Frontline Support for Concealed Carry on Campus: A Case Study in a Border Town

A mirror of political ideology: undergraduates’ attitudinal drivers on implemented campus carry

“…This result echoes many earlier studies (e.g., De Angelis et al, 2017;Kyle et al, 2017;Schafer et al, 2018;Hassett and Kim, 2021). A major difference from other studies, however, was that gun socialization (e.g., Jang et al, 2014), regional socialization (Schildkraut et al, 2018;Luo and Shi, 2022), or currently owning a gun (Bennett et al, 2012;Patten R. P. et al, 2013;Schildkraut et al, 2018;Shepperd et al, 2018) did not have an impact among UT Austin students when political views were taken into account. The comprehensive nature of the survey conducted and the method that enabled controlling for several factors underline the significance of these results.…”

“…Whether the right to carry should be extended to campuses can be considered one such regulation (Birnbaum, 2013). Within the sphere of political ideas, our results support the findings of McMahon-Howard et al (2020) on the significance of pro-gun legal attitudes above and beyond political views when it comes to campus carry. Even when controlling for other factors, especially political affiliation or ideology, the support for people to be able to exercise their Second Amendment right had a statistically significant role in opinions of support for campus carry, notwithstanding a number of respondents who supported the Second Amendment but would have preferred that campus remain off-limits from firearms.…”

“…This effect was particularly noted by Schildkraut et al (2018), comparing the attitudes of university students in Georgia versus New York, with the former being much more gun-positive and the latter being more critical and restrictive. In another study, Luo and Shi (2022) studied attitudes at a research institute on the U.S.-Mexico border. While those with origins on the Mexican side were considered to have been socialized into a culture that tends to be more critical of guns, Mexican-born respondents who had adapted to U.S. culture were more likely to support campus carry.…”

“…Regional socialization (Schildkraut et al, 2018;Luo and Shi, 2022) could be significant in a state like Texas, which is stereotypically associated with having a strong gun culture. While the admittedly high numbers of gun ownership in Texas are by no means outstanding (Parker et al, 2017), for granularity on the potential difference of opinions on guns held by those born and/or raised in Texas, respondents were asked about how many years they had lived there, calculated against birth year, to also determine if they were residents during high school; this also made it possible to differentiate between those UT Austin undergraduates who were from out of state.…”

“…In addition to replicating classic attitude surveys (e.g., Nodeland and Saber, 2019), some have expanded on the analytical spectrum, thus deepening understandings on attitudinal differences and how university members are adapting to the potential presence of guns around them. Such studies include Hayes et al (2021) on the attitudinal differences between those who support the law and those who actually carry on campus, McMahon-Howard et al (2020) on factors differentiating campus groups, Scherer et al (2021) on how pro-gun attitudes may obscure the perception of negative impacts of campus carry, and Ruoppila and Butters (2021) on how the views of supporters or opponents are not necessarily black-and-white, indicating nuanced understandings and preferences around a complex issue (see also Kyle et al, 2017).…”