Boys will be boys. We hope.

As we get ready to resume school next week do you remember the story from last spring about 7-year old Christopher Marshall of Suffolk, Virginia?

It seems that while in his second grade classroom he took his pencil, aimed it at another boy in his class and made a noise like he was shooting a gun. The school suspended young Christopher under its “zero-tolerance” policy concerning weapons at school.

Earlier in the spring there was second-grader Josh Welch of Maryland, who was suspended for nibbling his strawberry Pop Tart into the shape of a pistol.

Across the country, common sense in schools is falling victim to political correctness – often disproportionately at the expense of young boys. And make no mistake, “zero tolerance” policies are almost always the product of political correctness.

There is no sensible argument to be made that Christopher Marshall’s imaginary transformation of a pencil into a gun posed a threat to anyone. That the administration will not tolerate the childish sculpting of a Pop Tart into the shape of a pistol will do nothing to deter an actual sociopath armed with an actual weapon.

The pious posting of “Gun-Free Zone” signs on the campuses of schools is, if anything, an invitation to mayhem. As someone said, “Gun-free zones are where mass murderers go to kill people.” If you want a real deterrent to school shootings, take down the gun-free zone signs and let it be known that some members of the faculty have received training, have concealed carry permits and are packing heat. Let the sociopath go looking for a gun-free zone at some place other than your kids’ school.

But please don’t patronize us by making self-righteous examples of perfectly normal, boyish behavior. “Boys will be boys,” is a common expression for a reason. Boys are by their nature more aggressive and more active. In my growing up, boys outnumbered girls in trips to the principal’s office by a nearly infinite margin.

Of course, boys have to be civilized and taught to behave. But stories like those of Christopher and Josh suggest that the mostly liberal educrats who now run our schools are going too far. If you constrain a young boy’s natural aggressiveness too tightly, you risk robbing him of the tools necessary to become a confident, self-sufficient and successful man.

I believe two things. One, being male doesn’t mean you’re a man and, two, we will always need men.

My fear is that we are now raising our boys in such a way as to one day look up and not be able to find any.