Man Arrested With 47 Guns Was Bluffing About School Shooting Threat, Police Say

A man arrested with 47 guns who allegedly made threatened a school shooting was only bluffing to scare his wife, police now say.

Police in Cedar Lake, Indiana said that 60-year-old Von Meyer was arrested with 47 guns and ammunition spread throughout this house after he allegedly threatened to kill people at an elementary school near his home, The Associated Press reported.

A police statement said that Mayer threatened to enter Jane Ball Elementary School and “kill as many people as he could.” After the threat, the man was arrested with 47 guns that were worth more than $100,000 collectively. The cache included a variety of weapons, most of which were older

The man also threatened to set his wife on fire once she fell asleep, police said.

Cedar Lake Police chief Jerry Smith said, after the man was arrested with 47 guns, the learned that most of the weapons were part of an antique collection, and they do not believe Von Meyer was a serious threat, The Associated Press reported.

Meyer’s wife told police that they had a shaky relationship, and Von Meyer often threatened her.

“If people followed through on all the threats they’ve ever made – things said in anger that they don’t really mean and regret – our population in this country would be half of what it is,” Smith said. “This was something he said in the heat of an argument. He hadn’t been plotting this.”

Still, Cedar Police were on high alert. They passed word of the threat along to school officials and boosted security at that and other area schools on Friday, the same day that the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut took the lives of 20 children and 6 adults.

“We just didn’t want to take any chances,” Smith said of the extra security at the schools.

The man arrested with 47 guns was reportedly a member of a local biker group known as the Invaders Motorcycle Gang.