Mistaking Words for Weapons  http://citypages.com/databank/28/1379/article15402.asp
 
The day after the Virginia Tech massacre,  we noted  http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110009953#gunfree  that an earlier shooting at a Virginia campus had been cut short when a student with a legal handgun helped subdue the killer. We suggested that perhaps Virginia Tech officials' decision to designate their campus "gun-free" was not the wisest choice.
 
Well, it's a good thing we aren't still in college, and not only because we're way too old. If we were, we might have gotten into trouble just for employing our First Amendment rights to defend others' Second Amendment rights. It happened to Troy Scheffler, a 31-year-old graduate student at Hamline University in St. Paul, Minn., as City Pages, a local weekly, reports:
 
*** QUOTE ***
 
In the aftermath [of Virginia Tech], officials at Hamline University sought to comfort their 4,000 students. David Stern, the vice president for academic and student affairs, sent a campus-wide email offering extra counseling sessions for those who needed help coping. 
 
Scheffler had a different opinion of how the university should react. Using the email handle "Tough Guy Scheffler," Troy fired off his response: Counseling wouldn't make students feel safer, he argued. They needed protection. And the best way to provide it would be for the university to lift its recently implemented prohibition against concealed weapons. 
 
"Ironically, according to a few VA Tech forums, there are plenty of students complaining that this wouldn't have happened if the school wouldn't have banned their permits a few months ago," Scheffler wrote. "I just don't understand why leftists don't understand that criminals don't care about laws; that is why they're criminals. Maybe this school will reconsider its repression of law-abiding citizens' rights." . . .
 
On April 23, Scheffler received a letter informing him he'd been placed on interim suspension. To be considered for readmittance, he'd have to pay for a psychological evaluation and undergo any treatment deemed necessary, then meet with the dean of students, who would ultimately decide whether Scheffler was fit to return to the university. . . .
 
Scheffler obeyed the campus ban and didn't go to class, but his classmate, Kenny Bucholz, told him a police officer was stationed outside the classroom. "He had a gun and everything," Bucholz says.
 
*** END QUOTE ***
 
Hey, wait. Why would the policeman need a gun? Oh yeah, for protection!