About Dr. Maestas

Thursday, February 26, 2015

Sexual Assaults and Concealed Handguns on College Campuses

Last year, I wrote several times about sexual assaults on college campuses.  It is a hideous crime that should not be tolerated in our society.  It is surprising and shocking that more colleges and universities are not doing enough to minimize or hopefully stop sexual assaults on campuses across the country.

Gun rights advocates such as Women for Concealed Carry or Students for Concealed Carry are capitalizing on this fear and are pushing legislators in many states to pass laws that would allow students to carry concealed handguns on campuses.  Their premise is that if a college student was allowed to carry a concealed handgun on campus, fewer sexual assaults would occur as the student carrying a handgun would be readily able to defend herself. 

But first, let’s look at some facts.  Currently three states; Colorado, Idaho, and Utah; have enacted laws which allow anyone to carry concealed handguns on campus.  Five other states; Arkansas, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, and Wisconsin; have laws allowing concealed handguns on campuses, but the laws in those states permit the colleges or universities to restrict where the weapons may be carried (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 20, 2015). And as you can imagine, none of the college or university administrators in these five states have allowed concealed handguns to be carried on their campuses.  Additionally, nine other states allow guns on campuses, but only in locked cars in parking lots.

Gun rights advocates are using sexual assaults on campuses to push for concealed handgun carry laws to be passed by legislatures in many states.  They claim that if women on college campuses were armed fewer rapes would occur.  In fact, legislators in ten states; Florida, Indiana, Montana, Nevada, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming, are hoping that this argument will help them get concealed carry laws passed in their states (New York Times, February 18, 2015).  

One such bill is being considered by Nevada legislators. Nevada Assemblywoman, Michele Fiore, Republican and sponsor of the bill said in a telephone interview: “If these young, hot little girls on campus have a firearm, I wonder how many men will want to assault them. The sexual assaults that are occurring would go down once these sexual predators get a bullet in their head.” (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 20, 2015)  Assemblywoman Fiore is garnering lots of attention, both for and against, for her comments.  Ms. Fiore points to the rape of Amanda Collins by a stranger on the campus of the University of Nevada, Reno in 2007.  Ms. Collins has testified before state legislatures in Nevada and other states advocating the right to carry a concealed handgun on campus. She has claimed that had she been carrying a handgun that night, there is no doubt in her mind that she could have stopped the attacker.

Let’s consider some additional facts.  Most sexual assaults on college campuses are not done by strangers.  In fact:
   •    Ninety (90) percent of the sexual assault victims knew the perpetrator,
   •    Eighty-four (84) percent of the perpetrators were students,
   •    Seventy-eight (78) percent of the assaults involved alcohol, and one in three victims were drunk, passed out, or asleep. 
   •    Nearly three-fourths of the victims in the campus sexual assaults were attacked in their freshman or sophomore year.
The data were gathered by United Educators, an insurance and risk-management firm, which examined 305 claims from 104 colleges it insures involving alleged sexual assaults of students from 2011 through 2013 (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 20, 2015).

In another study conducted by Christopher P. Krebs, senior researcher at RTI International, a nonprofit research group, 5,446 undergraduate women were surveyed at two large public universities.  He found that women on a campus were typically assaulted by a trusted male friend while both were under the influence of alcohol, drugs or both and not by a stranger while walking across the campus.  Mr. Krebs states that this is not a situation in which a woman would likely have easy access to a pistol or to summon much will or capacity to use one.

Another interesting fact to consider is that federal law prohibits the ownership of handguns by anyone under the age of 21.  This means that a very large percentage of undergraduate students on college campuses would not be allowed to own a handgun.  Given this and the fact that nearly three-fourths of the sexual assault victims on campus are freshmen or sophomores, passing a concealed handgun carry law would not help the vast majority of these sexual assault victims.

One interesting note to point out is that a spokesman for the advocacy group Students for Concealed Carry, Michael Newbern, said he was not aware of any case of a student who had used a concealed handgun to prevent a campus sexual assault. However, it should be noted that assessing the impact of concealed handgun carry laws on college campuses is difficult as these regulations are relatively new.

As a former president of a university, I have spoken to many university presidents, other administrators, faculty, and police officers about this issue. And not a single one has been in favor of allowing students, faculty, staff or the general public to carry concealed handguns on their campus.  Handguns do NOT belong on a college campus.  I have discussed this matter many times with campus, city, and state police officers and sheriff’s deputies and again not a single one have been in favor of allowing people to carry concealed handguns on college campuses.  Police officers have told me that when confronted with two or more people with firearms they are trained to immediately take control of the situation by disarming by any means.  Police officers when faced with two people pointing pistols at each other or, more importantly, shooting at each other will not stop to ask who the person is with the concealed handgun carry permit and who is the bad guy.  They will control the situation by neutralizing the people carrying the handguns and if that involves having to shoot, they will do so to protect their own lives and those of their fellow police officers.

Finally, one good bit of news is that the military academies; the U.S. Air Force Academy, the U.S. Military Academy, and the U.S. Naval Academy; recently reported a drop in sexual assaults. In 2013-2014, 61 sexual assaults were reported compared to 70 the previous year.   However, in the report released by the Pentagon, 40 percent of those students who reported sexual assaults also complained that they had faced retaliation for reporting the incidents (Chronicle of Higher Education, February 11, 2015).

Students on college campuses are going to experiment with alcohol and drugs.  However, a college campus is certainly not a place where students should mix alcohol, drugs, and handguns.  And state legislators should not give licenses to students to indulge in such a mix.