The Great Gun Divide: Faculty Attitudes Toward Campus Carry

• In Event: Moving Forward/Going Back: Social Movements and Crime

Abstract

The issue of gun control has been a hot button topic in the United States for decades. Currently, only 16 states ban the carrying of firearms on college campuses. Among those, several, including Florida, have introduced and debated legislation that would allow students to carry concealed weapons. As several states debate the necessity of arming members of the student body, it is incumbent to understand how faculty, the ones who interact most often with students, feel about the prospect of armed individuals being legally allowed on their campuses. To find out how faculty might react to the passage of such legislation, researchers from Florida State University and Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University conducted 50 semi-structured interviews with members of the faculty at two universities in Florida to answer the following research questions: What are the chief concerns among faculty at each institution and within various academic departments? How do these concerns vary by key social characteristics? Findings reveal notable age and gender variation in both concerns about guns on campus as well as potential strategies to mitigate these concerns.

Authors

• Benjamin Dowd-Arrow, Florida State University

• Amy Burdette, Florida State University

• Stacy Haynes, Mississippi State University

• Mylah Robinson, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

• Ray Robertson, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University

• Phyllis Gray-Ray, Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University