Campus Carry in Texas Tech University

                                                                          Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine the views of Texas Tech community about the campus carry law. The participants were 148 undergraduate and graduate students, and faculty at TTU. Also, each member of the survey team interviewed 12 participants. Most participants were Americans, but others were allowed to participate. The data were collected through a survey that has 26 questions, which was divided among eight international students, one teacher’s assistant and the instructor of the class. The main result of the survey showed that the majority of the TTU students and faculty were against the campus carry law. Also, this study showed that the majority of TTU population believe that carrying guns would make women safer. However, the majority of women at TTU were against campus carry. Also, Texan participants supported the campus carry law more than non-Texans.  

            Keywords: campus carry, guns, students, campus, Texas Tech University.

Ebtehal Alhashem

                                                                           Introduction

            The issue of gun control is not new, but the discussion about it arises frequently.  Also, the gun control issue is covered in the media every time some bad event happens that is related to guns and death.  The new issue about gun control is campus carry.  Campus carry is one of the controversial issues that is discussed these days across the U.S, especially among students, staff and faculty.  The campus carry issue has become controversial in Texas, even though other states have done it and allowed individuals who have concealed handgun licenses to carry weapons on campus (Kaufman, 2015).  Therefore, by next September 2016, Texas Tech University will begin to apply this new law and allow faculty, staff and students who are 21 years old and older to carry guns on campus (Michael, 2015).  As a result, Texas Tech University will provide guidelines this October to regulate guns’ use and identify the restricted areas that do not permit carrying guns.  Also, Texas Tech University will provide classes for concealed handgun license holders to learn more information about the new law (Michael, 2015).

            The argument about the campus carry issue is about whether the new law would make students safer on campus or would increase danger.  People who support the campus carry law believe that they can protect themselves when they need to in any dangerous situation such as during robbery and assault.  Also, they do not think that the campus carry law would increase murders, because most Texas Tech students are under 21 years old, so they do not have concealed handgun licenses.  On the other hand, individuals who are against the campus carry law believe that this law would increase danger, assaults and robbery because criminals will use guns to do whatever they want.  Therefore, campus would not be a safe place for students. 

            Texas Tech University has 35,859 students in fall 2015, according to the Texas Tech website (2015).  29,237 students are undergraduates and the total number of graduate students is 6,045.  Also, there are 2029 international students on campus (TTU, 2015) who might have heard about campus carry law and maybe some of them are interested to know more about how American students in Texas Tech think about this issue. 

            As international students, we decided to do research that is related to our writing class.  We were curious to know the differences in opinions among undergraduates, graduates and faculty.  We were aware that there was some difference between male and female students about campus carry.  Also, we wanted to know the different points of view between Republicans and Democrats.  We were interested to know if there was a relationship between students who are from big cities and what they believe about the campus carry law.

            We carried out a survey to figure out Americans’ opinions and whether they supported or opposed the campus carry law.  Although the number of participants in this survey was not a big number and it might not be representative of all the Texas Tech population’s opinions, the answers gave us a sense about how American students at Texas Tech thought about this issue.

Literature Review and Hypothesis

Campus carry is a nationwide problem and people have two opinions about it.  There are people who support this idea, while others reject it.  Texas is one of the states whose legislature passed the campus carry law, and universities will allow those who have concealed gun licenses to carry their guns on campus.  According to Kaufman (2015), 80 percent of students would not feel safe if universities’ populations have guns.  Also, 90 percent of faculty are against the campus carry law (Kaufman, 2015).  According to Alford, the decision to allow campus carry should be taken from colleges’ populations, not from people who left college a long time ago (Alford, 2015).  Cattanach mentioned that most students do not want guns on campus (Cattanach, 2015). 

On the other hand, Madison Welch said that universities in Texas would not be unsafe places, because people who have licensed guns tend to use guns less than those who do not have them (Welch, 2015).  Supporters also believe that having guns would allow individuals to protect themselves from sexual assault (Kaufman, 2015).  Also, we believe that the administration of Texas Tech is against the campus carry law.  According to Morgan, Texas Tech would need $7 million dollars as additional expenses for safety procedures (Morgan, 2015).  Reindle supports the idea that universities’ administrators do not agree with the campus carry law. 

Hypothesis: Therefore, based on what we have read, we predicted that the majority of students and faculty at Texas Tech University would be against the campus carry law.

            Republicans and Democrats have different opinions about guns.  Our general information about both parties was that the Republicans were usually supported carrying and using guns more than Democrats. According to McCarthy, Republicans tend to believe that having guns will increase safety at home more than Democrats.  The percentage of Republicans who support this idea was 81%, while 41% of Democrats do, according to 2014 statistics (McCarthy, 2014).  Also, 35% of Republicans strongly support the Campus Carry law, which is more than Democrats with only 8% (Concealed Carry…, 2015).

Hypothesis: based on this information, we believed that Republicans in the TTU community were more likely than Democrats to feel that carrying guns on campus would make them safer.

            In addition, we believed that there was a difference between male and female opinions about the campus carry law.  Women tend to avoid situations that are related to violence and they are less confident about using guns.  According to Awr Hawkins, women should not have guns on campus because women are not as strong as men and there is a higher chance to grab guns from them (Hawkins, 2015).  The increasing number of weapons will increase the number of female murders consequently.  Also, because women tend to be threatened by and scared of shooting more than men, women in general would be against campus carry. 

Hypothesis: based on this information, we suspected that Texas Tech female students would more likely be against campus carry than male students.

 It has been said that Texas is a state of cowboys who like to own guns, especially people who live on ranches or farms.  Also, Texans tend to support carrying and using, especially people who grow up with parents who use guns.  Because the TTU campus is in Texas and I think the majority of TTU students are from Texas, I thought most students would say they would carry guns on campus when they were allowed to.

Hypothesis: I believed that Texans at TTU community would be more likely to support campus carry law and carry guns on campus than non-Texans.

Family has a strong influence on our beliefs.  The ideas that we have and our response to events are influenced by our families.  Therefore, I think our opinions about campus carry law depend on how we are raised.  People who were raised in families that own guns or use guns for hunting tend to see carrying guns on campus as not a big issue, and it is like carrying cellphones. Also, I think people who were using guns during their childhood with guidance of their parents would be more likely to carry weapons on campus and would be more confident to use them without worry they need practice.

Hypothesis: I suspected that students who were raised in homes that had guns would be more likely to carry guns on campus.

Therefore, we conducted a survey for TTU students, faculty and staff to know what the Texas Tech population believes about the Campus Carry law and whether our hypotheses would be right or wrong. 

Methods

Campus carry is an important issue for us as international students at Texas Tech University, and because of that we were wondering how American students at TTU felt about this issue.  Therefore, we did a survey for the TTU community; only American students, faculty and staff were chosen to answer our survey.  The survey had 26 questions. Each student was responsible for surveying 12, 6 males and 6 females.  The participants were from undergraduate and graduate students and faculty.  Also, all participants were to be Americans and international students were not included in the focus group.  The class consisted of 8 students, one teacher assistant, and our instructor.  Our agreement was that the survey focused only on the TTU community.  The total number of students that we surveyed was 148, which is a small number and not representative of the more than 35,000 students at TTU.  We threw away one survey because the answers were not complete.  Most of the survey questions were Yes or No format.

            We asked TTU students about their place of origin and where they grew up, such as ranch or farm, large city, or small town.  Also, we asked if there were guns where they grew up to figure out if there was a relationship between supporting campus carry law and the desire to carry guns on campus with individuals who grew up in homes that had hand guns.  Also, the survey included a question about the political party that they identified themselves with, their gender, and if they were from Texas or from other states.  One of the questions that might not be related to guns was about if they smoked or not.  I think this question is interesting because smokers and people who carry guns are both risk takers.  It might be that smokers who do not care about their health and losing their lives earlier, tend to carry guns without being concerned about the dangerous weapons that they carry.  Therefore, the result will show if there is a relationship between smoking and carrying guns.  One of the questions was about to identify the participants’ college.  However, the number of participants was small, and that did not cover all colleges.  Therefore, we could not figure out if there was a relationship between campus carry beliefs and colleges.

Results

            We were curious about what the TTU community would think about campus carry and whether our hypothesis about campus carry would be right or wrong.  Therefore, we did a survey that was related to carrying guns on campus and to answer our hypotheses.  The first hypothesis was about whether the majority of students and faculty at TTU would be against the campus carry law.  The first question that we wrote to answer whether our hypothesis was right or wrong was, “Will you get a gun and /or carry on campus when you are allowed to?”  The result of the first question was 27% of males answered yes and 70% answered no, and 12% of females answered yes and 88% answered no.  The second question that answered this hypothesis was “Are you more likely to carry a gun, if you know that more people are carrying guns?”  The result was that 32% of the participants answered yes and 68% answered no.  The third question that also confirmed this hypothesis was, “Do you think women are safer if they carry guns?” The result was that 56% answered yes and 44% answered no.  Furthermore, 100% of faculty who participated in the survey were against campus carry.  Therefore, we were right.  The majority of students and faculty at TTU were against the campus carry law.  However, the majority believed that women would be safer.

            The second hypothesis was about whether the Republicans in the TTU community were more likely than Democrats to feel that carrying guns on campus would make them safer.  The question that we wrote to answer whether our hypothesis was right or wrong was, “Which party do you identify with?”  The result for this question was that 31% were Republicans and 20% were Democrats.  Also, in answering the question, “will gun carry make campus safer?” the result was 76% of Republicans supported campus carry and 10% of Democrats supported campus carry.  Therefore, we were right. Republicans were more likely to feel that campus carry would make them safer than Democrats.

The third hypothesis was about whether TTU female students would more likely be against campus carry than male students.  As a result, our hypothesis was right; women would more likely be against campus carry.  However, women would feel that carrying guns would make them safer.  The question that we wrote to answer whether our hypothesis was right or wrong was “Are you male or female?”  The result of this question was that the total number of females who filled out the survey was 72, and there were 76 males.  The second question that answered our hypothesis was “Will you get a gun and/ or carry on campus when you are allowed to?”  We found that 88% of females answered, no they would not get guns, and 12% answered yes, while 70% of male answered, no they would not get guns, and 27% answered yes.  Also, the question that we used to answer this hypothesis was, “Do you think women are safer if they carry guns?” The result was 51% of women answered yes they think women are safer with guns and 49% answered no. also, 60% of mail answered yes they think women are safer with guns and 40% answered no.

The fourth hypothesis was about whether Texans at TTU would be more likely to support the campus carry law and carry guns on campus than non-Texans.  The question that we wrote to answer whether our hypothesis was right or wrong was to choose between from Texas or from USA, not Texas.  We found that 60% of Americans were from Texas and 40% not from Texas.  The percentage of Texans who were willing to carry guns was 25% and the percentage of non-Texans who were willing to carry guns was 17%. Therefore, our hypothesis was right, because the percentage of Texans at TTU who were willing to carry guns was higher than participants from other states who were willing to carry guns on campus.

The last hypothesis was about whether students who were raised in homes that had guns would be more likely to carry guns on campus.  The question that answered this hypothesis was, “Were there guns in the home you grew up in?” We found that 52% answered yes and 48% answered no.  Also, we found that the percentage of those who grew up with guns who said they would carry guns was 27% and the percentage of those who grew up with guns who said they did not carry guns was 73%.  Therefore, our hypothesis was wrong, because the majority of participants who grow up with guns who did not carry guns on the TTU campus was higher than those who grew up with guns, but would carry guns.

Discussion

            Campus carry is one of the issues that is discussed at Texas Tech University these days. There are different opinions about this issue. Some people support the campus carry law because this law would allow to students to defend themselves during a shooting, whereas some people are against this law because it would increase the shooting on campuses.  Therefore, we did a survey to find out how the TTU community thought about this issue.  We were curious about whether the TTU community would be against or would support the campus carry law.

The first hypothesis was that we thought that the majority of the TTU community would be against the campus carry.  We found that although the majority believe carrying guns would make an individual safer, the fact was that we were right that the majority of the TTU community was against campus carry.  This result showed interesting information, because everyone trusted himself or herself, but they did not trust others.  The reason could be that campus carry would increase murders on campus and campus carry would encourage TTU students to have guns, which could make the TTU campus more dangerous.  Also, the survey showed that all faculty were against the campus carry law and they did not trust students to carry guns in the classroom.  The reasons may be that faculty spends long hours on campus and they may feel that students who get low grades consider them enemies. 

            The second hypothesis was that we thought that Republicans in the TTU community were more likely than Democrats to feel that carrying guns on campus would make them safer. The fact was that we were right, because we found that Republicans supported campus carry more than Democrats.  The reason is that Republicans were more likely than Democrats to feel that campus carry would make them safer.  This result was expected because usually Republicans support guns more than Democrats in the society.  The interesting information was that most participants considered themselves independent in Texas, which is considered a Republican state, especially since the majority of participants were from Texas.  The reason that most participants called themselves independent may be that they are still too young to decide their political views.     

The third hypothesis was that we thought that TTU female students would more likely be against campus carry than male students.  The fact was that we were right, because most women who answered the survey were not going to get guns.  The reason could be that women are more likely to be against violence.  Also, men were generally more confident and courageous to carry and use guns than women.  On the other hand, most people on the TTU campus believed that women would be safer because they could protect themselves with guns.  

            The fourth hypothesis was that we thought that Texans at TTU would be more likely to support the campus carry law and carry guns on campus than non-Texans.  The fact was that we were right, because we found that the percentage of Texans who were likely to carry guns was greater than the percentage of others who were willing to carry guns.  The reason could be that Texas is considered a Republican state and Republicans support the freedom to carry guns in American society.  Also, carrying guns is part of Texans’ culture, especially for people who live on ranches or farms.

The last hypothesis was that we thought that students who were raised in homes that had guns would be more likely to carry guns on campus.  The fact was that we were wrong, because the percentage of students who grew up with guns and were more likely to carry guns was less than that of students who grew up with guns, but would not carry guns.  The reason might be that they know how dangerous guns are, and know they should be responsible to have guns.  Also, students who grew up in houses that had guns may have had bad experiences that were related with guns, and they were more aware of the negative effect that could happen on campus when the campus carry law applies and most students carry guns.    

Although the number of students who participated in this survey was small, it gave us information about TTU students’ beliefs that are related to campus carry.  Also, this survey was not representative of the TTU campus and did not cover the different religions or races. In the future, the survey should be bigger, and should include all colleges.  Also, I think it would be interesting if we did a survey that covered international students and whether they would carry guns when they see their American friends have guns.  I am curious if there are differences between international students about the campus carry law and if their opinions about carrying guns on campus would be influenced by their cultures and background. 

Conclusion

            Campus carry law is one of the issues that students are concerned about because it is related to their safety. After the campus carry law passed in Texas, universities were to allow students, faculty and staff who have concealed handgun licenses and who are 21 years old and older to carry guns on campus. Therefore, universities started to make procedures about implementing the law. For example, campus should consider several issues before the law begins to apply next September 2016, such as free gun zones, providing safety lockers for guns and offering forums to learn more about this law.

The argument about campus carry law is between those who support carrying guns on campus and those who are against this law. People who support campus carry law believe that carrying guns would make them safer, whereas people who are against campus carry law believe that campus carry law would make campuses less safe and crimes would increase. Therefore, we did research about the campus carry law and collected data through a survey. The focus group was 148 American students and faculty members from Texas Tech University.  Although the number of participants was not representative of Texas Tech University population that has 35, 859 students, it gave a sense about what the TTU community thinks about this issue.

In beginning of the class, I was worried about doing survey because it was totally new experience for me.  However, I have not encounter any difficulties with finding participants who were willing to help me and answer the survey.  Although I was responsible to find only 12 participants, it gave me experience to do bigger number of participants in the future.  Also, this experience gave an idea of American students who I have ever get contact with them since I am international student and I know American people only through movies. 

The main result showed that the majority of the TTU community was against the campus carry law, and they believed that carrying guns would reduce the safety on campus.  Also, all faculty were against this law which showed that faculty would not feel safe to be in class with students that carry guns.  I think the impact of the campus carry law will be obvious after applying the law in September 2016.  It will show the real result whether the effect will be positive or negative.  Also, I wonder if students who were against campus carry would carry guns after seeing guns on campus as something normal.  I wonder if faculty would accept for their students to have guns in classrooms in the beginning of applying this law and if faculty would change their minds about guns after a year or more.  I think the Texas Tech administration would be stricter or more lenient about the way that they apply this law on campus depending on the positive or negative events that might happen on campus.  The faculty at TTU should have more power and influence on the application of the campus carry law, because they spend hours and years on campus as their work place.

            I hope the campus carry law would not change the safety on campus, and international students would not feel worried about this issue, which might impact their desire to study in states that pass this law. Although the campus carry law might increase the violence or crimes on campus, it would provide the opportunities for the TTU population to defend themselves instead of watching someone killing others, similar to what happened in the most recent shooting cases.  In my personal opinion, weapons should not be allowed for every person, and weapons should be only for police officers, similar to my country, Saudi Arabia.  Unfortunately, that is impossible in the United States, because the National Raffle Association is influential in the U.S.A.

Bibliography

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/

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/latest-columns/20150818-joanna-cattanach-why-ill-soon-have-reason-to-fear-my-students.ece

Concealed carry on college campuses support (2015, February). University of Texas/Tribune Poll. Retrieved on September 17, 2015 from http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/set/concealed-carry-college-campuses-support-february-2015#paty-id

Hawkins, A. (2015, August 25). Gun Control Proponent: Women too weak to carry guns for self-defense. Breitbart. 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/

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

McCarthy, J. (2014). More than 6 in ten Americans say guns make homes safer. Gallup. Retrieved on September 17 from http://www.gallup.com/poll/179213/six-americans-say-guns-homes-safer.aspx

Michael, K. (2015, August 31). Texas Tech to have guidelines for campus carry by Oct.1. Lubbock Online. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-08-30/texas-tech-have-guidelines-campus-carry-oct-1#.VeYxfD1RE5s

Morgan, C. (2015, February 22). Allowing guns on campus will cost Texas Tech $7 million dollars. Lubbock Avalanche Journal. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://lubbockonline.com/interact/blog-post/carol-morgan/2015-02-22/allowing-guns-campus-will-cost-texas-tech-7million#.VeZ8-fldxYj

Reindl, K. and Cocco, J. (2015, February 26). Say no to guns on college campuses. CNN. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/opinion/reindl-cocco-campus-no-guns/

Texas Tech University fact book (2015) Texas Tech University Institutional Research. Retrieved on September 25, 5015 from http://www.irim.ttu.edu/FactBook/Enrollment/ENRCOLLCLASS.aspx

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/

Survey of Campus Gun Carry at Texas Tech University

Survey of Campus Gun Carry at Texas Tech University

Abstract

Texas passed the campus gun carry law and will allow campus gun carry beginning September 2016. A survey research was run in Texas Tech University. The research indicated that most students and faculty members were found to disagree with campus gun carry. Females were less likely to support gun carry and they are less likely to carry guns even if they are allowed to. We found some differences among students in different colleges of the university in terms of who is more likely to support campus carry. Campus carry opponents generally estimate a relatively lower amount of guns on campus. Texas Tech University and the State of Texas may need to reconsider about the campus gun carry issue.
Keywords: Campus Gun Carry, Texas Tech University, female

Author: Ruizhi Chen

Survey of Campus Gun Carry at Texas Tech University

Gun control is always a controversial public issue in the United States of America. The United States is one of a limited number of countries which allow their citizens to legally purchase and carry guns. In this country, many people believe carrying guns allows citizens to protect themselves so that gun carry is an appropriate right of a citizen, whereas some others believe public gun carry endangers the community.

Even though gun control sounds like an endless controversy in the United States, campus gun carrying is generally forbidden in most American schools, because schools are considered as safe places for students to study in peace. Moreover, in the recent years, the mass shootings, such as the Columbine High School Massacre, the Virginia Tech Shooting, the Sandy Hook Shooting, and the Aurora Theater Shooting, have occurred more and more frequently and the numbers of victims in the years with mass shootings are in an increasing trend (Mass shootings in the US are on the rise, 2012). A report indicated that 83% of Virginian College students did not agree with campus gun carry (Atkins, 2013). It appears that people in places where the shootings happened learn lessons from the past mass shootings and become more likely to support gun control laws.

Even though more and more mass shootings occurred on campuses, in 2015, campus gun carrying became legal in Texas. The Texas Legislature made a new law allowing campus gun carrying (Michael, 2015). Concealed handgun carry will be allowed on campus beginning on Sep. 1, 2016. A detailed guideline and special voluntary class for campus gun carry may be provided.

The reason that the Texas Legislature passed the campus gun carry law may be because of the special population in Texas. According to a survey made by the Texas Politics Project, more than half of the Texas population believed the current gun control law in Texas was appropriate (36%) or over strict (16%), while 34% and 9% of the people in the United States believed the current gun control law was appropriate or over strict (Public Opinion on Gun Control, 2013). Most of the Texas population believed the gun control laws should not be even stricter. Texas has a higher percentage of supporters of less strict gun control legislation compared to the United States’ overall level.

We made a survey to find out the Texas Tech University students’ and faculty’s opinions about campus gun carrying and how they would react to campus gun carrying. We also tried to find if there were any specific groups of people who preferred campus gun carry in this research.

Literature Review

Campus Gun Carry

Many people believe campus gun carry can protect them from mass shooting (Redmon, 2015). Texas Tech Chancellor Robert Duncan was quoted as saying that people with concealed carry licenses were statistically “less likely to commit crimes, particularly weapons violations” (Michael, 2015, para. 18). Weapons were allowed in many public areas other than schools, but gun carry did not create significant threats to these areas (Welch, 2015).

Even though to allow gun carry nationwide may be appropriate, it may still be not appropriate to allow gun carry in some specific places, including campus. A student, Alexis Woods, was quoted as saying that campus gun carry tends to make campus become a more dangerous place than it was (Alford, 2015). A 2013 survey indicated that around 80% of the students and more than 90% of the faculty members would not feel safe if campus gun carry was allowed (Kaufman, 2015). Campus gun carrying will not only make the campus more dangerous, but also make students and faculty feel uncomfortable so that they may not be able to focus on study and research. Moreover, Mr. Ferner (2012) said people with a gun may not effectively stop mass shooting criminals. Jenna Simsen and Lindsay Humphrey (2015) believed concealed gun carry may not necessarily reduce the possibility of mass shooting on campus. It may however make faculty members and students who have to take care of their children feel uncomfortable. Moreover, they also believed campus gun carry might increase the possibility of mass campus shooting due to alcohol. Their guess may be correct because Kaufman (2015) mentioned in her article that “79 percent of reported campus assaults involved alcohol”. Joanna Cattanach (2015) supported Mr. Ferner’s, Jenna Simsen’s, and Lindsay Humphrey’s opinion by telling that many of her students became the victims of crimes during her career as a faculty member. In the same vein, the criminals killed their classmates and teachers in the Columbine High Massacre (Welsh, 2012).

Hypothesis. According to the literature review, we thought it was reasonable to make the following hypothesis: most students will feel uncomfortable with classmates with guns and be against campus gun carry. They believe campus gun carry can make campus less safe.

Faculty Satisfaction and Recruiting

The campus security issue may not be the only issue Texas Tech University has to consider after it allows campus gun carry. Campus gun carry may either positively or negatively affect faculty recruiting.

Madi Bixler, Vice President of the University of Texas at Dallas chapter of Network of enlightened Women (NeW), was quoted as saying that she believed campus gun carry could positively affect recruitment because it could help universities recruit conservative faculty members (Salgado, 2015).

As a matter of fact, most faculty may oppose campus gun carry rather than agree with it. A survey made by the Columbus Dispatch in Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin found that 94% of faculty members oppose campus gun carry (Brawer, 2015). Even though a university has a sound security system, campus gun carry may still make students and faculty members feel uncomfortable on campus (Clark, 2015). Faculty members may be more against campus gun carry than students. As mentioned earlier, in a 2013 survey, 90% of the faculty members would not feel safe if campus gun carry was allowed, compared to only 80% of students who will feel so (Kaufman, 2015). University of Texas System Chancellor William McRaven was quoted as saying that the anxiety on campus may negatively affect faculty recruiting and finally lead to an increasing college budget (McGaughy, 2015).

Hypothesis. We thought it was reasonable to make the following hypothesis: most faculty members will disagree with the campus gun carry and faculty members may be more likely to be against campus carry than students.

Gun Carry for Females

Some campus gun carry supporters thought armed women could protect themselves from crime, especially sexual violence (Kaufman, 2015). However, according to a report, 48% of women in Texas demanded a stricter gun control law companed to only 40% of men in Texas who demanded a stricter gun control law (Public Opinion on Gun Control (2013). This is probably because women can hardly be benefited by gun carry. The number of murdered women tends to increase with the number of guns (Reindl & Cocco, 2015). Research has indicated that rape is more likely to occur in states with high gun ownership (Finley, 2015). Women are “300 times … more likely to be murdered with a handgun than to kill a stranger in self-defense” (830% if the criminal is an intimate partner) (Finley, 2015, para. 4). If there is a gun in the sexual violence scene, the victims are 500% more likely to be killed compared to a scene with no gun. Many gun control supporters believe women are not strong enough to carry a gun and therefore they should run if they are in crime situations (Hawkins, 2015).

Hypothesis. We thought it was reasonable to make the following hypothesis: women will be less likely to support campus gun carry compared to males. Women will be less likely to say they will carry guns on campus even though they are allowed to do so.

Other Hypotheses

We were also interested to find out some things that were not supported by sufficient previous research.

College Difference. Some colleges within our university may have more gun control supporters than others. On campus, it is a common suspicion that students in the College of Education will be more likely to be against campus gun carry compared to others, because they may think campus should be a safe place for children and college students. Gun control can also protect students in the College of Education from their future students, because even though their future students are too young to legally carry guns, some students might still be able to illegally reach guns from legal adult gun holders. On the contrary, there is a general perception that students in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration are conservative people, who may be more likely support campus carry, especially for students in agriculture majors who might have grown up in the countryside where they may have learnt to protect themselves from dangerous wild animals. We would conform this perception in this research.

We thought it was reasonable to make the following hypothesis: students in the College of Education will be more likely to be against campus gun carry compared to others. Students in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration may be more likely to support campus gun carry.

Panic for Campus Gun Carry Opponents. We suspected that one of the reasons for many opponents to be against campus gun carry was that they believed there would be many gun holders on campus after campus gun carry is allowed. They oppose campus gun carry because they do not want to set themselves in a place with many guns, which may make them panic or at least uncomfortable.

We thought it was reasonable to make the following hypothesis: those who do not agree with campus gun carry will generally estimate higher amounts of campus gun holders.

Methodology

Our research was designed to figure out our hypotheses made above. For the purpose of summarizing, our hypotheses for this research are as following:

1. Most TTU students will feel uncomfortable with classmates with guns and be against campus gun carry.

2. Most TTU faculty members will disagree with the campus gun carry and faculty members will be more likely to oppose campus carry than students.

3. Women will be less likely to support campus gun carry compared to males. Women will be less likely to say they will carry guns on campus even though they are allowed to do so.

4. Students in College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration are more likely to support campus gun carry compared to students in other colleges.

5. People that do not agree with campus gun carry will generally estimate higher amounts of campus gun holders.

Survey Design

We made a survey which was designed to find the results regarding the hypotheses mentioned above. In our survey, we asked the survey participants their position on campus (undergraduate students, graduate students, faculty, and so on), gender, colleges, their feeling about others carrying guns on campus, whether they agreed with campus gun carry, whether campus gun carry could make campus safer, whether they would carry a gun on campus, and their estimation of gun carry rate.

Besides the survey questions regarding our major concerns, we also placed some other relative questions in the survey and tried to see if these questions could help us understand the public opinion about campus gun carry. For instance, we asked them whether gun carry should be forbidden in some specific area on campus and if taser carry could be a substitute for gun carry.

We reached an agreement before we made the survey. We decided to limit the survey participants to the TTU community. Each of us filled in a survey and obtained surveys from at least six males and six females. Surveys with a page blank were not included in our statistics, whereas surveys which missed less than 12 questions were included. We obtained 148 surveys at the end.

Microsoft Excel was used as the only statistics tool in this research. We tabulated the surveys we collected by a coding process. In the Excel sheet, a specific code denotes a correlated answer in the survey. For example, “1” in the Excel sheet denotes choice A in the survey and “2” refers to choice B. We used Excel to find out the distribution of the survey answers. In other words, we used Excel to count how many survey participants chose a specific answer for each question.

Results

Student Satisfaction

We suspected that most TTU students would feel uncomfortable with classmates with guns and be against campus gun carry.

Slightly more than half of students disagreed with the campus gun carry. The survey result indicated that 49% of the students, including graduate students, preferred their friends did not carry guns and 27% of them did not mind, while 24% of the students indicated that they had no feeling about this or did not answer the question (see Figure 1). When they found someone in the class was carrying a gun, 53% of them would feel nervous, in danger, or suspicious, whereas only 12% of them would feel even safer, and 25% of them did not think that would be a concern to them (see Figure 3). Most students (57%) believed concealed campus gun carry would make campus less safe overall (see Figure 5).

The survey result proved that our hypothesis about students’ opinions about campus gun carry was true. Slightly more than half of the students felt uncomfortable in a situation with guns, and they believed campus gun carry could not make campus safer.

Faculty Satisfaction

We made a hypothesis that most TTU faculty members would disagree with the campus gun carry, and faculty members would be more likely to oppose campus carry than students.

Similar to students, most faculty members disagreed with the campus gun carry. About half of the faculty would feel uncomfortable when their friends carried guns and a quarter of them did not mind this. However, if they found someone had a gun in the classroom, 88% of them would feel nervous, while 12% of them stated that it would not bother them (see Figure 4). Note that the percentage of classroom gun carry averse among faculty is much higher than that of students. 88% of the faculty also believed that the concealed campus gun carry would make campus less safe overall (see Figure 6).

The survey result proved that our hypothesis about faculty’s opinions toward campus gun carry was true. Most faculty members did not feel comfortable in a situation with guns, and they believed campus gun carry could not make campus safer. Moreover, the percentage of faculty against campus gun carry was higher than the percentage among students.

Female Gun Carry

We made a hypothesis that most women would be less likely to support campus gun carry compared to males and were less likely to say they would carry guns on campus, even though they were allowed to do so.

As expected, most women did not believe campus gun carry could benefit them. Women were less likely to say they would carry guns, even though they were allowed. 12% of the female survey participants indicated that they would carry guns if they were allowed to, compared to 27% of the male survey participants who would carry guns in the same case (see Figures 7 & 8).

In the same vein, the percentage of women who believed campus gun carry could make campus safer was less than the percentage among men. 31% of females believed campus gun carry could make campus safer, whereas 47% of men believed so (see Figures 9 & 10).

The survey result proved that our hypothesis about females’ opinions about campus gun carry was true.

College Difference

We suspected that students in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration were more likely to support campus gun carry compared to students in other colleges. Students in the College of Education would be more likely to oppose campus gun carry.

Unfortunately, we did not collect sufficient surveys to support our hypothesis, because we had only 3 participants from each of College of Education and College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources. Nevertheless, the survey result still provides weak support to our hypothesis. 66.67% and 61.54% of students in the College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration believed campus gun carry could make campus safer, while only 33.33% of the students in the College of Education agreed with them (see Figure 11). Note that, among all the surveys we received, 39.19% of the survey participants indicated that they believed campus gun carry made campus less safe.

Other Finding about College Difference. Even though we obtained insufficient surveys to prove our hypothesis, we had a considerable number of surveys from several colleges. We obtained 43, 13, 42, and 16 surveys from the College of Arts & Sciences, Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration, Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering, and the College of Visual & Performing Arts respectively. In general, students in Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration were more likely to agree with the campus gun carry. The percentage of survey participants who believed gun carry made campus safer for each of these colleges were 37.2%, 61.5%, 38.1%, and 25% respectively. Among these four colleges, the percentage of participants who believed gun carry made campus safer in Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration was significantly higher than others. The College of Visual & Performing Arts had the highest percentage of survey participants who believed gun carry made campus less safe. It is also interesting to find that 80% of the five survey participants in the College of Media & Communication stated that gun carry made campus less safe.

Panic for Campus Gun Carry Opponents

The last hypothesis we made was that people that did not agree with campus gun carry would generally estimate higher amounts of campus gun holders.

The survey result refuted our hypothesis. In general, campus gun carry opponents estimated a relatively lower number of guns on campus compared to supporters. As the matter of fact, 70.11% of campus gun carry averse participants believed the number of guns per thousand people on campus would be less than 100, whereas 58.62% of campus gun carry supporters, who believed campus gun carry could make campus safer, believed so (see Figure 12). Actually, almost half of the supporters (41.38%) believed the number of guns per thousand people may exceed 100.

Discussion

Student Satisfaction

We suspected that most TTU students would feel uncomfortable with classmates with guns and would be against campus gun carry. Our research results supported our hypothesis. Students did not want to set themselves in danger and believed campus gun carry would make campus more dangerous. They believed gun holders might be a hazard to the campus security and they might hardly reduce the likelihood and casualty of a mass shooting event.

Faculty Satisfaction

We thought that most TTU faculty members would disagree with the campus gun carry and faculty members would be more likely to oppose campus gun carry than students. Our research result supported our hypothesis. Similar to students, faculty would not like to be with students with weapons. They believed the campus gun carry actually would make their working environment dangerous. Impulsive students may shoot faculty in classrooms and offices. Faculty members may have been more likely to oppose campus gun carry than students, because they have to stay on campus longer than their students. Unlike students who can take class and leave campus, faculty members have to stay during office hours and they cannot refuse to meet students.

Female Gun Carry

We made a hypothesis that women would be less likely to support campus gun carry compared to males and were less likely to say they would carry guns on campus, even though they were allowed to do so. Females may not like guns or violence compared to males. Many of them may not have experience about gun shooting and may not effectively use guns to protect themselves. In emergency, females may not have enough time to shoot the criminals. The guns may be taken away by the criminals and become a tool for criminals to reach their objective. Moreover, they may feel it is not convenient to carry a gun every day for school. They may feel campus gun carry may enlarge the difference between males and females and make women’s situation even worse.

College Difference

We suspected that the students in College of Agriculture Sciences and Natural Resources and Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration would be more likely to support campus gun carry compared to the students in other colleges. The students in the College of Education would be more likely to oppose campus gun carry. The result supported our hypothesis, even though we did not collect enough surveys. Business and agriculture students supported gun carry because they were relatively more conservative than others. It seems that agriculture students know how dangerous the countryside is and how they should be armed to protect themselves.

Panic for Campus Gun Carry Opponents

The last hypothesis we made was that people who did not agree with campus gun carry would generally estimate higher amounts of campus gun holders. Our finding did not support our hypothesis. People who believed campus gun carry would make campus safer generally estimated relatively higher amounts of guns on campus. This may be because they believed that others would agree with them and think that obtaining a license and carrying guns on campus is worthwhile due to the security issue. Conversely, those who did not agree with gun carry on campus would think to carry a gun on campus was redundant and not worthwhile.

Limitation and Potential Future Study

In this research, we did not obtain sufficient number of surveys to support our hypotheses due to insufficient time and funding. Although our samples can well represent males’ and females’ opinions on the gun carry issue, we still did not obtain enough samples from faculty members and students in each college. Most of our samples were students in the College of Arts & Sciences, Jerry S. Rawls College of Business Administration, Edward E. Whitacre Jr. College of Engineering, and the College of Visual & Performing Arts.

The survey was well designed for the most part, but we could have put in one more question to ask survey participants whether they agreed with campus gun carry. In that case, we would not need to use the question whether the survey participants believe campus gun carry makes campus safer to speculate on their opinions about the gun carry issue. Also, we asked for the survey participants’ personal information, such as their genders and parties, in the beginning of the survey. This may have made the survey participants hide their real opinions in order to avoid others’ prejudice against their classifications. It might be more appropriate to put the personal information questions at the end of the survey instead.

If we can obtain sufficient funding for a future study, we will make improvements on these limitations and better reflect the TTU community’s opinions on campus gun carry.

Conclusion

According to the research result, most Texas Tech University community members do not believe campus gun carry can make campus safer. Also, most females may not be able to effectively utilize campus gun carry law to protect themselves.

The university and the State of Texas may need to reconsider the campus gun carry law and its impact on the university community. A comprehensive study of campus gun carry funded by the university and the State of Texas may be demanded for future further studies.

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

Brawer, M. (2015, Sep. 15). Why guns on campus are such a dangerous idea. Miami Herald. Retrieved on September 30, 2015 from http://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/op-ed/article35371278.html

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

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

Ferner, M. (2012, December 17). Gun violence In Colorado: From Columbine to Aurora, mass shootings reignite gun law debate. The Huffington Post. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/17/gun-violence-in-colorado-_n_2316633.html

Finley, L. (2015, Sep. 22). Commentary: Guns won’t stop campus rape. Courier-Post. Retrieved on September 30, 2015 from http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/opinion/columnists/2015/09/22/commentary-guns-stop-campus-rape/72593320/

Hawkins, A. (2015, August 25). Gun control proponent: Women too weak to carry guns for self-defense. Breitbart. 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/

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

Mass shootings in the US are on the rise. (2012). Mother Jones. Retrieved on September 16, 2015 from http://www.motherjones.com/special-reports/2012/12/guns-in-america-mass-shootings

McGaughy, L. (2015, May 25). McRaven: Campus carry could hurt faculty recruiting, increase costs. Chron. Retrieved on September 24, 2015 from http://www.chron.com/news/politics/texas/article/McRaven-Campus-carry-could-hurt-faculty-6285105.php

Michael, K. (2015, August 30). Texas tech to have guidelines for campus carry by Oct. 1. Lubbock Online. Retrieved on September 1, 2015 from http://lubbockonline.com/filed-online/2015-08-30/texas-tech-have-guidelines-campus-carry-oct-1#.VebGXfn0F4d

Public Opinion on Gun Control. (2013). The Texas Politics Project. Retrieved on September 22, 2015 from http://texaspolitics.utexas.edu/archive/html/poll/features/gun_control_feature/slide6.html

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/

Reindl, J. and Cocco, J. (2015, February 26). Say no to guns on college campuses. CNN. Retrieved on September 10, 2015 from http://www.cnn.com/2015/02/26/opinion/reindl-cocco-campus-no-guns/

Salgado, B. (2015, May 27). UT System Chancellor: Campus carry could disrupt faculty recruitment. Campus Reform. Retrieved on September 24, 2015 from http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=6531

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/

Welsh, T. (2012, July 20). Should the Colorado theater shooting spur more gun control? U.S. News. Retrieved on September 8, 2015 from http://www.usnews.com/opinion/articles/2012/07/20/should-the-colorado-theater-shooting-spur-more-gun-control


Appendix A

Figures


Figure1 Students' Opinion about Friends' Gun Carry







Figure 2 Faculty's Opinions about Friends' Gun Carry








Figure 3 Students' Feelings about Classmate Gun Carry







Figure 4 Faculty's Feelings about Classmate Gun Carry








Figure 5 Will Gun Carry Make Campus Safer? (Students)









Figure 6 Will Gun Carry Make Campus Safer? (Faculty)








Figure 7 Will You Carry a Gun if Allowed? (Male)





Figure 8 Will You Carry a Gun if Allowed? (Female)






Figure 9 Will Gun Carry Make Campus Safer? (Male)





Figure 10 Will Gun Carry Make Campus Safer? (Female)






Figure 11 Expectation of Number of Guns per Thousand People by Perception Whether Gun Carry Make Campus Safer








Ex. 36.8% of those whom believe gun carry makes campus less safe expect that 0 – 50 guns per thousand people.


Figure 12 Perception about Campus Gun Carry by Colleges

Investigating Red Raiders’ Perceptions of Campus Carry Law in Texas Tech University

Abstract

According to the recent news Texas Tech University (TTU) is going to enact the Campus Carry law on Sep. 1, 2016. This law gives the permission to TTU members to carry concealed licensed guns on campus. There were some debates whether this law would make the university safer or not. The supporters believed that it could be helpful in case of mass shooting incidents or assaults to carry guns, while others opposed. The opponents brought up reasons such as immaturity of young students who might be involved with alcohol, higher risk of hurting innocent people in mass shooting incidents with more armed people, and also the possibility of using victims’ guns against them in case of assaults. In order to investigate TTU members’ perception of Campus Carry law, we conducted a survey among 148 people in TTU. The results were statistically evaluated in an Excel file and used to examine the correctness of the hypotheses we made about public perception of this law. Overall, more than half of the participants in the survey believed that campus carry would decrease the university’s safety.

Key words: Campus Carry law, Texas Tech University, guns- Soraya Honarparvar 

Introduction

The Texas Legislature passed the Campus Carry Bill recently, and Texas Tech University (TTU) is going to enact this law on Sep. 1, 2016. According to this law, concealed licensed weapons will be allowed in campus areas and colleges. There are some difficulties in implementing this law at TTU, which the Tech System committee is trying to solve by preparing a list of guidelines and principles (Micheal, 2015). However, there were some controversies and debates on this law and its effects on academic life on campus. The main challenge surrounding the concealed licensed gun on campus was the safety issue.

Some nationwide mass shooting incidents such as Columbine High School, Virginia Tech University and Fort Hood occurred in gun-free zones, which led to the support of the Campus Carry law by a group of people (Pratt, 2012). In addition, some sexual assault victims claimed that having guns could make them able to protect themselves in the case of attack (Hawkins, 2015).

In opposition to some arguments that carrying concealed licensed gun would decrease the number of physical attacks and mass shootings, some believed that if we armed young students who could be involved in alcohol, it might increase the number of crimes on campus (Kaufman, 2015). Furthermore, more guns could result in more innocent people’s death in the case of mass shooting. In some cases, more armed people on campus might cause a stressful environment in the case of any types of interaction at a university, which could destroy the peaceful academic life.

All these controversies on campus carry made this subject appealing for people in the Advanced Writing class for graduate students at TTU. Therefore, ten students and also the instructor, Mr. Thomas Leverett, and his Teaching Assistant, chose to do more research on people’s perception of this law at TTU. The concept was to understand what percentage of TTU people agreed with this law and how many of them disagreed with it, and what their main reasons were. We read different articles to know more about the various challenges with campus carry. In order to find out what the public opinion on those issues was, we made a survey. Considering that TTU had a student population of about 35,000 and 10 colleges, we tried to categorize survey participants by asking questions about their gender, nation, political parties which they support, and also their role at TTU (undergraduate, graduate, faculty/staff). These factors could identify people’s idea on guns. For instance, Republicans generally favored carrying guns; therefore, it might affect their answers to the questions in the survey. We tried to provide various questions on different aspects of the campus carry law to see how people in different categories would respond to those questions. The results were provided and fully discussed in the following sections.

Literature Review

According to the Campus Carry law which is going to be implemented at Texas Tech University (TTU) from Sep. 1, 2016, people will be allowed to carry concealed licensed guns on most parts of the campus except the places which are restricted by the Tech System committee. Regarding safety, some people found this law disputable.

            Further, a poll result showed that 75% of American citizens support the law which gave permission to enable citizens to get concealed licensed guns (Blannelberry, 2012). Furthermore, in another survey done by Gallup, the result demonstrated that the idea of improving safety by owning a gun in the house was developing (McCarthy, 2014). Also the poll showed that Republicans and independents were more in favor of guns compared to Democrats.

In the case of carrying licensed gun on campus, a group of supporters stated that mass shootings happened in gun free zones, such as the Virginia Tech incident (Metzger, 2015). They also believed, if mass shooting happens, innocent people should be armed to be able to defend themselves from murderers (Welsh, 2012).

However, the opponents of this law believed that campus carry would make the university’s environment unsafe for many reasons. Accidental shootings might increase, and also unstable young students could shoot people intentionally if they got angry (Cattanach, 2015). Furthermore, alcohol drinking could be another reason for misusing guns by young students which might lead to more shooting accidents (Simsen and Humphrey, 2015). Also, students who were mostly younger than 30 years old, psychologically were not mature enough to handle guns (Morgan, 2015). These were some of the reasons that made opponents believe that guns would endanger the universities’ safety.

Furthermore, a survey result showed that about 90% of faculty and 80% of students believed that guns would decrease universities’ safety (Kaufman, 2015). In addition, some stated that the idea of struggling with an armed student, might cause stress and anxiety in a professor in any types of interactions with students (Clark, 2015).

In the case of sexual assault, the opponents of this law believed that more guns on campus could result in more murdered women (Reindl and Cocco, 2015). The guns which were supposed to help women, could be grabbed by attackers and applied against the victims (Kaufman, 2015).

Based on the information we gathered, we made some hypotheses on people’s perception of Campus Carry Law. 

Hypotheses

 - Since the majority of Texans are Republicans, Some of us supposed that the majority of participants in the survey who were TTU members would be Republicans.

- Since the poll result showed that Republicans were more in favor of guns, we guessed that participants of the survey who were Republicans would support Campus Carry more than Democrats. 

- Based on the information about faculty’s concerns and anxiousness surrounding more armed students, we predicted that faculty would believe that campus safety would decrease after enacting the Campus Carry law.

- Based on what we read about shooting accidents in other universities, some of us suspected that since Campus Carry would increase the number of armed people, therefore, most of the participants would believe that enacting this law might decrease the university’s safety.

- Since most of the young students tend to be involved with alcohol, some of us predicted that most of the participants would not like their young friends carrying guns on campus. 

- Furthermore, since some women believe that they could protect themselves better by carrying guns in the case of sexual assault, some of us suspected that women would think that they might be safer if they carried guns.

- Since people who own guns believe it makes them safer, I suspected if they were allowed, they would carry their gun on campus too.

The survey results demonstrated whether our hypotheses were correct or not.

Method

            Our concern in this project was about understanding the people’s reaction to the Campus Carry law, which is going to be enacted in Texas Tech University (TTU) on Sept.1. During our investigation among the articles related to the subject, we found out that various factors could affect one’s idea regarding this law. For example, people who grew up in small towns where there were guns in each family to go hunting, might react differently to this law compared to ones who grew up in a culture in which using guns was rare. Moreover, Republicans generally were more likely to support guns compared to Democrats. However, women might think that they needed extra protection such as guns in case of any types of assaults. Respectfully we can say that age, gender, political points of view, place and the culture which people have been growing up in, and so many other different facts could make an impression on people’s beliefs surrounding carrying guns on campus.

            People who were spending most of their days on campus such as students, faculty and staff or any other employee and TTU members, were actually the ones challenging the consequences of this law. Therefore we decided to do a survey among TTU members to study their feedback on the law and what they thought about the impacts of this law on their safety on campus. We studied various articles, discussed the subject in the group, and finally made our questionnaire. Our question sheet involved 25 multiple-choice questions, and also there was one question which asked participants to write down their opinion (Appendix A). The first few questions (1-9) were designed to give us a background of the participants (Age, American/International, hometown, supporting political party, role at TTU, gun experiences, smoking habit). The rest of the questions would support the hypotheses that were made in class regarding various aspects and how several types of people would take sides on them. By focusing on the answer for some questions, everybody could confirm or reject their prediction in the hypotheses. In order to make reliable results, we tried to ask an equal number of males and females at different parts of the campus to do the survey. The equality of males and females was essential for developing and discussing the results of some questions. Therefore, each member in the class, including the students, professor and teaching assistant was supposed to ask at least 12 TTU members to do the survey. Finally, filled questionnaires were gathered by the professor and distributed among the students in order to enter the answers of questions in an Excel file. In the process of completing the Excel file, the question sheets which were not completely filled (more than one or two questions were not been answered by the respondents) were eliminated in order to have an almost even number of responses for all questions. Totally, 148 participants did the survey completely. The statistical calculation such as summing up the number of people who chose specific answers for each question and calculating the percentages’ distribution, was done on the Excel sheet. In order to investigate different hypotheses, the answers of some questions were correlated to other questions’ responses. For example, regarding women’s attitude with respect to guns and safety, the answer of questions 1 and 17 were correlated and investigated. Finally, each student chose separate questions and scrutinized their hypotheses based on the statistical analysis of those questions.

           However, in the case of this paper, question number 5 would determine the percentage of the different political group supporters (Republican, Democrat, independent, etc.) among the participants which could demonstrate the correctness of my first hypothesis. Further, I believed that how the respondents answered question number 25 would determine if they thought Campus Carry law would make the university safer. Therefore, by statistically investigating how different political group supporters answered this question, I was able to scrutinize the claim I made in my second hypothesis. Regarding the third hypothesis, I believed question 25 would describe faculty’s idea on university safety changes by Campus Carry Law. Therefore, I investigated what percentages of faculty agree with statement in question 25 and how many disagreed with that to confirm that hypothesis. Overall, question number 15 was about people’s opinion on campus safety in the case of mass shooting with having more armed people at university. Also question 21 was about substituting guns with tasers. Considering the fact that one of the safety hazards in university was mass shooting I believed that the answer of question 15 would reveal people’s perception of the relationship between more guns and campus safety. Also, the fact that people might be willing to use tasers instead of guns can be another proof that they did not believe gun carry would increase campus safety. Therefore, I chose these two questions in order to investigate my fourth hypothesis. However, questions number 22 and 24 would reflect the participant’s idea on carrying guns by young students which could be their classmates or friends. Since the statistical investigation of those questions would clarify my fifth hypothesis. The connection between women’s safety and carrying guns can be recognized in question 17. Therefore, in order to examine my sixth hypothesis, I evaluate women’s answer to this question. Further, to clarify my last hypothesis, I tried to correlate the answer of questions 8 and 12; since question 8 demonstrated what the percentages of gun owners was, and question 12 identified the probability of carrying guns on campus. Therefore, if I found out how the gun owners (question 8) answered question 12, I could examine the concepts of my last hypothesis.

Results

As I mentioned in my first hypothesis, we predicted that the majority of participants were going to be Republican, similar to most Texans. However, results of question 5 in the survey demonstrated that only 35% of the respondents were Republicans. Although the Democrats had a smaller portion, 20%, the rest of the people were not Republicans either. 39% of the respondents identified themselves as independents (Appendix B, Chart 1).

In the next hypothesis, we supposed that most of the Republicans would support the Campus Carry law. The survey results showed that similar to what we thought, 76% of Republicans believed that Concealed Licensed guns would make the university safer (Appendix B, Chart 2). However, 90% of Democrats had the opposite view, and they believed Campus Carry would not increase the university’s safety (Appendix B, Chart 3). For independents, the percentage of people who supported the Campus Carry law was 73%, which was higher than Democrats, but a little bit lower than Republicans (Appendix B, Chart 4).

Regarding our third Hypothesis, we suspected faculty would be less likely to support Campus Carry. The survey results completely supported our opinion. 100% of faculty believed that Campus Carry would not increase the university safety (Appendix B, Chart 5). However, this conclusion might not be quite reliable, since only 3% of respondents were faculty (Appendix B, Chart 6). Therefore, our sample might not include various points of view.

In our fourth hypothesis, we claimed that the majority of participants were more likely to believe that the Campus Carry law would decrease the university safety. The results distinguished that 51% of respondents believed that more guns on Campus would decrease the safety in the case of a mass shooting, and 45% of them had the opposite opinion. Therefore, in this case, there was no huge difference between the supporters and opponents. On the other hand 71% of respondents believed that tasers could be substitutions for guns. As a conclusion we can mention that even though the difference was insignificant, still people believed that having more guns on campus would not increase their safety and they preferred to carry other self-protection devices rather than guns (Appendix B, Charts 7 and 8).

In the fifth hypothesis, we stated that participants might not like the idea of their friends carrying guns. Results indicated that 49% of respondents preferred that their friends not carry a gun. Furthermore, 24% of them had no feelings about it and only 27% of the participants in the survey liked the idea of guns being carried by their friends. These results confirmed our theory regarding people’s feeling on carrying a gun by a friend. Further, regarding carrying a gun by a classmate, 34% believed that they would feel more nervous, 11% announced that they might be suspicious, and 11% stated that they would feel in danger and unable to concentrate. Therefore, 56% totally did not feel comfortable about the idea of a gun being carried to the class by a student. 24% believed that it would not bother them and only 10% of them felt safer in this condition. Therefore, the overall answer of this question would confirm the fact that participants did not like the idea of carrying a gun to a class or any other places on campus (Appendix B, Charts 9 and 10).

In our sixth hypothesis, we suspected that women would believe that they would be safer if they carried guns. The survey results showed that among 49% of female participants in the survey, 51% believed that carrying guns would increase their safety and 49% believed they would not. The difference between the opponents and supporters was not huge enough to approve our theory completely; however, even this slight leaning toward supporting side can show the correctness of the general idea (Appendix B, Chart 11).

In our last hypothesis, we suspected that people who owned guns were likely to carry them on campus. The results demonstrated that 65% of gun owners would bring their guns on Campus if they were allowed to. Therefore, our hypothesis proved to be correct (Appendix B, Chart 12).

Discussion

In the first hypothesis, we suspected that most of the participants in the study would be Republicans, however, results did not support our idea. Only 35% of people who did the survey were Republicans, although 20% claimed to be Democrats, but 39% identified themselves as independents. This reflects the fact that most of the participants could not introduce themselves only by these two political groups. It means that they were not be able to support the whole philosophy and ideas of either of these two parties, and that is why they defined themselves as independents. However, it worth noticing that the majority of participants in this study (67%) are undergraduate young students. Therefore, our results could mostly represent their opinions about political parties. The lack of experience and in some case knowledge surrounding political views of these parties, could be the reason for choosing independent as a safer option by these young students. Moreover, I believe if we had fair distribution of participants with respect to their age, the final result might be closer to our prediction in the hypothesis, or at least it could provide a more reliable conclusion at the end, since it is likely that older people are more familiar with these parties’ political views and they choose to support one of them.

In our second hypothesis, we were curious to know if Republicans were more likely to support Campus Carry Law or not. The survey results confirmed our opinion. Totally, 76% of Republicans were supporting the Campus Carry law. Generally, Republicans were more in favor of guns and they were more likely to believe that having guns would increase their safety. Therefore, in this study we found out that they had the same idea regarding guns even on campus, and they believed people could protect themselves better if they carried guns at university. It was interesting to know that independents had the same view as Republicans, 73% of them were supporting campus carry. Although considering the fact that majority of these Republicans and independents who did the survey were young students, the results could not completely represent the older Republicans’ and independents’ preferences regarding guns on campus.

In the third hypothesis, we suspected that faculty would be less likely to support the Campus Carry law. The results were in the same direction, and 100% of faculty did not support Campus Carry law. The fact that faculty were more involved in interaction with young students who might be unsatisfied with their grades or courses, could cause their anxiety regarding Campus Carry. The results illustrated their stress regarding young immature students who could be armed and they might not be in control of their tempers. However, our knowledge was not completed for this conclusion since only 3% of respondents were faculty. I believed if more faculty participated in the study, we would reach the same results. In order to confirm this hypothesis, in future studies, there should be an even distribution of participants regarding people’s role at university. In this way, we will know if the faculty are more stressed by this law or not, and we even can make a comparison between their idea and other people’s. Further, I believe in order to be more accurate in discussion, we should investigate faculty’s idea with respect to their age, since older faculty have more experiences with students than younger ones, therefore, their opinions may be more trustworthy with respect to students behaviors.

In the fourth hypothesis, we claimed that the majority of respondents would believe that enacting this law would decrease the university’s safety. As results demonstrated, people had feelings that in the case of mass shooting they would be less safe with more guns around them, and they were willing to substitute guns with other protecting devices. Overall, 51% of participants believed campus carry would decrease their safety in the case of mass shooting. However, mass shooting incidents in other universities, which were in gun free zones, might raise the idea that carrying a gun would help people to protect themselves. This might be the reason that 45% of respondents still believed that concealed licensed guns would increase their safety in such a situation. However, choosing a taser instead of a gun with 71% of respondents demonstrated the fact that people were more worried about their safety rather than being in favor of carrying guns. However, in future studies, we can ask respondents about their ideas on the relationship between higher number of armed people on campus and the frequency of mass shooting. In this way, we can find out whether they really see guns as a solution or as a source of problems.

In the fifth idea, we suspected that people would not favor the idea of their friends’ carrying guns. We found the same direction in the results; 49% of respondents preferred that their friends not carry guns, while 24% had no feelings regarding that and 27% liked the idea. The same pattern happened regarding people’s feeling about their classmates’ carrying guns. 56% were not comfortable about carrying guns by their classmates. Higher interactions and competitions in class and among students might lead to these results, since they know having more guns would make all those situations more dangerous. In our further investigation, we can ask people if they think there should be extra locker rooms in order to keep the guns out of classes, and also how the university should manage the extra fiscal cost of locker rooms.  Since these extra costs can make enacting Campus Carry Law expensive, we can ask respondents if they are willing to pay more tuition fees or taxes in order to solve the cost issue related to those locker rooms.

In our sixth hypothesis, we predicted that women would believe they might be safer with carrying guns on campus. Results showed the same idea. 51% of women believed that they were safer with carrying guns. Since normally women are more victims of sexual assaults, it is reasonable that they believed with guns they might be safer. However, in future research we should ask women if they feel safer with more armed men around them, because Campus Carry is arming both men and women. Now the question is whether an armed woman is safer in front of an armed man or not? In addition we can ask them about the impact of Campus Carry Law on the number of assaults against women and whether these will increase it or not.

In our last hypothesis, we believed that people who owned guns would bring their guns on campus if they were allowed to do so. The results confirmed our idea, and 65% of gun owners claimed they would bring their guns on campus if it was legal. This sounded like a reasonable result, since there was no other process such as background check or buying guns for people who already had guns; therefore, they would carry them on campus as well. However, in future research we should ask them whether they think it is necessary to carry guns on campus or they may carry it because they used to carrying it in most places.

Conclusion

          There were some controversies surrounding the Campus Carry Law which allowed licensed guns on the TTU campus. Some believed that this law would make the campus safer in case of assaults and also mass shootings, while the others strongly disagreed. The opponents of this law claimed that carrying guns on campus not only would not increase the university’s safety, but also it would damage the academic life. In order to investigate the TTU members’ opinion on this law we did a survey which contained 26 multiple choice questions. 148 people roughly (half males and half females) participated in the survey. The statistical analyzing of the results have been used to discuss various hypotheses of this study. The results revealed that majority of respondents were Republicans and independents, whereas Democrats had a smaller portion. Also Republicans and independents mostly supported Campus Carry Law, while most of the Democrats had opposite points of view. Moreover, all of the faculty who participated in the survey believed that this law would decrease the university’s safety. Further, more than half of the respondents believed that more guns would decrease the university’s safety in the case of mass shooting and a majority of them were willing to substitute tasers with guns. Moreover, they mostly stated that they would feel less safe if their classmates or friend carried guns. However, more than half of the women believed carrying guns would increase their safety. Also we found out that the majority of gun owners claimed they would bring their guns on campus if they had the permission. One general finding of this study showed that people might believe carrying guns on campus would increase their safety, but they did not like the idea of other people having weapons at a university.

However, it is worth to mentioning that our samples size might not represent TTU perfectly and to achieve more reliable results, a larger group of respondents should be investigated. Further, in order to make a better comparison for most of the questions, we should have an even distribution of participants with respect to various factors such as age and role at TTU.

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Appendix B: Charts