Guns on Campus: The Impact of Campus Carry on Student Behavior and Emotions

Abstract

Recently, many states have made it legal for students and other campus stakeholders to carry a concealed firearm on their college campus in some capacity. Students, staff, and faculty have been affected as a result; these decisions are criticized by some and strongly encouraged by others. In 2004, Utah became the first state to lift concealed carry restrictions on college campuses. Since then, campus carry policies have emerged in many states. Currently, 13 states require states to allow some form of concealed carry on the campuses of public colleges and universities. Another 21 allow colleges and universities to establish campus-specific rules about campus carry (McMahon-Howard et al., 2022). Two landmark Supreme Court cases paved the way for the proliferation of ABSTRACT Most research on campus carry uses a quantitative approach to measure attitudes towards campus carry policies, existing or pending. Using focus group data, this paper examines self-reported impacts on behavior and emotional responses to a three-year-old campus carry law at one university in the rural west. We explore whether guns on campus impacted studentreported behavior in the classroom or on campus. Student responses were entered into qualitative analysis software, where data was categorized according to themes. The two most prominent themes were that students reported no impact on their behavior on campus while also expressing anxiety over the lack of training for concealed carry users, mental health issues among members of the campus community, and accidental shootings. The student's responses reveal contradictions and nuances to their reported lack of behavioral change regarding latent anxieties while on campus. This research builds upon existing research on the impact of campus carry laws by going beyond quantification and adding a more indepth look into the lived experiences of students on campuses that allow concealed firearms.