Who defends this foolish lack of proportion? The American Association of School Administrators. Its executive director, Dan Domenech, told USA Today: “Parents have to be aware that talking about guns or using your fingers to point like a gun is no longer tolerable or prudent.” Why, pray tell? School shooters tend to be disturbed young men. In no case has a shooter ever been an adorable five-year-old child.

In the grips of a strange mania, school administrators believe that any symbolic representation of a gun, no matter how innocent, is all but indistinguishable from a real gun. This is not a mistake that gun owners make. I have never known the National Rifle Association magazine to feature an article on how to form your finger into the shape of a firearm. The finger gun doesn’t do much for the average sportsman. It can’t bring down a deer, and doesn’t exactly light up the gun range.

No matter. We don’t have common sense; we have rules. We don’t have judgment; we have bureaucratic procedure. Too often, our grown-ups are the ones desperately in need of adult supervision.