A Study of Campus Carry

Abstract

In 2016, colleges and universities in Texas will have to allow concealed weapons at campus. This new law has stirred public discussions and has become a controversial subject. In Fall 2015 at Texas Tech University, an ESL advanced English writing class dedicated a research survey to the topic of campus carry. This survey was distributed to the community of Texas Tech University. The ESL class got some statistic results from students and faculty regarding their opinions about campus carry from different perspectives. (Xiaomiao Wang)

Keywords: Campus Carry Law, guns on campus.

Introduction

In 2016, colleges and universities in Texas will have to allow concealed weapons on campus. This new law has stirred public discussions and has become a controversial subject. In Texas, Texans have a tradition of carrying guns, especially in remote areas. However, in recent years, campus shootings have caught a lot of public attention, so people have different opinions about campus carry.

In Fall 2015 at Texas Tech University, an ESL advanced English writing class decided to do a survey research on the topic of campus carry. This survey was distributed to the community of Texas Tech University. The ESL class hoped to get some statistics from students and faculty regarding their opinions about campus carry from different perspectives.  For example, males and females may have different opinions about it; Republicans and Democrats may have disagreements; people from Texas and people from other places may feel differently about gun control; people may have different points of view about where guns should be allowed; and so on.

Literature Review

Argument 1

After the Texas Legislature passed the bill of campus carry, there were discussions and debates in the public. People who support campus carry think women could be safer if they carried guns with them (Kaufman, 2015). However, statistics show that in one third of sexual assault cases, the victims’ intimate partners were the perpetrators. Campus sexual assaults often have alcohol involved, and more guns on campus would cause more homicides. During an interview, the executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence stated that women might not be strong enough to keep their guns when they used them in dangerous situations, then more damage would occur (Hawkins, 2015).

Hypothesis 1

Based on what we read, I would predict that most people at Texas Tech University would disagree that by carrying guns, women will be safer on campus.

Argument 2

People think a lot of shootings happen on campuses. Therefore, campus carry would allow people to defend themselves, and fight back against shooters (Metzger, 2015). Other people argue that students don’t feel comfortable if there are more guns on campus, especially some students and faculty who would bring their kids to the universities. During a shooting, there might be more injured people if there were more guns. Students and faculty would not want to see guns in their classrooms (Cattanach, 2015). It would make them nervous, and make them worry about whether a gun would be accidentally fired or go off.

Hypothesis 2

Based on what we read, I would predict that most people at Texas Tech University would feel uncomfortable to know that they are with students or faculty who carry guns, and people will agree that campus carry will not make them safe during a mass shooting.

Argument 3

Statistics show that people with licensed guns have less chances to be involved in crimes (Welch, 2015). Some people think it is not necessary to update school facilities since people have been carrying guns in some other public space, such as malls, and churches. Some of the mass shootings happened in “gun free” zones, which caused many victims (Pratt, 2012). Some people think they could have defended themselves if they were allowed to carry guns in these situations. People should have right to defend themselves wherever they are (Redmon, 2015).

Hypothesis 3

Based on what we read, I would predict that people with experiences of guns, or who grew up in a culture of carrying guns would support the campus carry law.

Argument 4

People who are conservative tend to object to gun control, and people who are liberal would prefer more strict laws on gun control. Therefore, Republicans and Democrats would have a different opinions regarding campus carry. For example, Sen. Rodney Ellis, a Democrat, argued that this bill would make a less safe environment (Mooney, 2015). Sen. Craig Estes, a Republican, had a strong belief in people who had concealed licenses. He thought they were responsible people.

Hypothesis 4

Based on what we read, it is more than likely that the majority of Republicans would have prefer campus carry law, and most Democrats would be against it.

Argument 5

Even though some people would like to practice the Second Amendment right, according to Virginia 21’s survey, 83% of Virginian college students oppose the campus carry law (Atkins, 2015). In another survey from 2013, 80% of students and 90% faculty were against campus carry (Kaufman, 2015). There are a lot people in universities who are not mature enough to handle guns (Castro-Crist, 2015).

Hypothesis 5

Based on what we read, I would predict that the majority of people at Texas Tech University would be against the campus carry law.

Methods

In 2016, colleges and universities in Texas will have to allow concealed weapons on campus. Since this law will affect people in universities, the ESL advanced English writing class section two at Texas Tech University (TTU) tried to find out the opinions of TTU students and faculty regarding this topic. We wanted to know if gender, age, educational backgrounds, originalities, cultural backgrounds and other personal references would affect TTU members’ points of view regarding this law. Also we would like to know their opinions and reactions to this law from various perspectives.

 The ESL advanced English writing class section two made a survey and distributed it to the TTU community (See Appendix A). There were total twenty-six questions in this survey, which include “yes” and “no” questions, multiple choices, and questions need short answers. Participants were asked about their gender, nationality, educational background, political stands, where they grew up, experience with guns, whether they supported the campus carry, whether they would use guns in shooting accidents, their stands about women carrying guns, their opinions about when people should be able to carry guns around them, where the places they thought guns could be carried were, how they felt about other tools for defense, and so on.

Each class member of the ESL class was asked to collect thirteen surveys. All of the surveys had to be completed by members of the TTU community. Twelve of the surveys had to be completed by American students or faculty; half of them had to be female, and another half had to be male. Since we were from different departments, we collected surveys from various colleges and schools. Some of our classmates went to libraries and the Student Union in order to get a variety of samples.

We collected a total of 148 surveys; one of them was not completed, so there was a total of 147 valid surveys. We used Microsoft Excel to make charts and graphs to analyze the results.

Results

After the ESL Advanced English writing class collected data at Texas Tech University, a total of 147 valid surveys were collected. There were total numbers of 76 males, and 71 females. Among them, there were 88 from Texas, 32 from the USA, but not Texas, and 27 from outside of the USA. 48% of the surveyees were from small towns or remote areas, and the other of 52% were from large cities or grew up in many places.

I predicted that most people at Texas Tech University would disagree that by carrying guns, women would be safer on campus. However, after analyzing the data, I found that there were 55% of people who thought women would be safer if they carried guns, 44% of them disagreed, and 1% of people who were not sure about it (Figure 1). However, males and females had slightly different points of view about it.  59% of males thought guns would make women safer, and only 49% of women thought so (Figure 2).

I predicted that most people at Texas Tech University would feel uncomfortable to know that their friends were carrying guns. The results showed that 49% of people felt uncomfortable if they knew their friends were carrying guns, there were 24% of people who had no feeling about it, and there were 27% of people who said that they didn’t mind (Figure 3). So there were almost equal numbers of people who felt uncomfortable or didn’t mind their friends carrying guns. In our survey, we found that whether people grew up in a home with guns or not would affect their opinions about this. Among people who grew up without guns in their home, 67% of them would feel uncomfortable if they knew their friends were carrying guns; but for people who grew up with guns in their home, only 33% of them thought so (Figure 4).

I predicted that people would agree that campus carry would not make them safer during a mass shooting. The survey showed 51% of people didn’t think more guns would make us safer during a mass shooting, 46% of people thought more guns would make us safer, and 3% of people were not sure (Figure 5). However, whether people grew up in a home with guns or not strongly affected their opinions about this issue. In our survey, we found that among people who grew up with guns in their home, 54% of them thought more guns would make us safer during a mass shooting; but for people who grew up without guns in their home, only 32% of them thought so (Figure 6).

In general, Republicans supported the campus carry law, and Democrats were against it. From our survey, we found that 74% of Republican thought campus carry would make campus safer, 24% of them did not think so, and 2% of them were not sure (Figure 7). Among Democrats, only 10% of them agreed that campus carry would make us safer, and 90% of them thought campus carry would not make campus safer (Figure 8). It is clear that Republicans and Democrats have different points of view about the concealed gun carry permission on campus.

I predicted that the majority of people at Texas Tech University would be against the campus carry law. The results shows there were 59% of people who didn’t think concealed gun carry permission would make campus safer, 39% of people would agree that the campus carry would make campus safer, and 3% of people were not sure about it (Figure 9). In general, we may feel that the percentage of men who supported campus carry would be higher than the percentage of women who did. However, the statistics showed that the percentages of men and women who supported campus carry were very close. 41% of men thought campus carry would make us safer (Figure 10), and 37% of women thought so (Figure 11). In our survey, we asked people where they were from. The results show that among people who were from Texas, 52% of them thought campus carry would make us safer; among people who were from other states, only 27% of them agreed; and among people who were from other countries, the number was even lower, only 11% of them agreed (Figure 12). In general, people in different ages may have disagreements about the campus carry law. The results showed that among people who were undergraduates, the numbers of people who supported the campus carry law and the numbers of people who were against it were very close, which was 49% versus 51%. Among graduate students, 37% of master students supported campus carry, and only 19% of PhD students supported it. Our survey showed that 100% faculty were against the campus carry law (Figure 13).

Discussion

In order to find out the Texas Tech University community’s opinions about the campus carry law, the ESL Advanced English writing class collected data at Texas Tech University. We wanted to find out if most members of Texas Tech University would support the campus carry law, what they thought of women carrying guns regarding their safety, if Republicans and Democrats would have different opinions about gun control, if growing up with guns in their homes would affect people’s opinions, and if guns would make us safer if there was a mass shooting.

The statistics in the survey show that most members of Texas Tech University would agree that by carrying guns, women would be safer on campus. However, males and females had slightly different points of view about it.  More than half of males thought guns would make women safer, and slightly less than half of women thought so. This is why overall numbers of people thought carrying guns made women safer. It is possible more numbers of men than women had experience with gun, and they had confidence in how to use and handle guns. Men also tend to be physically stronger than women, so they might think other people could defend themselves with no problem from their perspective. At the same time, women would imagine they would fight with male attackers, and the attackers might take their guns from women which would leave women in a more dangerous situation than when there was no gun. These may be the reasons why the percentage of men who thought women would be safer by carrying guns was bigger.

The survey showed that smaller numbers of people felt uncomfortable if they knew their friends were carrying guns than people who didn’t mind. At the same time, we found that whether people grew up in a home with guns or not affected their opinions about this. Among people who grew up without guns in their home, most of them would feel uncomfortable if they knew their friends were carrying guns; but for people who grew up with guns in their home, most of them thought it wouldn’t bother them. Having grown up in a culture where people around you have guns most of time, you may have more knowledge about gun safety, and how to handle guns than people who grow up without guns in their home. So people who grew up with guns in their home will more than likely be less nervous about guns, and not as easily be intimidated by people around them carrying guns.

The survey showed that more than half of people didn’t think more guns would make us safer during a mass shooting. At the same time, we found the different opinions between people who grew up with guns in their home and those who didn’t grow up with guns in their home. Most people who grew up with guns in their home thought more guns would make us safer during a mass shooting; but for people who grew up without guns in their home, only a third of them thought so. This indicates that if people have experience of guns in their lives, they tend to trust and have confidence in how people handle guns. If people don’t see a lot of guns in their life, they would think more guns may result in more mis-shooting, and they would not trust others with guns. They may also think the shooter may take guns from other people, and make more casualties.

From our survey statistics, we tried to find if Republicans would share different perspectives from the Democrats regarding the campus carry law. Our results show that most Republicans thought campus carry would make campus safer, and the majority of Democrats thought campus carry would not make campus safer. It was clear that Republicans and Democrats had different points of view about the concealed gun carry permission on campus. Republicans are more conservative than Democrats, and most of them believe in the Second Amendment.

Our survey showed that most people in Texas Tech University didn’t think concealed gun carry permission would make campus safer. In their opinions, this law would bring negative effects to the campus. Since most of people in campus are young and may not be mature enough to control their temper or stress, most people would prefer that there were fewer weapons involved in possible conflicts. More guns may result in more injury. How to safely store the guns may be another concern of most of people. An owner of a gun may be harmless, but other people may have access to the gun if the owner is not careful enough. The chances of an attacker getting a gun would increase if the numbers of guns on campus increase. Therefore, overall in Texas Tech University, the majority of people were against the campus carry law. However at the same time, the results clearly showed that whether people were from Texas or not affected their opinions about the campus carry law. More than half of Texans would agree that concealed gun carry permission would make the campus safer. Because most of people in Texas grew up with the culture of guns, they believed that guns could be used to defend themselves, just like when they walked in woods and countryside. Also Texans tended  to be conservative. They would be against gun control. For people who were from other states, some of the states may have more restricted gun control laws, so people had few chances to see and handle guns. They certainly would be uncomfortable to be with people who were carrying guns, and most of they would be against the campus carry law. In some other countries, the gun control laws are even more restricted. For example, in China, it is illegal to have a gun if you are not serving in the police or in the military. So people from outside of United States may have very limited experiences with guns. This is why most of international members in Texas Tech University did not think that concealed gun carry permission would make the campus safer. Our survey showed that people had different pints of view according to their ages. For undergraduates who were under twenty-one and undergraduates who were above twenty-one, the numbers of people who supported campus carry is equal as the numbers of people who were against it. And the numbers of people who were against the campus carry law increased a lot in the groups of master students and PhD students. This may indicates that when people grew older, they tended to be more careful. They would like to reduce the chances to put the community in a dangerous position. Among faulty members, all of them were against the campus carry law. Since faculty would normally work at the university for a long time, they would have more concerns about the safety issues than students who normally would graduate in four years. However, we have relatively smaller statistic pool of faculty. This should be taken into the  consideration. Overall though, the majority of people were against the campus carry law among graduate students and people who were older.

In some of our survey questions, we only had “yes” and “no” choices, then we found that there were people who left the answer unmarked, or checked both answers; for example, in question twenty-five, we asked if people thought concealed guns would make campus safer, and we only had “yes” and “no” choices, there were people who chose both, and some chose none. So in my opinion, we should have given a third choice of answer, for example, “not sure”, or “both” to this question, as well as some other questions that needed the third choice. It would have made our statistics more accurate. At the same time, when I filled out the survey by myself, I found I had difficulty choosing between the “yes” and “no” answers for a couple of questions. Therefore, in the future, after the survey is designed, we, as researchers, should fill out the survey first. Then we can see the survey from participants’ points of view, and adjust the design of questions and answers accordingly. This can be one of useful strategies to make an effective survey.

Conclusion

The campus carry law will be effective in 2016 in Texas. Even though whether it may have huge impact on the life of students and faculty in a university is unknown, people in Texas started discussions and debates about it. So, how do people in universities and colleges feel about this law? This study is to find out some of their opinions and points of view. After collecting 147 surveys from Texas Tech University, we found that the majority people in this university were against the campus carry law. More than half of participants thought more guns would not make us safer during a mass shooting. However, more than half of people thought carrying guns would make women safer. Also a majority of people thought they wouldn’t feel uncomfortable if they knew their friends were carrying a gun. The study showed that most Republicans supported campus carry, and in contrast, most Democrats were against it. We also found that whether people grew up in a home with guns or not would strongly affect their opinions about guns. People who grew up with guns in their home thought  more guns would make us safer and they didn’t mind their friends carrying guns; but for people who grew up without guns in their home, most of them thought more guns would not make us safer, and they would be nervous when their friends carried guns. The results showed that more than half of Texans agreed that concealed gun carry permission would make the campus safer; and most people who were from outside of Texas would not agree. Half of undergraduate students supported the campus carry law; and the majority of graduate students, faculty and other employees were against the campus carry law.

The pool of our survey was relatively small compared to the whole body of students and faculty in Texas Tech University. However, since we carefully planned the collection of samples according to gender, nationalities, and other parameters, this study can be seen as a relatively accurate evidence to show the opinions of the community of Texas Tech University regarding the campus concealed weapon permission.

References

Alford, F. (2015, March 5). Say ‘no’ to concealed carry on college campuses. The Cougar. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://thedailycougar.com/2015/03/05/say-no-concealed-carry-college-campuses/

Atkins, S. (2013, Jan. 19). Survey from students: no guns on campus. RVA News. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://rvanews.com/news/survey-from-students-no-guns-on-campus/81614

Castro-Crist, A. (2015, August 26). Concealed carry referendum will be open to students. Daily Toreador. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from  http://www.dailytoreador.com/news/concealed-carry-referendum-will-be-open-to-students/article_8a829aac-4c69-11e5-92ab-03acd7a507a9.html

Clark, D. (2015, July 28). Cautious optimism as the struggle with campus carry begins. The Daily Texan. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2015/07/28/cautious-optimism-as-the-struggle-with-campus-carry-begins

Cattanach, J. (2015, August 18). Why I’ll soon have reason to fear my students. The Dallas Morning News, Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20150818-joanna-cattanach-why-ill-soon-have-reason-to-fear-my-students.ece

Kaufman, N. (2015, September 8). Concealed Carry on Colleges Campuses: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? Huff Post. Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/nancy-kaufman/concealed-carry-on-colleg_b_8093306.html

Hawkins, A. (2015, August 25). Gun control proponent: Women too weak to carry guns for self-defense. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/25/vasgun-control-proponent-women-not-strong-enough-to-carry-guns-on-campus 

Metzger, B. (2015, August 25). I support full concealed gun carry rights on DCCCD campuses. The Dallas Morning News, Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/latest-columns/20150825-an-armed-student-body-is-a-safer-one.ece

Mooney, N. (2015, September 10). Exposed handguns, concealed weapons, and the new “campus carry” gun law. Inquisitr. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.inquisitr.com/2407303/exposed-handguns-concealed-weapons-and-the-new-campus-carry-gun-law

Pratt, E. (2012, July 26). Colorado shooting shows the failure of gun control laws. U.S. News. http://www.usnews.com/debate-club/does-the-colorado-shooting-prove-the-need-for-more-gun-control-laws/colorado-shooting-shows-the-failure-of-gun-control-laws

Redmon, J. (2015, August 29). Savannah State shooting revives focus on campus carry. AJC.com. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://www.ajc.com/news/news/campus-carry/nnStC/

Simsen, J and Humphrey, L (2015, September 8). Student debate guns on campus-cons. The Signal. Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://prtl.uhcl.edu/portal/page/portal/USN/TheSignal/Editorial?articleId=1286

Welch, M. (2015, May 22). The truth about campus carry. TribTalk, Perspective on Texas. Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://www.tribtalk.org/2015/05/22/the-truth-about-campus-carry/

Appendix B

Figure 1. Women are safer if they carry guns

 Figure 2. Women are safer if they carry guns by gender

 Figure 3. How do you feel if your friend is carrying a gun?

Figure 4. How do you feel if your friend is carrying a gun?

Figure 5. In the case of a mass shooting, will more guns make us safer?

 

Figure 6. Will more guns make us safer in mass shooting?

 Figure 7. How Republicans think about campus carry law

 Figure 8. How Democrats think about campus carry law

 Figure 9. Does concealed gun carry permission will make campus safer?

 Figure 10. How do males think about campus carry law

 Figure 11. How do females think about campus carry law  

 Figure 12. How do people think about campus carry law

 Figure 13. How do people think about campus carry law

Gun Control

Abstract

This paper discusses the issue of the Campus Carry Law (CCL) in Texas Tech University (TTU).  Campus Carry Law is a law that was passed in 2015 in Texas, which allowed students to carry guns on campus.  I chose this topic since I was interested to know how other students and faculty felt about this new law, and whether this law was necessary on campus?  In this paper, I used several sources, which supported my hypotheses.  We also carried out a survey within the TTU campus. We had 148 respondents, which included faculty, staff and students.  This study talked about different parties and who was most likely to handle guns.  Also, it talked about how faculty and staff felt when their classroom had guns.  Moreover, we found out women and men’s feelings about safety on campus and where guns should be allowed on campus.  There were different opinions regarding carrying guns on campus.  Some of them supported the law, and others opposed it.   We learned from this survey that many people would like to support CCL, but they do not trust others who have guns on campus. -Samah         

                                 Keywords: Campus Carry Law, guns on campus,  

  

GUN CONTROL

There are many of issues that we contend with in our daily lives.  One of these problems is carrying guns on campus.  The main issue this paper wants to discuss is that Texas Tech University will permit people to carry handguns on campus, and this will be in effect starting September 1, 2016, as a result of the new state gun legislation.   The university will have some guidelines to control the use of handgun license holders (CHL) on campus by Oct. 1, 2015 (Michael, 2015).

            Plenty of controversies will arise with the adoption of this legislation among students, faculty, and staff.  Some will accept the law because they will be happy to carry their guns wherever they are, including on campus, as it makes them feel safer than when they do not have their pistol on them.  Others, on the other hand, oppose this point of view and are strict.

Some people feel safe when others have guns on them while others are horrified by the mere idea.

A very important side of this issue is how do families, who send their sons and daughters to colleges, feel about this new legislation and universities’, adoption of it?  Will the majority be in support of, or against, this new law?  How does it make them feel as they send their loved ones to campus?  According to the response of Barrett, who is one of the members in Florida state, the campus is the safest place in the nation, and it would not make sense to change it by allowing law-abiding citizens to carry guns for defense (Hawkins, 2015).  On the other hand, people who live in households in which guns are common may have a higher inclination to allow their children to carry guns on campus.

Responses to this law also are different between male and female, between students and faculty, and between American citizens or international students.  Similarly, the position on this law is different from undergraduate students and graduate students, and between people who hold Democratic views and those who are Republican.  How will carrying guns affect different people’s lives?  Will many choose to carry these guns for self-defense or not?

Opponents of campus carry argued that it is also difficult to assess the mental and psychological health of each and every person who has a gun license.  For this reason, it is potentially dangerous to allow this law to be put into effect, as some could harm others when faced with certain situations.   There are other alternative ways to defend ourselves, such as pepper spray, Taser, etc., instead of using fatal fire pistols. An increase in guns in the population leads to an increase in gun crimes, rather than a decrease.

Many businesses responded already addressing their position from an open carry policy inside their facilities. For example, Mooney (2015) mentions Whataburger CEO’s response to The New York Times; Carrying guns is not allowed inside any locations for Whataburger around the state, even if carrying weapons is allowed in different places such as educational institutes and on campus.  Businesses will have to post a sign in their locations if they are banning open carry in their locations; starting January 2016, they will be required to hold two signs.

The controversy created by this new Texas law will just grow over time; most recently, University of Texas professors announced that they would consider a suit law to ban open carry on campuses. Current law allows the university presidents to ban the open carry in selective locations on campus but not all (Eger, 2015, para.1).

Goodacre (2015) interviews Texas officers, and reports different positions; some of them think that the open carry policy will not make much difference, as in general many Texans already have guns licensed for hunting or self-protection in rural areas in particular. Others said that they have concerns about the safety of the carriers even more than of non-carriers. Alex Azar, a covered handgun license instructor, and owner of Longview hidden Handgun Licensing and Training is quoted as saying he had a significant increase in clients asking for training in the last two months.

In this paper, I use a questionnaire method to collect views on the new state gun control law and its consequences as it legally allows for carrying fire pistols on campus. The paper goes as follows; I offer a summary of literature and media articles available and covering this issue, followed by hypotheses and the method used to investigate them; I then offer the results based on the conducted questionnaire, followed by a discussion of those results, and finally the last section offers the conclusion.

Literature Review

People with different political positions are expected to have different standings towards the open carry policy. Democrats and Republicans are known to have conflicting positions on this particular legislation.  According to Sen. Rodney Ellis, who is a Democrat, this law will increase more forces instead of the opposite (Mooney, 2015).  However, Sen. Craig Estes, who is a Republican, has a strong faith that people who carry guns are dependable about their guns.  Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, requires strong policy about this new law. Even Mary Jones, a reporter for the New York Times, agrees when she wrote, “We do not need to carry guns in places that are full of children, we are not in the Wild, Wild West” (Mooney, 2015, para. 9).  According to Texas politics, Texas political culture and ideology is the combination of classical liberalism, social conservatism and populism, ideologies found in Republican views (Texas Politics, 2015). Hence, I form the first hypothesis as:

Hypothesis 1:  Texans are more likely to say they will carry guns, because Texas is primarily a Republican state, and most Republicans are pro-guns. 

According to Moreno, “Faculty members were predominant throughout the meetings and their main concern was almost unanimous­—no guns in the classroom” (Moreno, 2015, para. 5).

 Patrick Timmons, a political science professor, said that he often feels unsafe when he discusses controversial topics, because some students do not agree with his opinions.  Therefore, he said he would feel unsafe if these students had guns (Moreno, 2015).  160 professors from the University of Texas signed a petition declaring that they would not allow students with handguns in their classrooms (Schallhorn, 2015).  Like Timmons, Dr. Joan Neuberger, a history professor at UT Austin, fears that debating controversial issues will no longer be possible because opposing views may be met with violence from those who have guns (Schallhorn, 2015).  According to McGaughy, professors from UT Austin have formed the largest group in the nation against guns on campus, and want the university president to ban guns in classrooms and other places on campus (McGaughy, 2015).  Scanlon, who signed a petition in UT that she is a graduate student in the school of social work and she feels unsafe for her and other students on campus about this law, is quoted as saying, “Please stop helping people carry weapons” (Shallhorn, 2015, para. 20).  Based on this discussion the second hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 2: Faculty and staff will be generally against the open carry policy on campus.

    Women carry guns, not just for protecting themselves, but also it is their right as American citizens.  There is a woman from rural Idaho, who was shot by mistake by her two year-old son because she had an armed handgun in her purse.  This happened not because she was careless but because of the carelessness of the culture to allow guns in the first place (Rosenwald, 2015). Jenna Conwisar said, "As strong, intelligent, college educated women, we will not be provoked by fear or ignorance into endorsing unconscionable politics. And out of respect to our professors, faculty, and community, we should preserve the sanctity of a secure learning environment in a way that allows people to feel comfortable and safe. Let’s stand up for safety and get guns off our campus" (Conwisar, 2015, para. 9). Mariana Prieto, a public relation major in University of Texas in El Paso, said, “Right now we are against guns on every campus and it does not work, we still have shootings, so why do you think more gun control would work?” (Moreno, 2015, para. 10). Scanlon, who signed a petition in UT and were a graduate student in the school of social work and she felt unsafe for herself and other students on campus about this law, is quoted as saying: “Please stop helping people carry weapons”(Shallhorn, 2015, para. 20).  Based on this discussion the third hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 3:  Women are less likely to support the campus carry law than men.

According to Butski, “A major benefit of Taser use was a decrease in lethal force deaths” (Butski, 2004, p. 2).  Butski argued that more lives are saved as a result of using Tasers rather than guns.  There are other self-defense methods rather than guns such as mace.  According to DeVoe, a particular brand of pepper spray would be able to work from up to 10 feet away, and could squirt 25 short times before running out (DeVoe, 2015).  According to Mayer, students at Oklahoma University are allowed to have Tasers and mace as weapons for self-defense instead of using guns (Mayer, 2015).  According to Lamb, who is a student in Oklahoma University said, he understands why people need to carry a defense with them on campus because the lack of the security.  Lamb said, it is common to listen to female when they talked about if they had an emergency situation, especially in the late night.  Most girls prefer to ask someone else of their friends for dropping house or walk with a partner on campus or at late night. (Mayer, 2015). According to advertising freshman Anna Linn said: “I guess I don’t really carry it around a lot, but sometimes, really late at night, I do”.  She said that she carries both mace and a Taser gun with her, and she had a friend who borrows her mace before (Mayer, 2015, para. 8).  Based on this discussion the fourth hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 4:  Carrying of guns on campus is not necessary because there are other forms of self-defense that can be used.

Most professors will not allow their students to have guns in their classroom even if students have permits.  In spite of the new law of allowing permit holders to carry guns on campus, there are more than one hundred and sixty professors have signed a petition that refuses to allow guns in classrooms.  Furthermore, these professors list their names in a Google document list to show their objection to the law that was signed by Governor Greg Abbott (R) in June. Dr. Neuberger said that people reaction would be confused if they know there are other students with guns in the classroom.  Moreover, this issue will be debatable and controversial (Schallhorn, 2015).  Based on this discussion the fifth hypothesis is:

Hypothesis 5: Students believe that a classroom is an inappropriate place for open carry.

Method

We were looking for specific data about people who prefer to carry guns or not on campus. So I did a survey with my classmates and during the discussion; we prepared a set of questions that addresses the open carry policy and the consequences of its implementation on campus discussed. We consulted with our instructor about the appropriateness of the survey and then we collected responses, obtained 148 responses in total.  Our sample included participants of both genders, both International and American nationalities, faculties and students, and for the students we included graduate and undergraduate students.  They were asked about their backgrounds and whether they were raised seeing guns. Our class has been subdivided into groups with different tasks. The first group’s task was to investigate the relation between attitude towards guns and being addicted to smoking.  Another group’s task was to distribute the survey and to collect responses from different departments at TTU. 

We excluded the responses where students did not complete all of the questions.  We chose dichotomous questions.  We chose the questions that related to the hypotheses. 

The survey included questions; we needed to know how did they identify themselves politically, by asking which party did you identify with?  To answer the question, we provided the following options:  Republican, Democrat, other, or independent/NA.  I asked them about which places should not be allowed guns in.  Responses included places such as any place on campus, daycares, schools, workshops, etc. and generally in crowded regions where there are a lot of people of different ages including children.  Also, we asked them about which places they felt it was appropriate to allow guns to be carried.  The answers varied between classroom, dormitory, student centers, none, faculty offices, recreation centers, and dorm cafeteria. 

To investigate the second hypothesis, we asked people about whether the women would be safer if they carried guns? And we received diverse answers.  For the question about whether you let your family members carry guns on campus, their answer was between Yes and no.  Another question was in the case of a mass shooting; Did carrying gun make us safer?  There were different percentages between yes and no answers, a few participants did not answer in some cases.  They probably did not like the question, or they did not feel comfortable.  To address the third hypothesis; we asked the following question, did you think a Taser could be a substitute for allowing gun carry on campus?  Another follow-up question was which of the following weapons such as a gun, mace, or Taser was best?

Because guns are dangerous, I disagree with carrying guns on campus.  However, I would like to know as much information as possible about people who agreed to carry guns on campus and about people who did not. Moreover, I would like to know the percentage of people on TTU campus who supported it, and if they would change their opinion after this study.

Results

After we had collected the data for the survey for carrying guns on campus, we compiled the results and then we investigated our hypothesis.  88 respondents (which is 60%) were from Texas, 33 (22%) participants were from other US states.  27 (18%) participants were international.

I suspected originally is that people who were Republican were more likely to carry guns, and therefore, the first hypothesis suggests that Texans, being dominantly Republicans, would be pro open carry policy.  Our results showed that of those who participated, 76% of Republicans said yes for carrying guns. On the other hand, 24% of Republicans opposed the campus carry law. 

In the second hypothesis, I was interested in the faculty and staff’s position against the open carry. 79% of faculty participants said that they would be more nervous in general, 14% of them said that it did not bother them, and 7% said that they felt safe with campus carry.

In my third hypothesis, I was interested in knowing whether women were be safe if they carried guns.  I predicted that women would not be safer if they carried guns, and I was wrong. 55% of people said yes and agreed that women would be safer if they had guns on them.  Only 44% disagreed, and 1% were not sure.  However, a majority of female respondents did not think that carrying guns on campus would make it safer (65%) and 31% thought that campus carry would make the campus safer.  4% did not respond.

As for the argument that guns are necessary for self-defense purposes, I looked at responses in favor for a particular self-defense method, as there are other ways of self-defense, which can be used instead of guns to investigate my fifth hypothesis.  In the survey, we asked participants whether a Taser could be a substitute for guns on campus?  71% of respondents agreed that Tasers could be a substitute while 28% disagreed.   

In my last hypothesis, I suspected that there were some places on campus that would be inappropriate for carrying guns.  In this survey, we asked respondents that places they felt it was appropriate to allow guns to be carried on campus.  24% said faculty offices, 15% classrooms, 14% said dormitories, 13% said recreation center, 12% said the student center and 10% said the dorm cafeteria.  However, 12% responded that none of these places should allow guns.

Discussion

The result of our study showed that various percentages of males and females responded about the carrying of guns on campus.  That would be a fair survey since we had a good percentage of both genders and different opinions from them.  We found in this survey is a few people, both males and females, would not mind if Texas Tech allowed the campus carry law.  From what we got from the results, we found that they would feel safer if they were armed.  But they would not trust other people around them who were armed as well. Also, it was easy to attain one; anyone could buy a gun from any store without a difficult process.  This made it very easy to carry a firearm legally.  However, more than half the percentage of males and females would not like to carry a gun on campus, even if it was allowed.   We obtained from the result section that these people were not comfortable with the idea of having guns in their daily lives or classes. They did not think most people needed to have guns. Most students and faculties knew that the campus was safe and had good security, so they would not need to carry a weapon themselves.  Also, they did not want to make the arrangements to get one.

Our respondents were either from Lubbock, a small town, people who grew up on a farm, people who were from a large city, people who were from the suburbs, or people who grew up in many places.  This allowed our survey to have different opinions on various areas. We found data about people who grew up in a home with guns.  We got very close to having equal halves of participants who had grown up seeing guns and people who had not.  We found from this data that people who grew up with guns were more likely to carry guns on campus.  But people who did not rise with guns were more likely to avoid carrying guns.  Also, we found from this data that less than half of the percentage of people said that concealed gun carry permission would make the campus safer.  On the other hand, the rest of the people were against concealed gun carry. From those results, it could be shown that it would not be fair for people on campus if someone was carrying a gun and other people would not know. Sometimes this could create dangerous and bad situations for students and faculty.

There was more data about students' feelings if a classmate was carrying a gun.  Some people said they would feel safe, some stated it would not bother them, some were neutral about the subject, but the majority would feel in danger and nervous if a classmate was allowed to carry a gun. We obtained from their responses that most students would not be comfortable or relax when other classmates had guns. This would in turn keep them from paying full attention in class.

From my first hypothesis, I thought that Republicans were more likely to support the new law.  In fact, from the data that we had, they were more likely to carry a gun, since three-quarters of Republicans surveyed said they would carry a gun if it were allowed.  They were not more likely to support the CCL. Another hypothesis that I was interested in was if faculty and staff would be more comfortable with the campus carry law.  However, from the data that we found, they said that they would be more nervous in general. We found that three-quarters of faculty and staff would be more nervous.  We observed that faculty were more opposed to the gun law; it could be due to the following reasons.  First of all, they spend most of their time at the university finishing their work.  Secondly, they could have angry students due to low grades. Because of this, faculties are much more opposed to the campus carry law.  Moreover, some students hate their professors just because they did not like their class or lessons, and knowing a student in their classroom has a gun could make the faculty more nervous.

For another hypothesis, how women feel about saving when they carry guns.  From the data that we found, women did say they would feel safer if they carried guns.  More than half the people polled believed women would be safer if allowed to carry guns. Yes, we know that women would be safer if they were armed, but, on the other hand, women would not be safe if others were allowed to have guns, as well.  In this case, most people would be in danger since all people would have guns. 

Another hypothesis that I had been that people would say that a Taser could be used for self-defense better than guns on campus.  Indeed, from the data that we found, they did say a Taser could be a substitute for guns on campus.  Three quarters of respondents agreed that Tasers could be a substitute, while less than half disagreed.  I thought that the campus-carry law would make people comfortable with guns anywhere on campus.  However, from the data that we had, most people said that there are specific places that should not allow the carrying of guns. 

The data on places that people agreed should not allow guns were faculty offices, classrooms, dormitories, recreation center, the student center, and the dorm cafeteria.  However, a few people responded that none of these places should allow guns. We found from the data that most places that people did not want to allow carrying guns were places that have a large number of people, such as on campus, in dorms, gyms, hospitals, churches, and any public areas.  These places are for all people to have fun with their families, and they would like to be safe.  For the dorm area, it is a home, and everyone would like to live in a safe environment.  For the recreation area, this is a place for people who would like to be doing their exercise and have fun with their friends.  There are a lot of people who do not want to be hurt in these crowded areas.

One of the limitations of this study was that we did not have enough data on the views in each department.  We can improve on this study by making it for each department.  This will help us to find out the views of students who are from sciences and art majors.  Another limitation of our study was that the religion of the respondents was not taken into consideration.  This would be useful in finding out whether views are different across different religions.  Another limitation was that the study was conducted on only one campus.  In the future, we will do other studies for different campuses in Texas.  This will make our study valid for the whole state of Texas.

In conclusion, we recommend that TTU considers our paper for a position against campus carry law as we survey different opinions.  TTU campus should think carefully before allowing students to have guns.  We learned from this paper that carrying guns on campus would increase the number of victims instead of decrease it.  Since there are people who have different mentalities and multiple personality disorders, which should not be trusted with guns, and permit laws can not necessarily identify them.  The interesting thought is that most students from this study would like to be armed but not other people around them, which of course will not because the law will be applying for all people not to a certain group. Finally, we got the data from this survey, and we are thankful for all people opinion’s that helped us to present these surveys.        

References

Butski. A. P. (August 16, 2004). Risks and Benefits of Tasers. Retrieved: (November10, 2015). From:http://www.emich.edu/cerns/downloads/papers/PoliceStaff/Weapons%20,%20Technology,%20and%20Equipment/Risks%20and%20Benefits%20of%20Tasers.pdf

Conwisar, J. (October 7, 2015). Campus carry will not protect women. The Daily Texan. Retrieved: (September 30, 2015) From: http://www.dailytexanonline.com/2015/10/07/campus-carry-will-not-protect-women

DeVoe, E. (November 10, 2015). SAFETY ALERT: ‘Don’t Be A Victim’ – Pepper Spray Tests. Retrieved: (November 11, 2015). From: http://wkrg.com/2015/11/10/safety-alert-dont-be-a-victim-pepper-spray-tests/

Eger, C. (2015, November 11). University professors plan lawsuit over campus carry. Retrieved: (November 12,2015). From: http://www.guns.com/2015/11/11/university-professors-plan-lawsuit-over-campus-carry/

 Goodacre, E.(2015, October 19). Local officials address concerns about Texas open carry. Retrieved: (November 12, 2015). From: http://www.news-journal.com/news/2015/oct/19/officials-address-concerns-about-texas-open-carry/

 Hawkins, A. (25 August, 2015). Gun Control proponent: women too weak on carry guns for self-defense. Retrieved: (September 22, 2015). From http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/08/25/vasgun-control-proponent-women-not-strong-enough-to-carry-guns-on-campus/

 Mayer, A. (October 14, 2015). Tasers, mace allowed on OU campus for defense. Retrieved: (October 14,2015). From: http://www.oudaily.com/news/tasers-mace-allowed-on-ou-campus-for-defense/article_0653c4ae-6ea1-11e5-89ae-cb26c51420e8.html
 
McGaughy, L. ( November 10, 2015). University of Texas professors: Ban guns or we could sue. Retrieved: (November 11, 2015). From:
http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/campus-carry-gun-free-ut-austin-texas-protest-6622416.php

 Michael, K. (31 August, 2015). Texas Tech to have guidelines for campus carry by Oct. 1 Retrieved: (September 22, 2015) From http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-08-30/texas-tech-have-guidelines-campus-carry-oct-1#.VgGz5WTBzGe

Mooney, P. (10 September, 2015). Exposed handguns, concealed weapons, and the new “campus carry” gun law. INQUISITR. Retrieved on September 24, 2015 from http://www.inquisitr.com/2407303/exposed-handguns-concealed-weapons-and-the-new-campus-carry-gun-law/

Moreno, A. (November 3, 2015). Faculty, students and staff voice concerns about gun control. Retrieved: (November 10, 2015). http://www.theprospectordaily.com/2015/11/03/faculty-students-and-staff-voice-concerns-about-gun-control/

Reuters/Lpsos poll: gun rights & regulations. (April 13, 2012). Retrieved: (Sept 24, 2015) From http://static.reuters.com/resources/media/global/editorial/interactives/ipsos-poll-gun-control/ipsos-poll-gun-control.html

Rosenwald, M. S. (25 September, 2015). Wisdom from a gun-owning moderate Retrieved: (September 30, 2015) From https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/wisdom-from-a-gun-owning-moderate/2015/09/25/05f1e6b0-5256-11e5-9812-92d5948a40f8_story.html

Schallhorn, K. (30 September, 2015). Anti-Gun Professors Petition to Keep Texas Classrooms ‘Safe’ From Guns After Governor Signs Pro-Campus Carry Law. Retrieved: (Sept 30, 2015) From: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2015/09/30/anti-gun-professors-petition-to-keep-texas-classrooms-safe-from-guns-after-governor-signs-pro-campus-carry-law/

Texas Politics - Texas Political Culture. (October 9, 2015). Retrieved: (Oct 9, 2015) From
http://www.laits.utexas.edu/txp_media/html/cult/print_cult.html