Constitutional Law

Prof. calls police after student discusses guns in class

Here's the story.

"Last October, John Wahlberg and two classmates at Central Connecticut State University gave an oral presentation for a communications class taught by Professor Paula Anderson. The assignment was to discuss a ?relevant issue in the media,? and the students presented their view that the death toll in the April 2007 Virginia Tech shooting massacre would have been lower if professors and students had been carrying guns.

That night, police called Wahlberg, a 23-year-old senior, and asked him to come to the station. When he arrived, they they read off a list of firearms that were registered in his name and asked where he kept them. Guns are strictly prohibited on the CCSU campus and residence halls, but Wahlberg says he lives 20 miles off-campus and keeps his gun collection locked up in a safe. No further action was taken by police or administrators.

?I don?t think that Professor Anderson was justified in calling the CCSU police over a clearly non-threatening matter,? Wahlberg told The Recorder, the CCSU student newspaper that first reported the story. ?Although the topic of discussion may have made a few individuals uncomfortable, there was no need to label me as a threat.?"

hat tip to readers Jim Kindred and Bret Gallo...

Full post as published by Of Arms and the Law on March 04, 2009 (boomark / email).