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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 November 2020
This forum entry approaches the issue of Campus Carry from the viewpoint of emotion management with regard to active-shooter events. Self-defense has become the most prominent reason for owning and carrying a firearm in the Unites States in the same period that mass shootings have continued to increase. At the same time, active-shooter drills and rehearsals have become a generational experience for students. The essay examines social imaginaries by comparing concealed-carry imaginaries against those discernible in active-shooter-event instructional videos produced by the City of Houston, the Department of Homeland Security, and a number of universities. This places the Campus Carry issue in the larger context of a general securitized imaginary where, irrespective of the actual prevalence of violent crime, the campus is considered a place like any other, in the sense that violent things can happen to everyone, at any time, obliging individuals to defend themselves with firearms because the authorities are not there to immediately protect them.
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12 In a series of questions asking if the UT Austin survey respondents had previously been a victim of violent crime off-campus, 24.1% (290/1,204) answered yes to at least one – and sometimes more than one – of the following: mass shooting (0.3%), domestic violence (4.7%), sexual assault (11.9%), mugging (1.8%), assault (4.3%), robbery (7.6%), or other (4.7%).
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23 Philip Rucker, “White House Vows to Help Arm Teachers and Backs Off Raising Age for Buying Guns,” Washington Post, 18 March 2018, at www.washingtonpost.com/politics/white-house-vows-to-help-arm-teachers-and-backs-off-raising-age-for-buying-guns/2018/03/11/14da0c8e-253a-11e8-bc72-077aa4dab9ef_story.html, accessed 15 Oct. 2019.
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31 Shapira and Simon, 8.
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43 National Center for Educational Statistics, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2018,” April 2019, at https://nces.ed.gov/pubs2019/2019047.pdf, accessed 11 Oct. 2019.
44 Ibid.
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47 New York Times, 30 July 2019, “Pete Buttigieg on Gun Violence: ‘I Was Part of the First Generation That Saw Routine School Shootings’,” www.nytimes.com/2019/07/30/us/politics/pete-buttigieg-debate-columbine-shooting.html, accessed 10 Oct. 2019.
48 Anti-Campus Carry focus group, 26 April 2018.
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52 Ibid.
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55 Department of Homeland Security, “Options for Consideration Active Shooter Preparedness Video” (dir. Connor Patrick Griffin, 2015, 2017), at www.dhs.gov/cisa/options-consideration-active-shooter-preparedness-video, accessed 10 Oct. 2019.
56 Davis, Stages of Emergency.
57 Department of Homeland Security.
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59 Interview, 17 April 2018.
60 City of Houston, “RUN. HIDE. FIGHT. ® Surviving an Active Shooter Event,” 2012, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VcSwejU2D0&feature=youtu.be, accessed 11 Oct. 2019.
61 Department of Homeland Security.
62 See, e.g., Federal Bureau of Investigation, “Active Shooter Incidents in the United States in 2018,” 2019; Federal Bureau of Investigation, “A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013,” 2013.
63 City of Houston.
64 Department of Homeland Security.
65 Department of Homeland Security, “Active Shooter Emergency Action Plan Video,” www.dhs.gov/cisa/active-shooter-emergency-action-plan-video, accessed 10 Oct. 2019.
66 See, e.g., Florida State University, Central Michigan University, Northwestern University, Ohio State University, Georgia Southern University, the University of Denver, and Central Washington University. Florida State University Police Department, “Run. Hide. Fight.® at Florida State University,” 2018, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyuSws1c2Jw; Central Michigan University, “Run. Hide. Fight: Surviving an Active Shooter Situation,” 2018, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kti33RJ1ub8; Northwestern University, “Northwestern Safety Training: ‘Run, Hide, Fight’,” 2018, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kti33RJ1ub8; Ohio State University – Administration & Planning, “Surviving an Active Aggressor,” 2018, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zfiQAk927s; Georgia Southern University, “Georgia Southern University Run, Hide, Fight Active Shooter Training,” 2019, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=uSRP9ZsGqiA; University of Denver, “Run, Hide, Fight 2019,” 2019, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=GbVaLmDuUNg; Central Washington University, “CWU Run. Hide. Fight,” 2019, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=kti33RJ1ub8. All videos accessed 12 Oct. 2019.
67 National Center for Educational Statistics, “Indicators of School Crime and Safety,” 22.
68 Department of Homeland Security, “Active Shooter Emergency.”
69 Ibid.
70 Oakes, The Imaginary War, 77.
71 Department of Homeland Security, “Options for Consideration.”
