Washington University Student Suspended Over Confiscated Guns

ST. LOUIS, MO — A Washington University student is suspended after an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was found in his Phi Delta Theta fraternity house on Tuesday. A handgun was also found in the student's vehicle parked nearby in a university garage. The guns were confiscated by campus police and the student was temporarily removed from campus pending formal adjudication, Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton said in a campus email.

"There was no active threat; however, this put at risk members of our university community and is a very serious violation of university policy," he wrote.

The possession, storage or use of firearms, knives, ammunition and other dangerous weapons is prohibited on campus, according to university policy, which states that all such items are subject to confiscation.

Phi Delta Theta fraternity was also permanently suspended Tuesday and members asked to leave the fraternity house in a move that Jill Friedman, the university's vice chancellor for public affairs, said was unrelated to the weapons confiscation. The group had been temporarily suspended in September amid allegations of hazing, but the 30 members were allowed to continue living in the house pending the outcome of a formal investigation.

The AR-15 is a semi-automatic civilian variant of the military's M16 rifle. Previously prohibited under a 1994 federal assault weapons ban, the AR-15 and similar rifles are capable of rapidly and accurately firing high-velocity bullets that are devastating to human bodies. Gunmen have used the rifle in a series of high-profile shootings, including the Parkland school shooting (17 dead), Pulse nightclub massacre (49 dead), Sutherland Springs church shooting (26 dead), Sandy Hook school shooting (27 dead), Aurora Theater Shooting (12 dead), and a shooting at an outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas, Nevada (58 dead).

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