One might call this a creative cover story for an ND of a weapon that he happened to be carrying illegally.
Methinks it was an unintended discharge and the fool switched out his story to make hi,self appear appear magnanimous.
I don’t know what the real story is, but I’m sure this is a cover for something.
If it were really a protest, he would have made a big show of it and done it in front of the maximum number of people, maybe during a class or something. The fact that he did it with no one around makes his story dubious.