Eight years ago, 32 Virginia Tech students were killed in the deadliest mass shooting on a college campus.
On August 13, survivors and families from the Virginia Tech massacre announced the 32 National Campus Safety Initiative, which intends to improve safety on college campuses. About three dozen schools are already participating.
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The Virginia Tech Victims Family Outreach Foundation teamed up with a group of mental health, public safety and victim advocacy experts to create a program for colleges to self-assess their emergency procedures. The program consists of nine surveys with more than 250 questions on topics such as hazing, sexual assault and alcohol abuse. About three dozen schools are already participating in the program.
The president of the foundation, Joseph Samaha lost his 18-year-old daughter Reema in the shooting.
“We are able to breathe some life into my daughter and the other victims every time the survey is actually taken,” Samaha told the New York Times.
There are some who believe that arming students ultimately makes them safer.
Students for Concealed Carry, a non-partisan campus organization that promotes concealed carry on college campuses, was born the day after the Virginia Tech shooting. It now has over 500 chapters and 43,000 members.
The organization declares two main functions: to dispel misconceptions about concealed firearms on college campuses, and to push state legislators and school administrators to allow concealed handgun license holders the same rights on college campuses as they enjoy in most other unsecured locations.
4,400 universities across the country ban the carrying of firearms on their campuses, but 7 states allow firearms on campuses with certain limitations. These states are Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Mississippi, Oregon, Utah and Wisconsin.
A law recently passed in Texas will allow concealed carry on college campus, but includes a concession allowing college presidents to designate “gun-free zones.”
Gun control is a heated topic in the 2016 election, with Democratic candidates backing President Obama’s push for stricter gun laws, while the GOP heavily promotes Second Amendment rights.
After the Charleston shooting, Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley called for a national assault weapons ban, stricter background checks, and efforts to reduce straw-buying.
Republican presidential hopefuls Ted Cruz and Jeb Bush on the other hand, spoke in support of gun rights at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Nashville this year.
“The Second Amendment is there so that you and I can protect our homes and our families and our children and our lives,” Cruz said.
Jeb Bush criticized the Obama Administration’s stance on gun control.
“Why don’t you focus more on keeping weapons out of the hands of Islamic terrorists and less on keeping weapons out of the hands of law abiding Americans?” he demanded.
Presidential hopeful Donald Trump, however, takes issue with both the Democratic and Republican stance on gun control.
“It’s often argued that the American murder rate is high because guns are more available here than in other countries. Democrats want to confiscate all guns, which is a dumb idea because only the law-abiding citizens would turn in their guns and the bad guys would be the only ones left armed. The Republicans walk the NRA line and refuse even limited restrictions,” he wrote in The America We Deserve, his book on his concerns and solutions to political issues in our country.
“I generally oppose gun control, but I support the ban on assault weapons and I support a slightly longer waiting period to purchase a gun. With today’s Internet technology we should be able to tell within 72-hours if a potential gun owner has a record,” Trump wrote.
This article is from Red Alert Politics’ Campus Correspondent Program. Would you like to contribute a story from your school? Apply here to be a Campus Correspondent for RAP!
