Guns on Campus

Last reviewed: February 2017

Abstract

Although incidents of gun violence at the primary and secondary school levels raise significant legal questions about securing public and private schools, incidents of gun violence on university campuses, while far fewer in number, raise far more complicated questions about the right to carry weapons because students and the faculty are legally adults and thus are permitted, in all fifty states, to carry concealed weapons. The national debate over guns on campus centers on two conflicting issues: how best to make essentially open campuses secure while at the same time how best to interpret the Second Amendment.

Overview

Incidents of gun violence on college campuses date back more than two centuries. Reports of shootings on campuses during the eighteenth and nineteenth century most often involved disturbed teachers turning guns on unruly students and angry parents tracking down wayward offspring. Twenty-first century controversies over open (and thus unsecured, even un-securable) university campuses can be dated to the sniper-styled mass shootings that occurred on the University of Texas at Austin on August 1, 1966.

Former Marine Charles Whitman, an otherwise nondescript graduate student in the school’s engineering program, climbed to the top of the campus’s clock tower and, for nearly ninety horrifying minutes, randomly shot at students and pedestrians below, killing fifteen and wounding more than thirty before police cornered him on the tower ramparts and gunned him down. The siege was carried live on national television, the first such introduction of the media to mass killings. The shootings ignited the first national debate over how best to secure a college campus against gun violence.

Over the next two decades, there were incidents involving shootings on college campuses, but they were defined as target-specific. Most perpetrators were disgruntled students (usually graduate students) targeting specific programs or professors, or else the murder victims were lovers, ex-lovers, roommates, or friends of the killer.

Even as high schools were the setting for mass shootings (most notably the Columbine High School shootings in April, 1999), colleges were widely considered as a kind of sanctuary states, protected and patrolled by a minimum security presence of campus police, most not armed. The mass shootings on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, on April 16, 2007—on the anniversary of the Columbine shootings—considerably altered the national debate about guns on campus. An undergraduate, Seung-Hui Cho, armed with an array of assault-style weapons, all obtained legally, blocked the exit doors of a campus classroom building and methodically went classroom to classroom shooting more than fifty students and faculty indiscriminately before killing himself. Thirty-two died, making the incident the largest mass shooting in American history up to that time.

The shootings reignited the national debate on how to secure otherwise open campuses. Despite a subsequent investigation of the shootings at Virginia Tech that identified the failure of a medical assistance network to address effectively Cho’s manic depression as a primary contributing factor, other considerations bled into the national discussion. The post-9/11 environment was one of perpetual precaution and fear of the “stranger among us.” Notably, American campuses attract a wide variety of foreign students, and gun advocates advanced the logic of a preemptive and organized defense system against the possibility of armed attacks. In what seemed to many, especially in the liberal arts communities of universities, a counterintuitive argument, the National Rifle Association (NRA) and other activists proposed that protection afforded by more guns, not fewer, was the best response.

Unlike a high school, most often a single large building which can be secured with metal detectors at entrances as well as a police presence in the hallways and parking lots, college campuses represent a far more difficult environment to secure. Colleges are target rich—as are stadiums, malls, churches, office buildings, really any place where a high volume of people can gather. For a mass killer, however, a college campus offers multiple advantages, including unlocked buildings with multiple exits, parking lots, easy, often unsecured access, and acres of landscaped cover, often bordering a city or even open country.

Before Virginia Tech, a college would routinely promote the vast, natural landscape of a campus, evoking meditative walks and the nurturing cover of a tree-filled quad. Additionally, typical college campuses offered facilities that attracted people not specifically tied to the academic community or to its operations and thus hosted hundreds or thousands of untraceable people in conference centers, libraries, research facilities, stadiums, concert venues, and even dorms that had minimum security visitor policies.

The reality, in the wake of Virginia Tech, was sobering. Unless a university wanted to adopt a high-security police state environment, it was in many areas unprotectable. Security measures that were widely implemented in U.S. campuses included the installation of state of the art surveillance apparatus, sophisticated computer-controlled locks on classroom buildings and dorms, lighting systems along campus walks, and expanded campus security forces. Importantly, student mental health services geared to identify and treat potentially disturbed students and faculty were developed and improved. Nevertheless, college campuses remained vulnerable. In 2015, a mass shooting on the campus of Umpqua Community College in coastal Oregon by another mentally troubled student resulted in nine deaths and nine wounded. Despite the considerable expansion of mental health services since the Virginia Tech shooting, campuses cannot entirely guarantee such programs, though considerable demand for services by students exists. The protocol for referring students is designed to protect the student with layers of confidentiality from being coercively sent for such treatment. Further, erring on the side of caution is likely to result in a “troublesomely high number” of unnecessary referrals (Robinson, 2014). Finally, because of the widening call for college graduates in an increasingly competitive job market, college admissions agencies are increasingly likely to admit a wider scope of students, traditional and nontraditional, without regard to specific histories of emotional or psychological troubles.

Umpqua gave new impetus to the movement to extend the laws concerning the right to carry concealed weapons to students, professors, and staff on a college campus. The issue of guns on campus quickly became hotly politicized. With some exceptions, liberal-leaning legislators objected that such laws would convert campuses into war zones and saw guns on campus as merely another way to make campuses that much more unsafe: more guns, more risk. Right-leading legislators, however, argued that the only way to protect individuals on campuses from hostile shooters was to enable them to shoot back. For gun advocates, the scenario illustrated well the logic of at least one of the basic tenants the Second Amendment. From their point of view, it made no sense for a college to insist on a law-abiding gun owner to leave his or her weapon off-campus while gun-toting criminals could not be similarly restrained (Riemer, 2014).

Legislation. Legislation that covers the right to carry weapons on a campus varies from state to state. In 2013 alone nineteen states introduced such legislation. As of 2016, ten states allow carrying weapons onto a campus if the person is at least 21 years old, has been screened by the standard background check, and carries a legally processed gun permit. Some states have certain restricts on the weapons, for example, not allowing them at athletic events, concerts, or assemblies. In some jurisdictions, weapons must be stored in a person’s car.

Other provisions include requiring notification of students and professors in a class that a student is licensed to carry a weapon; allowing faculty members to make specific class policy against weapons concealment in their classes or in their offices during mandated office hours; and prohibiting weapons of any sort, including knives, in or near campus-run daycare facilities or in dormitories. In 2016, Utah was the only state where state funded colleges were explicitly denied the right to limit in any way the right to carry concealed weapons. Only eighteen states explicitly and specifically ban weapons on state colleges.

The most widely reported-on gun legislation was a 2016 law enacted by the Texas legislature and signed into law by the state’s Republican governor. Passed in the month marking the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Texas clock tower shootings, over the objections of the university’s president Gregory L. Fenves, the law permits concealed weapons on any state-funded college or university campus, providing the carrier meets all other state and federal laws for carrying concealed weapons.

Further Insights

At the center of the guns on campus debate is the significant difference between the conceptual, that is theoretical, template for college itself as opposed to what a college actually is in the real world. Critics question whether campus life is really inherently different from the wider world or merely a microcosm of it (Cramer, 2014).

Campus Life: The Model. Ideally, college is an educational environment for adults where open and often contentious discussion is actually encouraged in classrooms where students are exposed to a variety of positions, some of which may be personally challenging. College students are presumably beyond, or at least moving out of, the tempestuous and emotionally trying years of adolescence. Friendships are more stable, relationships more mature, commitments to others through social interactions more reliable, behavior more predictable. The college admissions process attempts to screen for problematic students, either rejecting them outright or directing them to specialized counseling services as a way to moderate any incipient antisocial inclinations. Campuses are secured through the presence of law enforcement and security services. Mental health staff, residence counselors, academic advisers, and even the faculty receive training to spot warning signs of potentially harmful behavior and even direct such students into specific medical or psychological services.

Under such a theoretical model, colleges offer a kind of privileged space apart, where students exchange passionate views, investigate difficult topics, challenge themselves and each other for merit recognition in classes, and stay focused on career ambitions. The campus environment is conducive to the development of students’ social awareness, fostering contact with students from other states, regions, and countries. A diverse study body tends to dispel xenophobia and racism and create more compassionate and reasonable students, who become, in turn, more compassionate and reasonable adults.

Potential Effects of Guns on Campus Life. In practice, however, college students represent a cross section of society, including some who hold narrow opinions, dislike contradiction, and have reactive tempers. For these students, campus life can feel threatening and chaotic. Many university educators point out that class discussions, particularly in matters of race, religion, politics, and class, can escalate into pitched and emotional exchanges, and they express concern that arming students would drastically curtail this environment of free speech and unrestrained discussion.

More to the point, college students, although legally adults, still linger within adolescent range of emotional self-control and can respond inappropriately to challenging situations. Relationships go wrong, friendships turn into drama. Further, college students are not by nature any less prone than their elders to react with hostility toward those who they perceive to be different because of race, political persuasion, sexual orientation, ethnicity, or religion. The prevalence of alcohol and drug use among college students further contributes to impulsive and over-reactive behaviors. Under the circumstances, many who work on college campuses question the wisdom of allowing students keep firearms in their rooms or go about the school armed.

Viewpoints

As both Miller, Hemenway, and Wechsler (2002), and Bennett, Kraft, and Grubb (2012) show, poll after poll, survey after survey has shown that faculty and staff as well as students overwhelmingly opposed allowing concealed weapons on campus. The 2016 Texas bill, in fact, was immediately challenged in court by a group of tenured professors adamant that arming students and faculty would actually enhance the risk of gun violence.

Statistically, its 4,400 university campuses are among the safest environments in the United States. Furthermore, the Department of Justice data released in 2014 indicated that 97 percent of campus gun violence actually happened off campus—that is, in parking lots (often as part of robbery attempts) or in off-campus housing. The U.S. Department of Education reported in 2010 that the ratio of deaths from gun violence on campus is .07 per 100,000 students. In the same period, deaths from gun violence in the general population is nearly 6 deaths per 100,000 people. In terms of gun violence, college campuses by contrast were very safe (Teeple, Thompson & Price, 2012).

The pro-gun argument, however, is guided less by data than driven by ideology. Concealed carry advocates assert the right to carry concealed weapons as a basic expression of the Second Amendment. Any limitation on the right to own and carry a gun, they argue, starts the United States on a slippery slope that will inevitably involve confiscating the weapons, including hunting and sporting rifles, of law-abiding citizens. The Second Amendment is central to the argument of gun manufacturers and owners, and its interpretation, on which state laws depend, varies according to the strength of the gun culture locally. Support for guns on campuses is strongest where the population is familiar and comfortable with guns (Labanc, Melear & Hemphill, 2014).

Concealed carry supporters view having a gun as relatively safe and certainly safer than being without one in an armed confrontation. They argue that a would-be shooter coming to a campus would be far more likely to reconsider their intentions if they knew that they might be walking into a classroom in which the professor or any number of students might be able to return fire. Opponents view the same scenario as a nightmare in which a classroom becomes the site of a pitched and deadly vigilante gun fight. Because most shooters conclude a spree by committing suicide if they are not killed by law enforcement, the deterrent effect of return fire seems dubious. Further, most shooting incidents are targeted at individuals, so the risk of crossfire from one or several weapons located throughout a classroom could result in an unnecessarily high number of casualties.

As dramatic as they are, the odds of a shooting incident are very small. Educators are far more concerned about the potential chilling effect of concealed firearms on the essential purpose of higher education. The expectation of armed opposition may not deter a mentally ill killer, but the deterrence effect may be strongly felt in what material an instructor presents and how he or she chooses to present it and in the impedance of open and free debate of controversial ideas among students.

Terms & Concepts

Concealed Carry: Firearms worn or carried in plain sight, as in hunting or range shooting, face few objections. Weapons that are carried hidden—in a purse or under a jacket, for example—are subject to state laws that license or otherwise permit gun use. Law enforcement generally opposes concealed-carry laws.

Second Amendment: The second amendment to the U.S. Constitution, contained in the Bill of Rights, which states, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Gun advocates interpret it to mean that all Americans have an unrestricted right to own and carry guns; gun-control advocates locate the people’s right to bear arms in the volunteer National Guard, which they see as the contemporary militia. Because the wording seems to stress the role of national defense as the reason to forbid infringements on weapon ownership, gun-control proponents don’t view regulations on individual ownership as constitutionally protected.

Target Rich: In the psychology of mass shootings, a location with virtually no security apparatus that attracts a large number of persons most likely unarmed.

Target-Specific: In the psychology of mass shootings, a location and/or person specifically designated for an attack for a specific grievance or reason.

Vigilante: One who acts to administer justice (most often through violence) in an extrajudicial capacity.

Xenophobia: An unreasoning fear of other people on the basis of foreign origin.

Bibliography

Bennett, K., Kraft, J., & Grubb, D. (2012). University faculty attitudes toward guns on campus. Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 23(3), 336–355. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=79379727&site=ehost-live

Birnbaum, R. (2013). Ready, fire, aim: The college campus gunfight. Change, 45(5), 6–14. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=90135237&site=ehost-live

Cramer, C. (2014). Guns on campus: A history. Academic Questions, 27(4), 411–425. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=99852876&site=ehost-live

Labanc, B. H., Melear, K. B., & Hemphill, B. O. (2014). The debate over campus-based gun control legislation. Journal of College & University Law, 40(3), 397–424. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=99252844&site=ehost-live

Mangan, K. (2016, April 8). Campus-carry rules vary, depending on where guns are. Chronicle of Higher Education. A6. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=114275553&site=ehost-live

Miller, M., Hemenway, D., & Wechsler, H. (2002). Guns and gun threats at college. Journal of American College Health, 51(2), 57–65. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=507783443&site=ehost-live

Riemer, F. (2014). Wrapped in the flag: Liberal discourse, Mexican American studies, and guns in campus. Critical Education, 5(8), 1–13. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=103713015&site=ehost-live

Robinson, J. H. (2014). Armed violence on campus: A search for solutions. Journal of College & University Law, 40(3), i–v. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=99252843&site=ehost-live

Teeple, K., Thompson, A., & Price, J. H. (2012). Armed campuses: The current status of concealed guns on college campuses. Health Education Monograph Series, 29(2), 57–64. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=111323088&site=ehost-live

Suggested Reading

Colleges must absorb costs connected to guns-on-campus legislation. (2015). Community College Week, 27(15), 12. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=101436832&site=ehost-live

Cook, P., & Goss, K. (Eds.). (2014). The gun debate: What everyone needs to know. New York: Oxford University Press.

Dahl, P. P., Bonham, J. G., & Reddington, F. P. (2016). Community college faculty: Attitudes toward guns on campus. Community College Journal of Research & Practice, 40(8), 706–717. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=114606616&site=ehost-live

Former officer brought gun to campus in wake of Umpqua shootings. (2015). Community College Week, 28(7), 52. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=110959561&site=ehost-live

Hephner, B., et al., (Eds.). (2015). College in the crosshairs: An administrative perspective on prevention of gun violence. Sterling, VA: Stylus.

Mangan, K. (2016, May 13). Governor’s veto wont end fight over guns on Georgia’s campuses. Chronicle of Higher Education. A8. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=115321931&site=ehost-live

Mangan, K. (2015, October 23). A university debates how to carry out a divisive guns-on-campus law. Chronicle of Higher Education. 1. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=110524203&site=ehost-live

McCarthy, C. (2014). Follow survey respondents’ best practices for campus gun policies, procedures. Campus Security Report, 10(11), 7. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from EBSCO Online Database Education Source. http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=94506291&site=ehost-live