Boys making gun shapes with hands prohibited in UK

The Mail reports:

Teachers reprimanded two seven-year-old boys for playing army games—because it amounted to ‘threatening behaviour’.The youngsters were disciplined after they were spotted making gun-shapes with their hands.Staff at Nathaniel Newton Infant School in Nuneaton, Warks., even told the boys’ parents to ‘reprimand’ them. A father of one of the boys said: ‘This is ridiculous. How can you tell a seven-year-old boy he cannot play guns and armies with his friends.’ Another parent was called over for the same reason. ‘We were told to reprimand our son for this and to tell him he cannot play “guns” anymore.’

I spent much of my childhood playing soldier. I never threatened, frightened, or hurt anyone. But now Britain outlaws normal boyhood play as a danger to society, even as it licenses actual, daily, savage violence in the streets of that country, because, according to the ideology of the British police, such violence is an understandable response to race and class oppression. There is no point in punishing violent criminal acts seriously, because only social equality can end the violence.

However, there may be more here than meets the eye. A school spokesman says: “The issue here was about hand gestures being made in the shape of a gun towards members of staff which is understandably unacceptable, particularly in the classroom.”

It’s one thing for boys, playing among themselves, to point “guns” (their hands in the shape of a gun) at each other. But if the boys were pointing their “guns” at teachers or staff, that is obviously an aggressive, as well as disrespectful, act and should not be allowed. If the parents are defending their children pointing their fingers at teachers in the shape of a gun barrel, then they are the ones at fault. But is that really the case? Where clear facts are needed, the Mail gives us red meat.

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James P. writes:

Did you see these other stories in the Daily Mail? A 23-year-old committed 73 crimes and was never seriously punished for any of them, and people with 15 or more convictions get “community service” instead of jail. But the big problem is boys making gun shapes with their fingers!

Posted by Lawrence Auster at May 31, 2011 01:23 PM | Send