Guns on Campus... Again. Rational Responses to an Emotional Issue?

I know that this topic has already been blogged about here with numerous responses, but continued news stories and class discussions are making it hard for me not to address it again. Hopefully some of the more recent articles and events can add another layer to the dialogue about this important, and polarizing issue. I am also making a point of sorts by posting this in the Changing numbers blog.

In the Denver Scholarly Writing class on Tuesday we looked at the issue of guns on campus through various theoretical lenses. By answering a series of questions we were able to really illustrate just how complicated this issue is, and the challenge of ever reaching a consensus. On the way home from class, the topic on KOA was the recent change to the open carry laws in California. (Talk radio is a guilty pleasure of mine, and 2nd amendment discussions always fascinate me, I wish more time was spent discussing the amendment it its entirety.) Sadly the news the next day once again brought the issues of guns and gun control to the front page of news and blog pages everywhere. Yet another mass shooting incident, this time in a hair salon.

While the KOA debate and shooting in California are what really pushed me to reintroduce this topic in a blog post, two articles more directly related to higher education really inform how I am trying to frame things here.

The first article from the Chronicle explored how the campaign for concealed weapons on campus has been gaining traction in light of recent legal challenges and victories in Oregon and elsewhere. It outlines the basic pro and con arguments and provides the usual quotes. One section really stood out for me as telling, and potentially illustrative, of the whole issue:

It has been several years since there was a large-scale episode of violence on a college campus in the United States. "If the problem has not manifested itself in two years, the problem dies away," says Mr. Burnett. "Incidents like college shootings provide us with the best publicity, unfortunately," he says.

Burnett, one of the primary proponents for an organization that openly uses the large scale tragedies at VT and NIU as talking point for why this issue is so important, openly admits that these events are so rare that their cause loses momentum and that "college shootings provide... the best publicity" for the cause. I have a hard time not being somewhat offended by this statement. If this is such an important issue (and not an emotional driven one) tragedy should not be necessary to maintain momentum.

On the other end of the debate, and in many ways equally as instructive, is an interview with the author of a book chronicling the shooting and shooter at NIU in 2008. David Vann responds to a variety of questions about his book, school shootings in general, and potential solutions throughout the interview. A large portion (like many such after the fact investigations of violent incidents) focuses on the many warning signs and red flags that were ignored or missed. Mr. Vann however goes further and provides a strategy of sorts that higher education could adopt to truly combat the issue:

So if universities really want to limit shootings, they’ll have to take a lot of steps that I can’t imagine them taking:

1. They’ll have to group together to fight the NRA and push for gun control, including the elimination of all handguns, since handguns are made to kill people.
2. They’ll have to require mental health background checks.
3. They’ll have to flag anyone who has served in the military or been in the prison system.
4. They’ll have to use metal detectors, more police at campus borders, etc.

Ok. Opposite end of the spectrum in terms of an emotional response to Mr. Burnett. While many of these steps could potentially reduce risk on campus, the would also be very costly, both monetarily and in terms of freedom and privacy. I agree with Mr. Vann that I cannot imagine many institutions adopting these ideas.

We are left where we started. A failure to find a rational solution to an issue that is oozing with emotions. Neither side truly approaches or presents a fully rational argument. Both play on fear in different ways, leveraging tragedy on one side, and arguing for limiting access and freedom on the other. Is there a way to approach an emotional issue rationally and come up with a solution?

Oddly, Mr. Vann on some levels offers a starting point. Colleges and Universities have the potential exert political influence if there is a common opinion that can be leveraged. Mr. Vann argues that "in the face of the facts" the argument is clear and that higher education needs to be "clear and uncompromising in the message" it wants to send to politicians to affect whatever change is needed.

I find myself agreeing with him. Not only in terms of the untapped power higher education could have to affect this issue if we spoke with a united voice, but also in terms of presenting and inserting "facts" into the debate. We often hear that college students are safer than the general population and Burnett states that the issue of a mass shooting has not happened in two years. Are there Changing numbers enough to warrant a wholesale change in policies on campus?

Can higher education do a better job of presenting the research and data that would shed light on this issue? Are there facts and figures that can be used to deflate and chip away at the emotion driven arguments that dominate the discussion today? Do we have an obligation as researchers to explore this issue more fully and completely in order to provide and discover this information?

Would it matter? Is it even possible to bring rationality into an emotional issue? I think it's worth a try.