During my trip to Orlando, I was sitting in a Puerto Rican restaurant waiting for my food (which was ridiculously good) and the story on the local news on the TV across the room caught my eye.  An international UCF student, Wenliang Sun, is being deported to China following the discovery that he owned some rifles and “displayed disturbing behavior.”

UCF Police Chief Richard Beary is claiming that a potential tragedy was prevented by sending Sun out of the country.  Both the police and media are acting as though there was something seriously wrong about Sun’s ownership of the guns. But let’s take a look at what’s being reported in this article.

It’s important to understand why Sun was arrested.  According to ClickOrlando.com:

Officials from HSI and ATF took Sun into custody on Feb. 7 in connection with violations of his terms of admission into the country and potential firearm violations, a news release said.

What exactly were the violations of his admission to the country?  He apparently had not been attending class. Okay, from the technically “legal” standpoint, given that he was on a student visa, the violation makes sense.  But would cutting class normally result in deportation? According to the timeline of events and Beary’s own statements, that does not appear to be the case.

As previously mentioned, Sun was also reported to have “displayed disturbing behavior.”  That included:

“Not coming out of his room, the hair color, the weight he put on, not conversing with people. It was all of those little changes that by themselves don’t mean much, but added to all the other things that were going on in his life, they were big red flags once we found out about them,” Beary said.

Friends and roommates told authorities that Sun had recently bought a $70,000 car in cash out of the blue.

Perhaps Sun was going through some issues, but his LWRC 300 Blackout rifle was not a new development.  UCF staff said that he had previously disclosed to them that he owned the gun. He even kept it at a storage facility because it was against university rules to keep firearms and ammunition in student housing.  Furthermore, there was no reason to believe that it was illegally purchased. His hunting license made it legal for him to purchase guns on his nonimmigrant student visa.

After receiving a tip about his behavior, the police talked to Sun and asked him to surrender his gun to them for “safekeeping.”  He refused, probably because he knew that he would never get it back. When they found out that he bought another rifle (a bolt action rifle to be specific), they terminated his visa and arrested him.

According to Beary himself, the police had wanted to seize his guns.  State law did not yet allow them to do that (the new law was not quite in place, showing the arbitrary nature of how government officials view right and wrong), so they brought the federal government in to terminate his visa to bypass the laws that got in their way.  Sun had not violated any laws regarding firearms, but that was clearly the reason they seized his guns, arrested him, and are kicking him out of the country. And they even admit it: note they referenced “potential firearm violations” (emphasis added).

How can you be arrested for a potential crime?  Are we comfortable with this being set as a precedent?

What if Sun had not violated his visa?  Would the police have done nothing? If Sun were experiencing mental or emotional issues, then people should work to get him the help he needs.  One would think that the UCF staff would make it a point to take care of their students and not have that include putting them through the traumatic experience of being seized by federal agents and deported.

Regardless of the fact that Sun was on a student visa, this is an absolute violation of rights and a terrible way of handling the situation.  People who display evidence of mental issues are not criminals. Owning a gun while displaying these issues does not guarantee a mass shooting.  The precedents being set are not good for anyone’s liberty.