The Prevalence and Correlates of College Students’ Access to Firearms

• In Event: Firearms in Educational and Community Contexts

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to assess the extent of colleges’ student access to a working firearm, partially replicating and then extending the Harvard School of Public Health’s College Alcohol Study’s (CAS) pathbreaking research on guns and gun threats at college (Miller et al., 1999, 2002). To do so, we use student access-to-a-firearm/gun data from the ACHA-NCHA III National College Health Assessment administered in the spring 2020 (pre- COVID) and spring 2021 to over 20,000 students at 25 two-and four-year colleges/universities from across the U.S. We then identify (1) the proportion of students reporting they have access to a firearm/gun, and (2) the correlates of access including: student demographics, drug and alcohol use, lifestyles, psycho-social well-being, perceptions of safety, interpersonal violence experiences, and school-level characteristics. Preliminary results indicate similarities to, as well as departures from, results reported by the earlier CAS studies concerning firearm access and its correlates. Implications of the results for campus safety and the ongoing debate over concealed carrying of firearms on college campuses are discussed, and suggestions are made for further research relating to guns on college campuses.

Authors

• John J. Sloan, University of Alabama at Birmingham

• Bonnie S. Fisher, University of Cincinnati

• Bradford Reyns, Weber State University