Oct 21, 2014 11:31 AM EDT By Russell Westerholm, UniversityHerald Reporter

William Dong pled guilty last week to weapons charges in relation to the mass-shooting scare he invoked last Dec. on the University of New Haven's (UNH) campus.

According to the Associated Press, Dong, a 22-year-old former UNH student, pleaded guilty to illegal importation and illegal possession of weapons he was carrying at the time. He reportedly had a semi-automatic Bushmaster in his car and pistols that he carried on his person onto campus.

UNH puts its campus on lockdown for more than four hours on Dec. 3, 2013 as police performed a search of all the campus' buildings. At the time of his arrest, Dong told police he had the loaded pistols to protect himself from a mass shooting, NBC Conn. then reported.

Police later found newspaper clippings related to the movie theatre shooting in Aurora, Colo., as well as thousands of rounds of ammunition, when searching Dong's home in Fairfield, Conn.

Kevin Lawlor, a state attorney in Milford, told the AP Dong's mandatory minimum sentence for his charges are two years in prison followed by five years of probation. His sentencing hearing is slated for Dec. 19.

Dong was arrested without firing a shot because a woman reportedly called 911 from a local grocery store upon seeing him with a gun. Conn. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy on Friday praised law enforcement's swift and decisive action, as well as the state's gun-control laws and the bystander who took action, according to the CT Post.

"Without the assistance of a citizen who saw something and said something, without the restrictions in the new gun law and without the quick action of first responders at the University of New Haven and at the West Haven Police Department, Dec. 17, 2013, might have been another tragic day in Connecticut's history," Malloy said in a statement. "I congratulate the State's Attorney's Office in the Judicial District of Ansonia and Milford for a job well done."

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