Engineered Vulnerability: An Examination of Vulnerability Narratives within Students for Concealed Carry on Campus

• In Event: Fear of Crime in a College Setting

Abstract

In recent years, much research has focused on the structural nature of vulnerability to crime. Emphasizing the vulnerable status of women as well as racial and sexual minorities, the current research fails to account for the ever-present narrative of vulnerability expressed by dominant group members, specifically white heterosexual males. To address this gap, I examine 30 interviews with members of the overwhelmingly white male gun rights organization Students for Concealed Carry on Campus (SCCC). While the members of SCCC promote allowing licensed handgun owners to carry concealed firearms on campus, their justifications are very much based in what I call engineered vulnerability – a constructed sense of vulnerability that denies the insulation from crime granted by a dominant status. Extending the current research on vulnerability, I use my study of SCCC to argue that dominant group members exhibit an inverted epistemology that produces a narrative of vulnerability that contradicts empirical reality.

Author

• Todd C. Couch, Coker College