Gun attitudes on campus: United and divided by safety needs

Abstract

All people share a need for safety. Yet people's pursuit of safety can conflict when it comes to guns, with some people perceiving guns as a means to safety and others perceiving guns as a threat to safety. We examined this conflict on a U.S. college campus that prohibits guns. We distinguished between people (N = 11,390) who (1) own a gun for protection, (2) own a gun exclusively for reasons other than protection (e.g., collecting, sports), and (3) do not own a gun. Protection owners felt less safe on campus and supported allowing guns on campus. They also reported that they and others would feel safer and that gun violence would decrease if they carried a gun on campus. Non-owners and non-protection owners felt the reverse. The findings suggest that protection concerns, rather than gun-ownership per se, account for diverging perceptions and attitudes about guns and gun control.

The open and concealed carry of firearms at public colleges and universities in Florida : perceptions and attitudes of campus public safety directors

“…Importantly, non-protection gun owners more closely resembled non-gun owners than protection gun owners. The conclusion was that gun ownership alone was not a reliable predictor of either an individual's feelings of safety on campus or of his or her support for campus carry legislation (Shepperd et al, 2017).…”

“…IHEs regarding campus carry legislation. As discussed above, several previous studies of campus carry, some conducted in Florida, found that a majority of the students, faculty, and staff at IHEs opposed campus carry and believed that allowing guns on campus would have a deleterious effect on the learning environment (Bartula & Bowen, 2015;Bennet, Kraft, & Grubb, 2012;Canon, 2016: Cavanaugh, Bouffard, Wells, & Nobles, 2012Patten, Thomas, & Wada, 2013;Shepperd et al, 2017;Shepperd et al, 2018;Spratt, 2015;Thompson, et al, 2013;Webster et al, 2016). The results of this survey study are unlikely to differ significantly from those of previous studies; the aim here was rather to reveal the specific point of view of campus public safety directors in Florida, a population that has not been targeted in previous surveys.…”

“…All of these surveys targeted Florida residents and voters (Larrabee, 2015;Nielson, 2016b, Nielson, 2017c but not the populations that campus carry legislation directly affects, namely the students, staff, and faculty members of the 40 public colleges and universities in Florida. Shepperd and his colleagues, however, recently conducted two studies regarding campus carry at a major university in Florida to investigate just these groups regarding campus carry (Shepperd, Pogge, Losee, Lipsey, & Redford, 2017. Again, the majority of the respondents felt that allowing guns on campus would be detrimental to the educational environment.…”

“…Turning again to the issue of safety, social scientists have long held that it is a fundamental human need (Shepperd et al, 2017). To expand on the earlier discussion, Maslow (1943Maslow ( , 1954 distinguished five hierarchical categories according to their levels of biological urgency (Tompkins, 2005).…”

“…Most quantitative survey studies, then, have indicated that those directly affected by campus carry (students, faculty, and staff) oppose it and would not carry firearms on campus even if doing so were lawful (Bartula & Bowen, 2015;Bennet, Kraft, & Grubb, 2012;Patten, Thomas, & Wada, 2013;Shepperd et al, 2017Shepperd et al, , 2018Spratt, 2015, Thompson et al, 2013.…”