Gun rights protest puts heat on UNH prof
By CLYNTON NAMUO
New Hampshire Union Leader Correspondent
Wednesday, Apr. 23, 2008
DURHAM – A University of New Hampshire student who was told by a professor that he could not wear an empty gun holster in her class as part of a protest responded by posting the correspondence on the Internet, which earned the professor several angry e-mail from strangers.
Senior Matt Ham, 22, is taking part in a nationwide demonstration this week in which participants wear empty gun holsters as a way to push for college students with permits to carry a concealed weapon to be able to bring guns onto campus. Those in favor of the move say that just one armed student could have prevented the massacre at Virginia Tech last year.
The protest is being sponsored by the group Students for Concealed Carry on Campus.
Ham, an active National Guardsman who works at Pease Air National Guard Base, said he told each of his four professors about the demonstration beforehand and asked to speak briefly with fellow students to explain what he was doing. All but one granted his request, while a fourth, sociology teacher Priscilla Reinertsen, sent him an email that specifically forbade him from wearing a holster.
Ham posted her e-mail, along with her email address, on a Facebook group sponsored by Students for Concealed Carry that has more than 28,000 members and added the message: "please keep it respectful for the sake of my grade."
As a result of the post, Reinertsen received several angry messages from strangers across the country criticizing her for trying to block the protest.
Reinertsen said she passed the emails along to the administration and allowed Ham to wear the holster in class because it was his right, but she did not let him speak.
"Those e-mails were belligerent," she said. "They weren't threatening, but they were angry. They were unpleasant."
UNH Deputy Police Chief Paul Dean said nothing in the emails constituted a threat, so Ham broke no laws or rules in posting Reinertsen's address, but he described the move as being "in poor taste" and "counterproductive."
"It's someone's desperate attempt to get their message out there and not be silenced," Dean said.
This is not the first time a university employee who moved against Students for Concealed Carry found his information on the Facebook group, according to Franklin Pierce University student Adam Broussard who, like Ham, is participating in the holster protest this week.
Broussard, 20, who studies at Franklin Pierce's Keene campus, said he saw a similar posting from a fellow student who was running into trouble with the demonstration on his campus. That post included the administrator's e-mail address as well, he said.
"Everything's public information; it all just depends on whether anyone wants to do it or not," Broussard said.
Ham said he did not intend for any negative messages to be sent to Reinertsen and was simply asking for support from fellow protestors.
"There's no need for that," he said of negative messages. "There's enough good points on both sides of this debate not to have to slander people, whether you agree or disagree."
Despite the hubbub over the e-mails, Ham said he has received scant attention for his protest this week. He said that to his knowledge he is the only student at UNH participating in the protest and received a permit from UNH police to do so. Police said Ham was the only one who had signed up to carry the empty holster.
Deputy Chief Dean said that although students are allowed to wear empty holsters on campus as a means of expression, guns are expressly forbidden by university policy. Students can register guns with UNH police and store them at the department, but cannot keep them on campus or in dorms. He said he would recommend expulsion for any student caught with a gun on campus.
Dean, who described himself as a lifelong gun user and a member of the National Rifle Association, said students with guns could create confusion in a school shooting situation because officers are trained to quickly find and take down shooters.
"If I enter a classroom and there are two people with a gun, who do you think is going to die," he asked. "Both people."
UNH officials work to prevent violent incidents before they happen by picking up on signs forewarning trouble, Dean said. He said such preventive efforts are much more effective at stopping school shootings than arming students. Despite the work, he said, a foolproof plan to prevent such shootings remains elusive.
"I just know that more guns aren't the answer," Dean said.
And yes, she's quite the looker (she's hot 
). Needless to say, this married man got flustered - rapidly. The next thing I new she was whispering in my ear "What the h#$@ are you doing!?" 