Avid hunter and University freshman David Gantman aims to shoot down ducks at least twice a week when he has the time. But when he came home from a weekend away to find that the Department of Public Safety had confiscated all his ammunition, Gantman felt like he’d been shot down instead.
“I thought only firearms were an issue,” he said. “I think (DPS) handled it well; I’m just glad to get it all back.”
On Monday night, DPS reported the confiscation of several boxes of ammunition — among related items — from a room in Hamilton Complex. Gantman, who has hunted for more than nine years, said he stores his hunting rifle and shotgun at a facility off-campus, but had figured it was okay to keep ammunition in his room.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” his neighbor Mike Buchalter said. “It’s not like he had a gun.”
According to the DPS report, a student residence hall patroller — or community service officer — had been doing checks Monday in Tingle Hall when several boxes of ammunition were spotted at 9:25 p.m. through Room 102’s open door. DPS Associate Director Tom Hicks said the Eugene Police Department was contacted for assistance before two complex directors, three DPS officers, three community service officers and an EPD officer proceeded to the location.
“Having ammunition is not a crime by EPD standards,” EPD spokeswoman Kerry Delf said. “It just isn’t permissible to store it on University property.”
Around 9:50 p.m., the seven officers and two managers approached the student’s room, confiscated ammunition and other items, and searched for firearms.
Gantman was out of town at the time, but his roommate, freshman Tommy Franzen, witnessed the procedure.
“They came in, saw the ammunition and said, ‘Where are the guns?’” Franzen said. The confiscated items included a gun clip — the bullet chamber inserted into the gun — a rifle scope, several empty shotgun and rifle shells, three unopened boxes of duck-hunting shotgun bullets and 50 rifle rounds. Hicks said the items were then immediately placed in a “saferoom” on the bottom level of the building.
When Gantman got back in town on Tuesday, he found a letter in his mailbox and called his complex director, Michael Smith. Gantman said Smith instructed him to attend a meeting at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday for further information about he incident. When Gantman attended, he found he had been invited to his own eviction hearing.
“(Smith) didn’t tell me what the meeting was for,” Gantman said. “They probably should have, because I showed up in my gym clothes.”
At the meeting, Gantman said he was instructed to remove the confiscated items from the premises, read his student housing contract by Feb. 3 and create a “policy bulletin board” — designed to address common false assumptions about the contract — to be approved and posted in his hall by Feb.15.
Students found with such paraphernalia are sanctioned in accordance with the Student Conduct Code, Director of Residence Life Sandy Schoonover said. She said University officials cannot comment on open investigations.
“University Housing is always concerned about the safety and well-being of the students,” she said
Prior to the incident, Gantman said he had posed a question about firearms to a DPS officer who had been responding to a different incident in the building. After the officer left, Gantman said he was under the impression that only the possession of firearms, not ammunition, conflicted with the Student Conduct Code. But University officials say he should have checked his housing contract instead of asking an officer.
“We want to remind the campus community that firearms and ammunition are not allowed on campus,” Hicks said, “even with a concealed weapons permit.”