminating masculinity among their future fighting forces.
