Weapons Reporting: A Qualitative Study

Concealed carry and college campuses are two major topics currently in the media, yet these two topics are rarely used in unison, until now. The topic of whether or not concealed carry should be allowed on college campuses is a now mainstream debate with multiple views and numerous differentiating opinions. Many of the general public question if campus police is capable enough to protect a university’s enormous student body? Another commonly discussed issue is if concealed handguns actually do deter crime, and if they are capable of aiding in stopping a mass shooting spree? Or if guns on campus, carried by fellow classmates would make students as a whole feel more cautious or on the opposing hand make students feel more secure with guns carried on campus? If guns are allowed on campus, how will this affect a growing student’s ideology? These questions and many more are highly spoken of in our social media based generation, the answers to these questions help to improve our knowledge on this debate of concealed carry on college campuses, which will lead us to form our own individual opinions on this debate topic based on the facts and evidence presented.

Numerous studies have been conducted to determine if teachers should be in possession of a firearm while on school properties and if this will decrease the number and magnitude of school shootings. Many scholars believe equipping teachers with firearms will be costly and end up unnecessarily endangering more students, but many scholars claim that a teacher should be the last line of defense against a school shooter. The question this paper hopes to answer is how can equipping teachers who teach grades K-12 help to prevent school shootings in the United States. This paper will attempt to answer that question by examining the perspectives of school administration and law enforcement, the impact on student’s safety and education, the

A major issue in the United States is gun control. Due to multiple mass shootings in schools and public areas, restrictions regarding guns have been implemented across the United States. Andrew Parks, a student at The University of Alabama, wrote an article against gun restrictions. His article, “The University should allow concealed carry,” supports the idea of college campuses like The University of Alabama, allowing students to conceal carry firearms. In an article written by Jennie Kushner, the opinions of students on the University of Alabama’s Police Department’s gun policy are presented. The safety of student body relies on the students’ feeling safe. That safety comes from less gun control laws and policies on campus. Each of the articles stated provides information against gun control in different ways.

This same technique is used later in the article to emphasize the fact that many college students use mind altering substances such as drugs and alcohol; and that adding firearms, concealed or not, would add a new variable to possible suicides and intra-student violence. In addition to all of these statistics, the author also uses reason to make the point that college classrooms are places where you should be able to speak freely and without fear of possible retaliation. The author feels that if students do not know who may or may not have a concealed weapon on them, they may be less likely to speak their mind and learn all that they can.

In order to understand the underlying problems, I have researched the issue of k-12 students protesting gun violence. Throughout my research, I have learned about gun laws and statistics regarding gun violence. It is clear to me that students protesting gun violence is a problem because they want to ban assault rifles, many students are uneducated about guns, and the media instilling an irrational fear in students is not the solution to deterring gun

Tragic school shootings have contributed to the topic of teachers carrying concealed weapons. School is suppose to be a safe place for students to learn. Recent talks have suggested that teachers act as frontline defenders. This opinion has brought about debate of whether educators should carry concealed weapons. This paper will argue against the proposition of placing teachers in the role of frontline defenders by establishing the position that students do not support the idea, teachers are not in favor of carrying concealed weapons and the potential for health issues associated with teachers carrying concealed weapons.

Zenobia Harris argues in an article in the VSU student newspaper The Spectator titled, “Guns on Campus Will Hurt Not Help,” that students and faculty carrying guns on campus will do more harm than good. She presents a selected study from The RAND Corporation as well as citing a CNN article, balanced with a counter point to show that the cons outweigh the pros when it comes to high stress situations involving

Gun violence at American colleges and universities has revived the debate surrounding concealed weapons on campus. This study examined college student and faculty opinions on two college campuses, focusing on their attitudes towards private citizens carrying concealed guns on campus. Data were collected during the fall 2008 and spring 2009, and over 2,100 students, staff, faculty, and administrators on the two campuses participated in the research. The results indicate over 70 % of respondents oppose the option of carrying concealed guns on campus. In addition, the idea of more guns on campus makes the majority of students and faculty feel less safe, and allowing concealed weapons serves to decrease the sense of campus safety. This study continues

Same of the key characteristics that lead to school shootings are: the number of kids enrolled in the school, urban or suburban location, and public funding (DE). A current study examined many key characteristics of all schools in which random (38) and targeted (96) fatal shootings occurred within the United States between 1966 and 2009. These were compared with a group (138) of schools randomly selected to represent the population of all schools in the United States. In past shootings the perpetrator or perpetrators had been or were associated with the school (DE). It was not as if a man from California came to a random school in West Virginia and shot at random. All past school shooting was preventable in that they were all premeditated crimes. People could have been more aware of the behavior of the perpetrators. The perpetrator was sometimes a person that the school was familiar

The summary of this article is that campus carry does not increase safety on campus. A new study finds that allowing guns on campus can decrease mass shootings and other violent crimes. On pacific study conducted by the FBI found that out of a sample of 160 shooting in American, only one instance did an armed civilian attempt to stop the attack. People that that claim that guns stop crime, often blame mass shootings on 'gun-free zones'. The author’s purpose was to inform the reader about studies that show guns do not stop mass shooting or decrease them.

“Increasing gun availability in campus environments could make far more common acts of aggression, recklessness, or self-harm deadlier” – Abby Jackson from Business

Not only can concealed carry help prevent and stop mass shootings on campuses before the police arrive; it can also help lower the crime rate. Renneker demonstrates that not allowing concealed carry on campus leads to a higher crime rate on campus by citing the following, much in line with Fortunato’s findings on concealed carry across the nation. In 2013 Boise State

“Colleges and universities occupy a special place in American society. They are much more than a series of buildings and collection of individuals. Instead, they are dynamic living and learning environments where individuals with varying levels of maturity interact, often under stressful circumstances. While recognizing the right of responsible individuals to possess firearms under other circumstances, the unique characteristics of a university campus make the presence of firearms problematic. The shootings that have occurred in recent years at US colleges and universities have generated passionate debate about how best to prevent such violence and whether persons should be allowed to carry concealed guns on campuses. Experts believe there is no credible evidence that students or staff carrying guns would reduce crime. In fact, research has shown that the brains of most college students have not fully developed regarding impulse control and judgment” (Dickerson). Therefore, guns should not be allowed on college campuses because it would lead to an escalation in violent crime, distract from the learning environment, and lead to accidental discharge incidents.

There is a heated debate about how U.S. states reduce their gun violence. According to findings by John and David (1997), the right- to carry concealed weapons minimum the probability of criminal issue rate. The exam made by Cavanaugh and Michael (2012) found that students are not very supportive for concealed handguns on America university campuses, and large part of them even feel lower comfortable if campus without restrictive policy about handguns. In another highly publicized claim, Richard uviller (1996) argues that although people hand with more private firearms, the death rate caused by the predators will not dramatically decrease.

This analysis is based on the research study, Assessing School and Student Predictors of Weapons Reporting. In this study, Wylie, Gibson, Brank, Fondacaro, Smith, Brown, and Miller (2010) examined school violence in schools. These researchers looked at how schools were trying to reduce the violence and the many attempts to do so that had already been made. Most importantly, they looked at the willingness of students to report the violence. Wylie et al. (2010) took the idea of violence further and examined “how school characteristics may influence willingness to report weapon carrying” (p.352).