Introduction

College students live in an era where school shootings are a tragic, but undeniable possibility (Fetters 2018), and most students are concerned about campus gun violence (Reyns et al. 2022). Based on the “good guy with a gun” argument, many states have considered allowing students, faculty, and staff to carry guns on college campuses (Bennett et al. 2012; Dahl et al. 2016). However, there is a lack of research into what students who support or oppose concealed carrying of guns on campus (CCOC) wish to achieve in a school shooting. A student supporting CCOC may want to find a shooter, while a student opposing CCOC may prioritize escape. This has important security implications because certain behaviors (e.g., many armed students looking for a shooter) could actually be detrimental to first responders and innocent bystanders.

Therefore, this study seeks to answer the following question: how do students who oppose or support CCOC intend to behave in a school shooting? We interviewed two groups of college students (those supporting and not supporting CCOC) and examined how each group thought they might behave in a school shooting. In the next section, we review the literature on public opinion toward guns, concealed carry, and CCOC.

Literature review

Attitudes toward guns in public

Guns and gun regulations are some of the most debated issues in the United States. Unsurprisingly, views on guns are politically polarized, with more Republicans feeling that guns increase public safety compared to Democrats, and more Democrats feeling that gun violence is a big problem (Schaeffer 2023). With a third of Americans owning guns (Schaeffer 2023), much of the debate focuses on where people can carry them.

Most Americans support restrictions on gun carrying in certain public spaces, such as schools, bars, and sports events (Wolfson et al. 2017). Even among conservative gun owners, who express the lowest support for CC limits throughout existing literature (Burton et al. 2021), 78% supported restrictions (Wolfson et al. 2017). Most Americans are also against guns in government buildings (Crifasi 2022) and oppose allowing CC in more places (Schaeffer 2023). One of these “places” that discussions focus on is college campuses.

Regulating weapons on college campuses

High-profile mass shootings on college campuses have increased debate about allowing students and teachers to CCOC. The rationale for these policies is the “good guy with a gun” paradigm, or the idea that a single armed person could stop a crime or mass casualty event (Mullins & Lee 2020). This paradigm is aptly named because the desire to have a gun and protect others is a gendered experience, as fewer women own or want a gun (Schaeffer 2023), though those that do often feel empowered (Felson & Pare 2010; Larson 1995; Stroud 2016).

States operate under what Sloan and Fisher (2021) call a “restrictiveness-by-institutional discretion framework” in which states regulate CC in general, and then do or do not allow educational institutions to make their own CCOC policy. As a result, most schools choose to prohibit guns on campus (Bennett et al. 2012) but recently, some lawmakers began to take back the autonomy of campus administrators and make policy at the state level (Hassett et al. 2020). In 2004, Utah became the first state to allow campus carry and prohibited colleges and universities from banning CC on campus (Dahl et al. 2016). By 2019, Burnett (2020) classified 11 states that prohibited schools from banning CC, 23 states who left the decision to individual institutions, and only 16 states that banned CCOC (see Sloan and Fisher 2021 for an even more nuanced breakdown).

Advocacy groups suggest that students, faculty, and staff may be able to prevent violent crimes and lower crime rates on campus if they are sufficiently armed (Schildkraut et al. 2015). However, college campuses have consistently been much safer than other public spaces. From January 2013–2016, mass shootings on campuses made up only 2.5% of incidents involving a shooting or undesirable discharge on campus (Webster et al. 2016) and Birnbaum (2013) finds that on-campus homicide rates were 0.11 per 100,000, while the overall homicide rate in the US was 4.8 per 100,000.

Opponents of CCOC claim that it is an overreaction to rare, high-profile mass shootings (Cunningham 2011; Luca et al. 2020) and serves a political agenda instead of reducing campus crime (Arrigo & Acheson 2016; Schildkraut et al. 2015). They argue that CCOC can lead to increased gun-related violence and homicides because potential victims carrying guns may increase the likelihood of criminals carrying and using guns (Ayres & Donohue 2003; Donohue & Levitt 1998) and more gun carrying may escalate minor physical altercations to serious injuries or fatalities (Miller et al. 2013).

These concerns are not unfounded, as serious assaults and suicide attempts are far more common on college campuses than mass shootings, and having more firearms on campus makes these situations more likely to be deadly (Webster et al. 2016). The passage of CCOC in Texas actually increased the estimates of weapon violence compared to a control group in California and saw a broad change in the perception of safety on campus (Tanner & Kelemen 2023). Similar research found that with the new Georgia campus carry law in place, there was no change in violent victimization, but the perceptions of campus being unsafe, and fear of crime increased (McMahon-Howard et al. 2021).

Attitudes toward CCOC

Most Americans oppose CCOC with support declining from 2019 to 2021, from 36 to 27% (Crifasi et al. 2022). Overall, students, faculty, and staff are uncomfortable with CCOC, with recent work showing 68.6% in opposition (Hassett & Kim 2021) and others showing 70–80% of participants in opposition (see Hassett et al. 2020).

Those most likely to support guns on campuses are White, male, and conservative, with a culture of guns in their locality (Hayes et al. 2021; Jang et al. 2014), while students belonging to marginalized groups have significant opposition to CCOC (Watt et al. 2018). Overall, undergraduate students are more willing to support CCOC than faculty or staff members (Hassett & Kim 2021), though they are less comfortable with students carrying weapons compared to faculty or staff (Kruis et al. 2020; Price & Khubchandani 2022).

Researchers have tried to explain these feelings about CCOC. The first factor is fear of crime and desire for self-protection (Hassett et al. 2020). Students who want to carry fear crime victimization the most and are also Criminal Justice majors who believe that they will be carrying weapons as part of their career (Bartula & Bowen 2015; Bouffard et al. 2012; Schafer et al. 2016). For one pro-gun rights student group called “Prepared Students,” they felt they were losing control of their campuses due to the increased numbers of students of color on campuses (Couch 2020). In contrast, one of the main reasons that faculty and students do not support guns on campus is that they feel safe on campuses (Patten et al. 2013; Thompson et al. 2013) and are less fearful of victimization (Braaten et al. 2022). However, when it comes to carrying behavior, even among students who support CCOC, few carry when allowed. Hayes and colleagues (2021) found that despite the ability to CCOC, only 6.93% of their respondents carried.

The second factor involves potential impact on the campus environment. Students and faculty suggest that CCOC might make them fearful and refrain from voicing opinions on controversial topics (Butters 2021; Dieterle & Koolage 2014; Scherer et al. 2021). Meanwhile, instructors are less willing to engage in meaningful conversations or give honest feedback to students (Jones & Horan 2019; Lewis 2016) if they worry students are carrying weapons. Others worry about arguments turning deadly (Shepperd et al. 2018a, b) and the mental health of those carrying (Ramazanova et al. 2023), which is not surprising given that those who want to carry often engage in risky behaviors, such as alcohol abuse and getting into physical fights (Miller et al. 2002). Qualitative interviews show that CCOC creates stress and anxiety among campus staff (Ward et al. 2018) and faculty, especially those who are identify themselves as female and of color (Hernández 2021; Somers et al. 2017, 2021).

The third factor is gun ownership. Like the public, students/faculty who own guns are more supportive of allowing them on campus (Schildkraut et al. 2018; Thompson et al. 2013). Motivation for owning is also an important indicator, as those who own for protection show more support of gun carrying than those who own guns for other purposes (Shepperd et al. 2018a, b). People who own guns for protection feel less safe on campus, and the idea that people are carrying makes them feel safer, while non-owners and those who own for other purposes feel the opposite (Patten et al. 2013; Shepperd et al. 2018a, b).

The literature discussed above shows that when it comes to CCOC, pro-carry students wish to protect themselves and others from potential threats. However, providing protection in an active shooter situation requires the ability to correctly identify and neutralize an active threat. In the next section, we discuss this and its implications for CCOC.

Reactions in shooting situations

Research finds problematic interactions between the race of a potential target, and an individual’s willingness to shoot them (Correll et al. 2014; Payne et al. 2002). While troublesome in general, it is of increased concern in the context of CCOC. In research by Payne (2001) undergraduates were primed with White or Black male faces, followed by pictures of either a gun or a similar-sized tool. Participants were required to identify if the object was a gun or a tool by pressing buttons on a keyboard. Non-Black respondents identified guns faster when they were primed by a Black face, compared to a White face. Participants were also more likely to misidentify the tool as a gun when presented with Black faces.

Correll and colleagues (2002) used a similar procedure to assess the impact of race. This first-person shooter task (FPST) requires the participant to view a target and correctly identify if they are carrying a weapon or not. Each trial presents a picture of a Black or White male target (either armed or unarmed) against a photographic background. Participants assess the threat and must press a key to “shoot” or press another key if they choose “don’t shoot.” Results show that participants shoot armed targets more quickly when they are Black and decide not to shoot unarmed targets if they are White. Participants also mistakenly shot unarmed Black targets more frequently than unarmed White targets and mistakenly did not shoot armed White targets more often than armed Blacks.

Such decisions are driven by stereotypes of Blacks as more dangerous (Correll et al. 2006, 2007) and overriding these racial stereotypes requires cognitive control (Amodio et al. 2004). Unfortunately, several aspects of the college experience could reduce the ability to control racial bias in a real-life situation.

When someone is fatigued, they are more likely to rely on heuristics and stereotypes (Macrae et al. 1994). An hour change in length of sleep can create racial bias in FPST decisions among police (Ma et al. 2013). College students often suffer from fatigue (Lund et al. 2010), and studies of shoot/no-shoot with college students show that fatigue does increase their racial bias (Ma et al. 2013).

Fear and levels of arousal can also impact performance. Moderate levels improve performance (Cornsweet 1969; Reeves & Bergum 1972) but low and high levels (boredom and fear) impair performance (Correll et al. 2014). If a student is bored in class and something happens, their performance could be impaired. Likewise, if a student was on alert (from an announcement about an active shooter or sounds of shooting/screaming) then their arousal would be too high, and stereotypes would likely inform their response.

Given the research on bias in shoot/don’t shoot decisions among college students and the threats to cognitive control that they face in their daily lives, it is important to understand the mentality of students who wish to carry. Previous research demonstrates that students wish to carry to protect themselves and others (Hassett et al. 2020). However, we don’t know what carrying for “protection” entails. If students approach it with a proactive “gung-ho” type mindset to seek out a threat, this could recklessly endanger others (particularly unarmed people of color). Alternatively, if supporters of CCOC view it as a last resort, then there may be reduced threat of collateral damage.

This paper examines those issues by asking the following research question. How do students who support or do not support CCOC believe they would behave in a mass shooting? To our knowledge, no studies have explored this topic. Therefore, this study will provide more insight into the motivations of students, which can aid discussions about CCOC.

Data and method

This study was conducted at a large public university in Ohio, a state where no individuals are allowed to CCOC unless an institution’s Board of Trustees allows it. The university at hand does not permit any students/faculty/staff to carry weapons either openly or concealed. With Institutional Review Board approval, we recruited participants via an email sent to several departments, and flyers distributed in various large classes. Materials advertised the opportunity for a paid research study about attitudes toward concealed carry and threat assessment. Interested students emailed the authors, who screened potential participants by ensuring that they were 18 or older, and assessing answers to the following questions:

  1. 1.

    On the following scale, please indicate your support for allowing licensed individuals to carry concealed handguns on campus: Support, Don’t Support, Don’t Know

  2. 2.

    On the following scale, please indicate whether you would want to carry a licensed concealed handgun on campus if allowed: Yes, No, Don’t Know.

Students 18 or older and who responded “Support/Yes” or “Don’t Support/No” were accepted into the study.

Participants completed a qualitative interview ranging from 30 min to an hour, covering three content areas. First, respondents discussed previous exposure to crime, to examine how this shaped their perceptions of safety. Then respondents answered questions about experience with firearms, which provides context for their views about CCOC. Finally, respondents discussed opinions about CCOC, what regulations they would like to see from a CCOC policy, how CCOC might affect the learning environment, and how they would behave in an active shooter situation.

The first author conducted interviews in a private office and audio-recorded them with participant consent. After completing the interview, students received $20 in cash. To protect identities, participants chose pseudonyms used in this paper. The final sample consists of 17 students in the “Support/Yes” condition and 19 students in the “Don’t Support/No” condition.

Audio recordings were transcribed and uploaded into QSR NVivo. NVivo is a program that helps organize qualitative data during coding. Data analysis began with both authors coding the data independently guided by grounded theory (Charmaz 2006; Glaser & Strauss 1967). Grounded theory rejects the notion that findings must emerge through deductive testing of hypotheses (Glaser & Strauss 1967) and instead lets findings emerge inductively from the data.

We combined this approach with qualitative content analysis, which is “the subjective interpretation of the content of text data through the systematic classification process of coding and identifying themes or patterns” (Hsieh & Shannon 2005, p. 1278). In this approach, the coder began with a specific interview question and read a response to it. Rather than trying to ascertain if the response confirmed a hypothesis, the coder instead asked themselves, “What is occurring in this data?” and turned the answer into a word or phrase (i.e., a code) that captured what was going on (Emerson et al. 1995). Each response could be coded with several themes. Next, the coder read another response to the same question to see if the content fit a created code or required a new code. This organized data into several categories that were pertinent to the interview question and study overall (Lofland et al. 2006).

Once we had independently coded all responses to every question, we were familiar enough with the data to develop a coding matrix (Glaser & Strauss 1967) of prevalent themes. We compared our themes for each question and worked together to refine our independently created themes into mutually agreed upon codes. A key to this process was the use of grounded theory’s constant comparative method, where we compared different responses to questions across interviews to refine, confirm, as well as disconfirm, emerging patterns (Charmaz 2006). Therefore, the resulting themes of this study represent the clearest and most common patterns of students’ thoughts about how they would behave in a school shooting.

Results

Table 1 shows the sample demographics. The sample is mostly women and predominantly White. Most respondents are not first-year students and are identified as middle or upper-middle class in terms of SES. Most are not affiliated with an ideology, or somewhat liberal or conservative. A third owns at least one firearm and only four individuals had a CC permit. At the time of data collection, Ohio required a license to CC; however, this requirement was removed in June 2022.

Table 1 Demographics of entire sample
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Tables 2 and 3 show demographics for the “Support/Yes” and “Don’t Support/No” conditions, respectively. Students supporting CCOC were mostly male and White, and 10 owned at least one firearm. Three had military experience, and four had law enforcement experience. Most are identified as politically conservative. Students opposed to CCOC were mostly White and overwhelmingly female. Only one owned a firearm, and only one had any military experience. Over half are identified as liberal (Table 3).

Table 2 Demographics of “support” condition
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Table 3 Demographics of “don’t support” condition
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These demographics are consistent with prior studies. Being a Republican/conservative and male are the strongest predictors of owning firearms and supporting CCOC (De Angelis et al. 2017) and students who own firearms are more likely to support CCOC (Cavanaugh et al. 2012). Although no studies to our knowledge examine the attitudes of students with military background, gun ownership and carrying behavior are more common among veterans than non-veterans (Cleveland et al. 2017; Simonetti et al. 2018).

Behavior in a school shooting

We asked all respondents what they thought they would do in a mass shooting. While this question is hypothetical, it does shed important light on the mindsets of each group when considering the important policy of CCOC. A simplified table of our results is presented below (Table 4).

Table 4 Qualitative findings mapped to support and don’t support student groups
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Our goal is to increase understanding of the motivations and intentions of each group of students. We begin by looking at students supporting CCOC.

Supporting concealed carry

For students who supported CCOC and would carry if allowed, it was important to be a “good guy with a gun.” As Mark says:

Every time I see one of those instances where people do get hurt because of people doing those things...types of things I wish I would have been there with a concealed carry or something maybe I could have saved lives. Or...or I would die trying.”

Pat also illustrates this mindset:

Pat: So, I’m...for me it’s more of, like, not only a safety thing for me, but...the...say the minuscule chance that there’s someone that’s going to walk into one of my classrooms and start killing people...

Interviewer: Mhm.

Pat:...instead of throwing books or tables at them, I could shoot ‘em.

Interviewer: Right.

Pat: I could take them down and...and, you know, protect people.

However, when asked what they would do in a mass shooting, many pro-carry respondents discussed alerting authorities, and then getting themselves and others out of harm’s way. Tyler stated, “I mean, definitely a first-place call law enforcement, get them there. Because that’s the first priority. Cause this is, you know they’re going to send people.”

Even Pat, who talked about above wanting to be able to protect people, voiced a plan for escape:

So, the thing is, if the shooter is nowhere near me, I’m running away. That’s the first thing they teach you in your...in your concealed carry class. I’m not going to be, like, John McClean (the Bruce Willis character from Die Hard) and running and, like, running from one side of the campus to the other.

Pat discussed how confrontation would be a last resort only if a shooter entered their classroom:

I’m not letting...sorry for cussing. I’m not going to let one asshole ruin the lives of so many people. And especially, if, like, just walking right into classroom. That...if...if they’re in my building, and we have time to escape, or we have time to barricade. That’s what’s going to happen. And...and if that shooter breaks through the barricade or start shooting in the classroom. Then, I’m going to take action. But other than that, the...the things that they teach you at concealed carry is if you can get away, run. If you can hide, hide. If you can de-escalate, de-escalate. Only shoot when you know your life is in danger.

Bruce said, “Honestly, I’d probably, if I’m not super close to him then there’s not much I can do about it. I’d just get out of there.”

Like Pat, many pro-carry students were adamant that they would not attempt to find the shooter. CJ stated, “I don’t want to be that person that runs out and tries to look for the person and getting hurt in the process or killed in the process.” Shawn worried about causing confusion for responding authorities, and Kevin said, “It wouldn’t be my or anyone else’s job as someone concealed carrying to go run to the student center to try to stop them. Cause that just leads to more bullets flying around.”

Furthermore, many felt they lacked the training or talent required to find and neutralize the shooter. Rose said:

I mean I’m not properly trained as a law enforcement officer, so obviously, I don’t know what you’re supposed to do in that kind of situation. But, um, you know, I don’t think you should run at them. I think if they were to come near you, into the room or something, I think you should be ready to shoot.

Emily said:

I don’t think that I would try and go in the hallway and try to search him down and, like...I don’t think I would do that, but I think if, um, if he came into the room that I was in I would be prepared and I would try to, um, shoot him if I could.

These participants recognized that they lacked the ability to find and neutralize a shooter. It is also important to note that Pat had a CC permit and discussed many times that the CC course taught them to avoid any confrontation with a shooter if possible.

However, a feeling of duty to protect did motivate a few students to discuss finding the shooter, like Elizabeth, who said:

Um, I think that having a concealed carry and having the education and the knowledge of threat assessment, and like, how to use a weapon like that. I would feel kind of obligated to go that way [to where the shooter was].

Even Achilles, who wanted to secure any room they were in, felt differently about a shooter further away, saying:

But if I was in, like [name of campus building] and it was happening in the [location several hundred yards away]. If I knew some...yeah, I’d probably run towards it. But make sure, like, obviously put a badge or something, identifying I’m not the shooter.

Achilles speaks to the inherent difficulty of identifying an active shooter in a situation where multiple individuals with guns may be intervening. We asked all pro-carry students how they could identify a mass shooter among other students, including other CC holders on scene. Students said they would rely on visual cues and ask for identification. Pat felt the weapon would be a clue, saying that mass shootings usually use a larger weapon such as a shotgun or AR-15. Jack and Red suggested trying to identify the person not running away from where the shooting was occurring. Emily believed events would unfold slowly enough to analyze the situation, saying: “I would take a few seconds to kind of deconstruct the situation and see if they’re pointing a gun at me.” She noted that once she identified the shooter, she would not shoot to kill, but to immobilize instead. Rose and Sarah both thought that they could ask people who they were and if the person stated they were searching for the shooter, then they would not be targeted.

Unsurprisingly, the pro-concealed carry respondents with the most confidence in their abilities were those with military experience. This example from Mark (a military police officer) shows his train of thought:

Mark: So, um, I know how long it takes for responders to show up. So, um, I would take...I would make sure someone...if there’s anybody around me, I would tell them...well I would order them, really, cause it’s very important. Uh, to contact those officials, in the meantime I would assess the threat immediately.

Interviewer: Ok. And, I guess, can you, like...I guess, since you’ve been trained, like, can you tell me more about what that’s like?

Mark: So, yeah. So, uh, you listen for sirens. Um, listen for screaming. Gunshots. Uh, yelling orders. Uh, people running away. And you can, kinda, dial in which direction the threat is in based on all of your senses.

Jarred, a National Guard member stated:

Um, I would tell everybody to hide. Um, get everyone away from windows and doors. Open up the blinds so that when the SWAT team comes, the snipers can see in. And they would be able to shoot the shooter. Um, and then people with con…concealed carries if they were carrying in class, um, they should open up the door slowly, make sure it’s safe and secure. That he’s not out there. And, then, tactically move through the building and clearing each room to be sure that he’s not in there.

Jack, another student with military experience, discussed organizing others he knew with military backgrounds:

So, I would start texting and calling them saying “Hey, are you guys ok? Let’s get together and move that way.” Because we do have training that the average person that was...that had conceal and carrying on campus wouldn’t have.

These responses speak to an unsurprising theme in our data, which is that pro-carry individuals with CC permits and/or military experience offered the most mature and realistic thought processes. They expressed a desire to protect their immediate surroundings while avoiding engagement with a shooter, and discussed extensive training they could use to find and neutralize the shooter. Next, we discuss how students opposed to CCOC thought they would behave in a mass shooter situation.

Opposing concealed carry

For students opposing CCOC, their plans involved alerting authorities and getting to safety. Stacey said they would “find a place to hide or get away as far as possible and call someone, the cops if they’re not already called in.” Zoe was particularly forthcoming saying:

Um, I would probably, I mean, I’d like to say I would be a hero and try to do something like get people to safety, but really, I’d probably just be focusing on my own self getting to safety somewhere where the shooter wasn’t.

Several students in this group mentioned ALICE (Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evacuate) training, or multi-option response training (Jonson et al. 2020), which helps people prepare for and respond to active shooter situations. Rhiannon discussed trying to escape and using aspects of ALICE if needed:

Rhiannon: Um, if it were my building, I’d probably, ummmm, try to...I mean, I would try to evacuate obviously, but if they were, like, on the floor below me, maybe I would, like, bar the doors, I guess with stuff. Like, furniture.

Interviewer: Ok.

Rhiannon: Like, go through, like, all the ALICE training stuff that they told me that, like, I should probably remember more.

Sophia also mentioned that they would run if possible but if not “use that ALICE training.” They said:

Um, well like if the shooter is, like, not in your classroom, say if it was in this building but not, like, in this room, just kind of, like, um, blockade the door and stuff like that. But if the shooter is actually in the room, like, just distracting them. Like, I remember when I was in high school we had, like, iPads and they said, like, throw them at the shooter and, like, um, just really, like, you know, just try to distract them and, like, fight against them.

The key takeaway is that both groups of students prioritized escape and alerting authorities. While some discuss attempting to neutralize the threat, many of those have military training that would prepare them for that instance. Of significant concern is the small number of students who wish to carry and desire to seek out the shooter without any training. This could increase danger to students and responders. Furthermore, their responses demonstrate a failure to comprehend the abilities required to identify an active shooter in the chaos of an actual event.

Discussion and implications

We sought to answer the question, how do students who oppose or support CCOC intend to behave in a school shooting? Our findings help advance understanding of CCOC in several ways. First, we find that while respondents who supported CCOC viewed themselves as the “good guy with a gun,” for most of them, they did not intend to seek confrontation. A key pattern of behavior we uncovered is that most participants said they would prioritize alerting authorities and escaping regardless of whether they supported or opposed CCOC.

Research shows racial bias among college students when they are asked to identify threats (Correll et al. 2014) and fatigue, boredom, and fear make individuals more susceptible to racial stereotypes (Ma et al. 2013). Therefore, students taking it upon themselves to locate and neutralize threats could do more harm than good, especially given that some 50% of college students report mental health stress so strong that it is difficult for them to function in daily life (Webster et al. 2016). The implication of our findings is that because most carrying students wish to avoid confrontation, potential bias in decision-making poses less of a threat than originally feared.

However, some students are better suited to carry than others, and another pattern in our findings drives this point home. Specifically, students who wanted to seek out active shooters (except those with military/police training) had quite unrealistic expectations about their abilities, despite little or no training. Untrained college students would need consistent (even daily) simulation training to successfully reduce racially biased decision-making (Plant et al. 2005). Because this is an impossible solution, campuses considering CCOC face a risk from students carrying who overestimate their abilities.

That said, students with military and law enforcement experience offered the most coherent plans for dealing with an active shooter. Anti-carry students mentioned that if carry was allowed, students with that training would be the best candidates. Military and law enforcement training and experience can provide the cognitive control required to reduce bias decision-making (Correll et al. 2014). Therefore, the security policy implication is that administrators may want to limit carrying to students with military or law enforcement training.

A final important pattern is that the students who did say they would seek out the shooter did not possess CC licenses, which were required in the state of Ohio at the time of data collection. This is important because CC classes emphasized avoiding confrontation and promoted escape. Indeed, an information manual from the Ohio Attorney General recommends retreating from a confrontation (Yost 2022). Concealed carry classes also required individuals to demonstrate knowledge of firearm and ammunition safety and fire weapons under supervision. However, in June 2022, Ohio removed training requirements to CC, despite overwhelming public support for mandatory CC training in Ohio (Weiker & Staver 2023) and nationally (Crifasi et al. 2022). Given what we know about the abilities of most individuals to successfully neutralize an active shooter situation, students carrying weapons should be trained to avoid confrontations at institutions that allow CCOC.

There is also a concern that more guns on campus could decrease campus security in general. Shall-issue CC laws are associated with increases in assaults with firearms and homicides by other means (Doucette et al. 2023b) and removing live-fire training requirements from permitless CC results in more gun assaults (Doucette et al. 2023a). Therefore, from a security standpoint, if colleges and universities allow CCOC, they should implement policies to reduce associated risks, such as requiring carriers to take training, including live-fire situations.

Another pattern that emerged is that students opposed to CC consistently discussed behaviors from ALICE training. Pro-carry students also mentioned they would take actions in accordance with ALICE training, although none of them mentioned ALICE by name. It is encouraging that both groups focused on calling the police and escaping if possible. Research finds that compared to traditional lockdown approaches, multi-option approaches like ALICE can end active shooter situations more quickly and reduce the number of victims (Jonson et al. 2020). Therefore, the implication for policymakers and administrators is that if they allow CCOC, requiring ALICE training could help motivate students to escape, and potentially save more lives.

Limitations

There are several limitations to this study. The first and most important is that we use a small N convenience sample that is mostly White, female, Criminal Justice majors, with a high number of students in law enforcement. Therefore, our results cannot be generalized to the larger population of the university under study or to other universities. However, as with most qualitative research, our goal was not to create generalizable findings, but instead to uncover “social processes and patterns not always readily apparent in research that is deductive in nature” (Carbone-Lopez & Miller 2012, p. 198). Therefore, we suggest that the patterns of our findings and detail of the responses provide strong evidence for considering the intended behavior of students. That said, future research with larger and more representative samples is required, as generalizing our findings should be done with caution.

The second limitation concerns respondents discussing a hypothetical situation. A school shooting is a chaotic event that could trigger any number of reactions, and therefore, it is impossible for someone to know how they would behave. However, our results reflect cognitive schemas that shape and are shaped by student’s beliefs about school shootings, their own abilities, and what they wish for themselves in a worst-case scenario (Leverentz 2014). Therefore, their responses to hypotheticals give us insight into what drives these students and what may shape their behavior in a mass shooting.

Conclusion

The debate over CCOC is one of the security. Would CCOC make a college campus more or less secure? Our findings offer some directions for policymakers and administrators considering CCOC. Previous research shows that “gung-ho” type behavior in a school shooting could pose an increased threat to security. However, the students we spoke with rejected that mentality, suggesting that the incidence of “gung-ho” behavior may pose less of threat to security than feared. Campuses allowing CCOC can take further steps to reduce potential security risk by requiring training that emphasizes avoiding confrontation and alleviates potential biased decision-making, as well as limiting carrying to those with military or law enforcement training.