All Intensive Purposes

The policy already has been reversed, but in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings Yale University decided to ban realistic stage weapons in theatrical productions. According to the Yale Daily News (via Eugene Volokh), Dean of Student Affairs Betty Trachtenberg justified the policy's rationale as follows:

I think people should start thinking about other people rather than trying to feel sorry for themselves and thinking that the administration is trying to thwart their creativity. They're not using their own intelligence. We have to think of the people who might be affected by seeing real-life weapons.

When I go to see a play by Anton Chekhov, I expect to see a gun on the wall in the first act, and I expect to see it go off before I leave the theater. Do Yale students not learn this?