A professor at a Connecticut school has sparked controversy by calling police when a student talked about the Second Amendment during a class speech.
The report comes from the Recorder, a newspaper at Central Connecticut State University, which cited the case of student John Wahlberg.
The student was fulfilling an assignment for his Communications 140 class that required him to discuss a “relevant issue in the media” when he and two other students on a team chose to talk about school violence, including recent events such as the 2007 shootings that left nearly three dozen people dead at Virginia Tech University.
Wahlberg made the point during his Oct. 3, 2008, class presentation that if students were allowed to carry concealed weapons on campus, the violence could have been stopped earlier. He discussed the concept of college campus gun-free zones.
That evening, the Recorder said, Wahlberg got a call from campus police officers who “requested” his presence at their station. When he arrived, officers listed firearms that were registered to him and asked him where they were.
Apparently his professor, Paula Anderson, had filed a campus police department complaint about his speech. Police officers reported she said students were “scared and uncomfortable” during his presention.
Wahlberg told the newspaper he wasn’t worried, “because as a law-abiding gun owner, I have a thorough understanding of state gun laws as well as unwavering safety practices.”
But he said he was hit with a “general sense of disbelief” when officers listed his guns.
Anderson, in a written comment, said, “It is also my responsibility as a teacher to protect the well being of our students, and the campus community at all times. As such, when deemed necessary because of any perceived risks, I seek guidance and consultation from the chair of my department, the dean and any relevant university officials.”
Wahlberg doesn’t believe the fancy explanation is any reason to file a complaint.
“I don’t think that Professor Anderson was justified in calling the CCSU police over a clearly nonthreatening matter. Although the topic of discussion may have made a few individuals uncomfortable, there was no need to label me as a threat,” he told the newspaper.
“The actions of Professor Anderson made me so uncomfortable, that I didn’t attend several classes. The only appropriate action taken by the professor was to excuse my absences.”
Sara Adler of the on-campus marksmanship club asked,
“If you can’t talk about the Second Amendment, what happened to the First Amendment?”
According to a Fox News report, Wahlberg, 23 and a senior, knows guns are prohibited on the school campus and in residence halls, but he lives 20 miles away and keeps his weapons in a safe.
Robert Shibley, vice president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, said, “If all he did was discuss reasons for allowing guns on campus, it seems a bit much to call the police and grill him about it.
“If you go after students for just discussing an idea, that goes against everything a university is supposed to stand for,” he said.
WND has reported on a number of similar situations, including recently when a Colorado high school student was informed of a 10-day suspension for having non-functioning drill team rifle replicas in her car in a parking lot at school.
A Texas school also threatened its students for even talking about guns, and a shirt was banished from a school campus because it had the image of a gun.
In another case, a student was suspended simply for advocating for the Second Amendment.
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