January 3, 2013 12:45PM # Six-Year Old Suspended from School; “Threatening” Behavior By [Tim Lynch](https://www.cato.org/people/tim-lynch) --- SHARE A Montgomery County public school suspended a first-grader for [pointing his finger like a gun](http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/boy-6-suspended-from-silver-spring-school-for-pointing-finger-like-a-gun/2013/01/02/21acc8d4-54fc-11e2-8b9e-dd8773594efc_story.html) — and on top of that, the troublemaker said “pow!” The boy’s parents are worried that this action will now be a part of his educational record. If the lad gets into a fight a few years hence, will the government mark him down as a “problem student”? Read [this](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/23/AR2007022301749.html) if you think this is some odd item from the news. ##### Related Tags [Education](https://www.cato.org/education), [Constitutional Law](https://www.cato.org/constitutional-law), [Center for Educational Freedom](https://www.cato.org/center-educational-freedom), [Robert A. Levy Center for Constitutional Studies](https://www.cato.org/robert-levy-center-constitutional-studies) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).