It's a photo full of controversy – and two students, striking a pose before heading to the homecoming dance, are now facing school suspensions because of it.
According to WFXT-TV in Boston, the students took a picture before the homecoming dance at one of their houses, in their evening attire holding props. The props depicted what they say is their hobby, but the problem for them is their hobby involves airsoft guns.
The photo got the two high school honor students in Taunton, Massachusetts, suspended.
Tito Velez's dad snapped the photo of his son and his girlfriend, Jamie Pereira, ahead of Friday night's homecoming dance at Bristol-Plymouth Regional Technical School, where the two are juniors.
After some formal photos, the teens wanted to have some fun.
"We took them with the airsoft guns because it's our hobby and we wanted to include them in the pictures," Pereira said.
The guns shoot plastic pellets and the students play games with them in designated fields – much like a paintball game.
They worked to save up for the guns and the games are a big part of their social life, they said. So they posted the picture on social media and tagged it "Homecoming 2014."
But that's when the problems began.
"It's not the guns; it's the connecting of that type of posture that type of thing to a school event," said Richard Gross, the superintendent of the high school.
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