Oh dear. I'm all in favour of a serious debate about guns in the USA. But hysterical reactions from politically correct teachers are not helping anybody.

The latest outbreak of sheer madness comes from Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania where a five year old girl was suspended from nursery school for 10 days (later reduced to two) for threatening to shoot her classmate with a plastic toy gun that fires bubbles made of liquid soap.

Her lawyer -- yes, a five year old needs a lawyer! -- is quoted by the Associated Press as saying that school district officials had called the child a "terrorist threat".

This has echoes of a case in December when a school in Maryland suspended a six year old in similarly preposterous circumstances. As the Washington Examiner explained:

"The 6-year-old, who attends Roscoe R. Nix Elementary School in Silver Spring, made a gun with his hands, pointed it at another student and said “pow,” according to Robin Ficker, the boy’s attorney. He was given a one-day suspension, with a conference on the matter planned for Jan. 2, the day students return to school from winter break."

And you thought it was the gun lobby that was bonkers...