Over the course of 20 years, there have been numerous school shootings, which has resulted in thousands of lives ending to quickly. Which leads me to my central focus of this ethnography project. I wanted to determine how students across the country attending different universities felt about implementing a safety course, which will allow a student the ability to conceal carry a firearm on campus. In the criminal justice field, individuals are more probable to carry some type of firearm. If they do not carry one on a systematic bases, they most likely come across them on a regular bases.
So most students like myself who are Criminal Justice majors are pro-gun. So during my interview, the interviewees came from all across the country and possessed numerous types of degrees, which help with getting a broader audience. I feel that those fellow veterans, and criminal justice major throughout the country would encourage the idea of allowing conceal carry on campus. It is those who attend school for a dissimilar major, or have no military experience whose answers are undetermined.
As stated previously a lot of my interviewees were not criminal justice majors because the vast majority of those students are typically known for having to carry a firearm in their future profession. At the beginning of my interviewee I wanted to determine how protected students feel on their university campus. Among the study’s all of the interviewee’s felt relatively safe on their university campus. Taylor Winand, an Early Education major at a branch campus of The Ohio State University stated, “I do feel safe on campus. This is because the campus is extremely small,” was the response I received to the question.
I began to observe that numerous students at smaller institutions feel a little safer on their campus, as oppose to someone at a bigger university. Aaron Hill a Business and Marketing major at Tiffin University also stated that he felt safe on campus “because it’s so small, and everyone pretty much knows one another. ” Though campus size might make a student feel safer on campus, Mrs. Hill, and Miss. Winand answers to the rest of the interview questions said otherwise. Campus size might influence how a student feels about their safety level on their respective institution.
It still does not determine how each student feels about CC a firearm on campus. Though both Aaron, and Taylor attend small universities and feel safe on their campuses. They still feel students who have a concealed carry weapons license (CCW) should be allowed to carry their firearm on campus. This was the next question I wanted to answer. Taylor Beavers who was a 2015 graduate of Slippery Rock University in Pennsylvania with a degree in Physical Training (PT), also agrees with being authorized to CC a weapon on campus if one possesses the licenses to do so.
SPC Beavers is also an Army veteran, and she feels that being in the Army has an encouragement in why she would support the idea of allowing conceal carry on campus. Slippery Rock University is also known as SRU, has about 10,000 students enrolled in their institution. Compared to Taylor and Aaron’s college it is rather big. So one can see that size really does not matter in this case. There was one response out of all my interviews that raised a red flag. Hannah Burras a Nursing major at The University of Toledo was not on board for carrying a firearm on campus.
I do not feel that students should be allowed to carry a firearm on campus… I would never even think of taking a gun into an area that was set up for educational purposes. ” Hannah shocked me with this response because she also has her CCW license, yet still feels students should not be allowed. As one can see, campus size nor even major seem to influence whether they think students with a CCW license should be able to carry a weapon on campus or not. So proceeding with my interview I asked students, their views on implementing a safety course offered through the university to be allowed to carry a firearm on campus.
I specified that this safety course would be separate from the CCW license course, but would be a necessitated to take, regardless if one already possesses their CCW license. Everyone who I had surveyed felt that this course would be a great idea. “This course would be great as long as it talks about policies and regulations for carrying the firearm on campus, and not just a repeat CCW course,” said by Kyle Ladner. Kyle is a current Electrical Engineer student at The Ohio State University main campus.
After finding out all those who support the idea of being allowed to carry a firearm, I wanted to know what would be the qualifications to be able to partake in this course. All of the responses I received were great ideas and had justified reasons behind them. A former teammate of mine at Tiffin University Brandon Muller had one of the most complex responses to the question about the criteria for the safety course. “Every student participating in the course should already have their CCW license, as well as subject to another background check.
There should also be a fire range course that displaces the ability to hit numerous ranges of targets with your gun. ” This is such a substantial idea because anyone can sit at a desk and listen to someone talk. Having the ability to fire a weapon in a stressful situation and even at a moving target is something that takes years of training to master. Some of the other responses from fellow interviewees were great as well. Aaron basically felt that the requirements to receive a CCW should be applied to the college campus safety course as well.
Since Hannah did not agree with allowing students to carry a firearm on campus, I thought I would move to my next question of this interview. That is “Do you feel only specific people should be allowed to carry firearms, and who? ” The majority all stated the same answer, that if they have their CCW license and take the safety course on campus they should be allowed. The only person that felt different about this was Hannah Burras. Miss. Burras stated, “there should be certain personnel on campus that can carry firearms.
They should be personnel that have high authority at the university like the president, as well as campus police officers. ” I personally was shocked by her views of this considering she goes shooting and possess her CCW. Everyone else agrees that anyone who is trained and is cleared via background investigation should have the ability to carry a firearm. For those students who I interviewed that are for the CC on campus, I wanted to figure out why these individuals felt it was beneficial to have this implemented on college campuses.
With all the college shootings, all the students that I had interviewed felt that they would be significantly safer if they had the ability to protect themselves if this horrible event were to ever take place on their own campus. Aaron felt that knowing you have the ability to protect yourself in this event is reassuring. Though most of the interviewees have campus police, a lot of them feel that sometimes calling for help won’t make it in time to save their lives. No one should have the fear of not having the ability to defend him or her, especially in a life or death situation.
Taylor Winand had the best response when it came to this situation. “If an active shooter was in the same room you were, calling the campus police would be like bring a knife to a gun fight. ” There is so much information gathered from these interviews, it was astounding Based on the research conducted there is nothing specifically linked to campus size, or even the major that students study that determine if they feel safe on campus or not. One can see further research will need to be conducted to determine why someone is pro-gun or not.
Some of the largest campuses in the country have never had any significant threat to the safety of the students on campus. Those campuses that have been affected by these acts of violence, possibly could have been prevented or element if trained students had the ability to carry their own firearms to protect themselves. After some of the interviews, one can conclude that out of those that have been interviewed, they would feel safer on campus if they had the ability to carry a firearm.
