Last Friday, two Second Amendment activists planned to protest the University System of New Hampshire’s campus gun ban by violating it. Their intent was to stroll the Plymouth State University campus with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders.

This was no ambush. They notified university officials of their plans at the start of the week. There was to be no shooting; only a peaceful act of civil disobedience designed, as most are, to illustrate a political point. The university’s reaction was to treat these men as threats to the safety of students.

The university got a restraining order, which sent the matter to court, where it was argued this week (arguments will continue in January). That’s fine, as the protest was intended to challenge the constitutionality of the university system’s gun ban, which the legal move hastened. Even the protesters welcomed the opportunity to make their case in court. What was silly was the on-campus reaction of administrators and some professors.

The administration alerted faculty and students to the protest and gave students a free pass to skip class that day if they felt threatened or scared. Professors were given the option of cancelling classes on Friday. Some did. The protesters, unarmed, held a press conference on campus that day to discuss the issue, and a student yelled at them that his class had been cancelled, as if it were their fault. He should have complained to his overly sensitive professor.

The protest happened to come shortly after the most recent shooting at Virginia Tech. Some said it should have been cancelled because of that. On the contrary, the timing helped illustrate the protesters’ point about the illusion of safety created by campus gun bans.

There are some sensible arguments for prohibiting students from keeping guns on campus. But the irrational fear of firearms themselves, which PSU exhibited last week, is disappointing and counterproductive.

Plymouth State's gun ban argued in court