An inventory of weapons Binghamton’s New York State University Police confiscated from students included a wider cache than one might expect. There was everything from the expected — knives and paintball guns — to the esoteric, including ninja stars and nunchakus.

The week before the April break, the University Police Department gave Pipe Dream a look at the weapons seized over many years during various calls around campus.

A large number of the objects officers have confiscated were ones that could be mistaken for firearms. These included gun-shaped cigarette lighters, Airsoft guns, air pellet guns and paintball guns.

“We don’t want students having things that at night could be mistaken for the real McCoy,” Investigator Patrick Reilly of University Police said.

Knives are a relatively frequent find for officers when they search rooms for drug complaints or other types of criminal complaints.

“Students are allowed to keep knives that are up to a certain length, but past that they can’t possess them,” Reilly said. He said officers are to use their judgement in some cases on which knives fit the definition of a weapon.

Knives found in rooms are usually on the order of small pen knives, though officers sometimes find and confiscate objects like hunting knives or butterfly knives.

Baseball bats are among other common objects that University Police will sometimes seize. Bats are not always looked fondly upon by officers, especially when they are within arm’s reach of a driver in a vehicle.

“We took this one because it was a Mets fan,” Reilly joked about a confiscated baseball bat that had a Mets logo on it.

Other items reflected an interest in martial arts, such as a pair of nunchakus that Reilly said was displayed on the wall of a student’s room during a fire safety check. University Police told the student that he could pick the nunchakus up when he left campus, but that he was not allowed to keep them while he resided on campus.

The Student Code of Conduct prohibits “possession of weapons, dangerous chemicals or explosives,” but does not specify further what the term “weapons” entails, thus allowing officers to exercise discretion in what they choose to seize or not to seize.

But University Police have also found much more dangerous weapons on occasion. A display case that University Police have prepared for Oakdale Mall’s Police Week contained an actual rifle.

“A student found it in a dumpster and kept it in his pickup truck, and when he was stopped at a vehicle checkpoint he had to give it up,” Reilly said.

The rifle had a scope on it that the student was allowed to keep, but the rifle remains with University Police.

One of the most startling objects University Police found was a sword disguised inside a cane.

“We were doing a search in Hillside and we found someone who had a bunch of pot. We asked him if he had any weapons and he showed us this,” Reilly explained.

The sword was very well concealed, but looked pretty intimidating when unsheathed.

Any students interested in seeing some of the weapons confiscated by University Police can do so during Oakdale Mall’s Police Week, which will take place at the mall the first week of May. Various police departments will have exhibits showing some of the items they have confiscated. The University Police Department’s exhibit includes both weapons and drug paraphernalia such as pipes and bongs. Officers will also be on hand to talk about their work at the University.