College campuses have been under threat of violent crime or are reeling from violence that has unfolded near or on campus in recent weeks. Fox News Digital examined how many college campuses allow concealed carry and whether it’s a viable option to help protect students from potential tragedy.
“College campuses generally have low crime rates, but security is always important and the police may not always be there. A little over 60 percent of universities with more than 2,500 students have armed officers, and they average only 2.4 officers per 1,000 students, and only a fraction of those officers are on duty at any time,” John Lott, founder and president of the Center for Crime Prevention Research, told Fox News Digital.
“Just like off-campus police, campus security can’t protect everyone.”
Historically, college campuses have primarily dealt with crimes such as theft and sexual assault, data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows. But just in the last few weeks, there have been shootings and murders on campus, rape threats, dormitory break-ins, and armed robberies ever closer to campus.
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A man pulls a .45 caliber Glock pistol from a holster under his leather jacket.
(iStock)
The United States in general is no stranger to violent crime in recent years. Murders rose nearly 30% in 2020 compared to the previous year, according to FBI data, marking the largest single-year increase in murders since the agency began tracking crimes. The crime rate exploded at a time when society was upended by lockdown orders stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, calls to defund police departments reverberated across the country, and repeated nights of protests and Riots following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis.
Crimes creeping closer to campuses this year have left some schools devastated and others struggling to fight back in the event of tragedy and violence.
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The University of Idaho is in mourning after four students were found fatally stabbed to death in an off-campus home. The University of Virginia campus is dealing with a shooting that left three high school football players dead, another player injured and another student injured. While NYU students have raised concerns about trespassers breaking into their dorm rooms, University of Washington students are arming themselves with pepper spray when they discover a handful of registered sex offenders live near campus and students from Temple University are facing off-campus home invasions. accommodation.
Flowers at a makeshift memorial at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho, on November 21, 2022, for four of its students who were killed on November 13.
(Derek Shook for Fox News Digital)
Lott pointed to Fox News Digital a report released by the Center for Crime Prevention Research last year, which found that 12 states require public universities to allow concealed firearms permitted on campus, including states like Texas, Utah and Mississippi. . Another 23 states leave the decision to allow or prohibit the concealed carry of firearms to the individual college or university.
The Crime Prevention Research Center compiled data from 2012 to May 2021 examining cases of gun discharges on college campuses and found that many of those cases involved accidental discharges, but none involved a legally licensed gun owner committing a crime.
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“With all the states that universities allow the use of weapons on campus, we don’t need to guess how that will work. There is not a single case of a weapon being fired by someone legally carrying a weapon on campus threatening another person or attempting to commit a crime,” Lott said.
The study noted a possible case of a man with a concealed-carry permit on the Michigan State University campus in 2015 who reportedly brandished his firearm at another driver, but the charges were dropped and his record was deleted that same year.
College campuses aren’t the only types of schools that allow concealed carry.
Following the tragic mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, other school districts worked to “toughen up” their schools against such tragedies. For some, this meant arming teachers.
More than 1,300 Florida school personnel in 45 school districts are armed, while more than 400 school districts in Texas allow some designated school employees to arm themselves, the New York Times reported in July.
A handgun from an illegal gun collection is checked during a gun buy-back event in Brooklyn, NY on May 22, 2021.
(AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews, File)
Gun control groups like Everytown have released data and reports arguing that if more college campuses allow guns, the number of shootings, homicides and suicides will increase.
Everytown said in a 2020 report titled “The Danger of Guns on Campus” that “mental illness is a major problem among college students” and sounded the alarm that allowing more guns on college campuses would increase suicides.
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“Three in five college students reported ‘overwhelming anxiety’ last year, and two in five ‘felt so depressed they found it hard to function,'” Everytown reported, citing a national survey. “Rates of suicidal ideation also doubled between the 2006-2007 and 2016-2017 school years. With access to firearms tripling the risk of dying by suicide, the danger of allowing more guns on campus is clear.”
Lott told Fox News Digital that “suicide is a frequent concern with guns on college campuses,” but said there is no case of a person committing suicide on campus with a legally owned firearm.
“Despite all the universities that allow students, faculty and staff to carry concealed firearms, there is not a single case of someone who legally had a gun committing suicide. There is also not a single case where someone has gotten a weapon legally allowed on campus. and used that weapon to commit suicide,” he said.
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Lott added that the campus gun ban not only prevents “people from protecting themselves on campus, but it also prevents them from protecting themselves on their way to and from campus.”
Everytown did not respond to Fox News Digital’s request for additional comment and data on the campus broadcast.
