| By Dave Warner PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The family of a Pennsylvania kindergartner suspended from school for talking about a soap bubble toy gun is protesting her punishment and wants her record cleared, an attorney for the family said on Monday. The unidentified 5-year-old child from Mount Carmel in eastern Pennsylvania was suspended after she talked on January 10 about a Hello Kitty Bubble Gun while waiting for a bus after school, said attorney Robin Ficker. According to the attorney, the little girl said to a friend: "I'm going to shoot you and I will shoot myself, and we'll all play together." Her comments were overheard by an adult who reported them to the school, he said. But the toy shoots only soap bubbles, and the girl did not even have one, he said. "She had no gun," he said. "She talked about the Hello Kitty Bubble Gun, just talked about it. They searched her back pack, they searched her coat, they searched her, she had no gun." The family wants school authorities to clear her record, issue an apology and admit they made a mistake, he said. The incident comes in the wake of the shooting of 20 schoolchildren and six adults at a Connecticut school last month, which has ignited renewed debate about gun violence. Continued... |