Order 1062932: Guns on Campus

Ready, Fire, Aim: The College Campus Gun Fight

by Robert Birnbaum

Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning

September/October 2013

One side views guns as essential to personal freedom, while the other side insists they are instruments for mayhem

and violence. … Every gun control proposal is an occasion for pitched battles, with the stakes portrayed as nothing

less than the future of life, liberty and justice.

(Winkler, 2011b)

Twenty years ago, any discussion about permitting guns on college campuses would have provoked as much

laughter as shock. Yet by 2012, guns were allowed on 200 public campuses in six states. That number appears

certain to increase; in 2011 alone, bills to permit guns on campus were introduced in 23 state legislatures. Although

most of these bills failed, some were carried over to the following legislative term.

Their proponents tend to be persistent, and we can expect bills similar to these to be re-introduced in future years.

Guns may be coming soon to a campus near you—perhaps to your own.

Two Perspectives

The question of whether guns should be permitted on college and university campuses in the United States reflects

the tension between two competing perspectives. America has both a robust gun culture and an equally robust (if

less well-known) gun-control culture.

The gun culture is as American as apple pie: There may be as many as 300 million civilian guns in the US, or about

one for every person (Winkler, 2011a). The gun-control culture also has a long history here; one of America's iconic

events, the 1881 gunfight at the OK corral, occurred when the Earps and Doc Holliday tried to enforce a Tombstone

municipal ordinance banning guns in town.

The issue of guns on college campuses is presently a subject of vigorous debate, stimulated by newspaper and on-

line headlines such as the following:

16 April 2007 – AT LEAST 33 KILLED IN VA. TECH MASSACRE. (CBSNews.com, http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-

201_162-2686709.html)

14 February 2008 – 5 SHOT DEAD, INCLUDING GUNMAN, AT NORTHERN ILLINOIS UNIVERSITY.

(CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/02/14/university.shooting/)

11 February 2009 – FOUR DEAD IN UNIV. OF ARIZONA SHOOTING. (CBSNews.com,

http://www.cbsnews.com/2100-201_162-527308.html)

12 February 2010 – PROFESSOR SAID TO BE CHARGED AFTER 3 ARE KILLED IN ALABAMA. (The New York

Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/13/us/13alabama.html?_r=0)

10 May 2011 – 3 DEAD IN SHOOTING AT SAN JOSE STATE UNIVERSITY. (Los Angeles Times,

http://www.latimes.com/news/ktla-san-jose-state-shooting-deaths,0,6943832.story)

Such headlines give the impression that the American college campus is an increasingly dangerous place in which

neither students nor faculty are safe. In response, two competing policy narratives have developed. One is that

campus violence could be prevented by increasing the number of armed individuals on campus (I will call this

position MoreGuns); the other is that campus violence would be reduced by a total ban on weapons on campus (I

will call this position BanGuns).

The MoreGuns and BanGuns policy camps paint pictures of starkly different futures, as reported by the American

Association of State Colleges and Universities in 2008:

Gun-rights advocates argue that easing gun restrictions could enhance both individual and collective security on

campus and may deter violence. In contrast, the vast majority of college administrators, law enforcement personnel

and students maintain that allowing concealed weapons on campus will pose increased risks for students and

faculty, will not deter future attacks and will lead to confusion during emergency situations.

The basic philosophical premise for MoreGuns is that self-defense is an inherent right that should not be

compromised just because someone happens to be on a college campus. MoreGuns advocates argue that college

students and faculty should be able to carry weapons for their own protection, particularly since history has shown

that colleges can't protect them from assailants. They claim that criminals would be less likely to use guns or commit

violent crimes if they had reason to believe that targeted citizens, or others around them, might also be armed and

able to defend themselves. The alternative of establishing “gun-free” zones doesn't work, they say: stickers on

campus saying “no guns allowed” just announce to criminals and psychopaths the absence of defensive weapons.

The two philosophical bases for BanGuns are academic freedom and academic autonomy. The Brady Center to

Prevent Gun Violence, in making the academic-freedom argument, says that permitting students to have firearms

will

likely breed fear and paranoia among fellow students since no one will know whether the other person can simply

retrieve or pull a gun out if a dispute arises. Such fear and paranoia is antithetical to creating the kind of climate

where free and open academic debate and learning thrive. (2007)

Academic-autonomy advocates believe that each institution should have the responsibility for establishing policies

that promote both learning and campus security. Allowing students and faculty to carry guns, if contrary to the

wishes of institutional trustees, could make campus security a matter determined by untrained individuals who have

no legal responsibility for it.

Does either the MoreGuns or the BanGuns position improve public safety? Two major national studies have used

similar data to examine the relationship between gun ownership and degree of criminal activity—and they reached

diametrically opposed conclusions. One found that “allowing citizens without criminal records or histories of

significant mental illness to carry concealed handguns deters violent crimes” (Lott & Mustard, 1997). The other

concluded that “statistical evidence that these [concealed-carry] laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and

extraordinarily fragile,” and it suggested that making it easier to get a firearms permit is associated with higher

levels of crime (Ayres & Donohue III, 2003).

The Campus Scene

Deadly violence on college campuses is not a new phenomenon. A study jointly conducted by the Secret Service,

the Office of Education, and the FBI (Drysdale, Modzeleski & Simons, 2010) analyzed 272 incidents of targeted

violence on college campuses that occurred between 1900 and 2008. Guns were used in 54 percent of the reported

cases, and almost 60 percent of fatal violent incidents were instigated against someone previously known to the

assailant. The chances of being the random victim of a fatal attack by a stranger or unknown person on a college

campus have been, and remain, exceptionally small.

The act of a single mentally disturbed student at Virginia Tech in 2007 was a watershed event in the guns-on-

campus debate. A 2008 report by the Midwestern Higher Education Compact noted that “ubiquitous and relentless

nationwide media coverage…exerts a powerful impact on the psyche and basic instincts of students, parents and

policymakers, and the general public, leading to the understandable questioning of the relative safety of a specific

campus or of educational facilities in general.” It called for making campuses as safe as possible, while at the same

time acknowledging that “no amount of money, technology, and human resources can guarantee members of a

university community that they will never fall victim to crime.”

What the press called the “Virginia Tech Massacre” changed the narrative of, and participants in, the national guns-

on-campus debate. One of its consequences was to unleash a torrent of proposed state legislation that, if enacted,

would permit more guns on campus in the belief that an armed community would serve as a deterrent to violent

crime.

The Policy Arena

Any successful proposal to either permit or restrict the presence of guns on campus must be consistent with both the

US Constitution and the constitutions and laws of the states. The controlling language that serves as the foundation

for discussing guns on campus is in the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution (1791), which in its

entirety reads: “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to

keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” Over time, these 27 words (and their three controversial commas) have

been interpreted differently.

Until recently, a legal consensus had developed in the US that the amendment simply protected the ability of states

to maintain armed militias. Then, in District of Columbia v Heller (2008), the Supreme Court held that the purpose

of the Second Amendment was to protect an individual's right to possess a firearm for traditional lawful purposes

such as self-defense.

The Court went on to say that “like most rights, the Second Amendment right is not unlimited. It is not a right to

keep and carry any weapon whatsoever and for whatever purpose.” It also wrote that prohibitions against gun

ownership by felons, the mentally ill, aliens, minors, and others in specified categories were acceptable. In other

words, gun-licensing laws and reasonable restrictions on possession that are uniformly applied are permissible, but

total handgun bans or other requirements that make it impossible for citizens to use arms for self-protection violate

the Second Amendment and therefore are unconstitutional.

The Court said that its opinion “should not be taken to cast doubt on…laws forbidding the carrying of firearms in

sensitive places such as schools or government buildings.” But it did not define “sensitive places” or clarify the

meaning of “schools and government buildings,” leaving that task to the state and local agencies that must

administer the law.

Two years later, in McDonald v. City of Chicago, the Court held that Second Amendment rights were equally

applicable, via the Fourteenth Amendment, to state and local laws. The two cases did not directly consider the issue

of guns on college campuses, but they established the legal framework within which both past and future gun laws

by the states, or policies by campus trustees, would now be judged.

Every state has a constitution that enumerates the rights of its citizens, and 43 of the 50 specifically allow

individuals to own guns. In many states they can also carry them in permitted places, as long as the weapon is

clearly visible.

Federal provisions apply to all public institutions, but differences among the constitutions, laws, and regulations of

the 50 states have created a hodge-podge of policies that affect the legality of carrying guns on campus. Some states

and institutions bar firearms altogether; others permit them anywhere on campus, anywhere on campus except in

buildings or arenas, or in automobiles in parking lots but not elsewhere; and some states prohibit institutions from

banning weapons on campus. Some state laws (particularly those that completely bar handguns from college

campuses) may not at present be fully consistent with Heller, and we can expect that bringing these laws into

compliance will be on the future agendas of many state legislatures and judiciaries.

Even more contentious than open carry, however, is whether and where citizens are entitled to carry concealed

weapons. State laws usually stipulate that carrying a concealed weapon requires a permit, but obtaining one has

become easier in many states.

Recent growth in the number of permissive concealed-carry laws has increased permit holders from 5 million in

2008 to 7 million in 2011, and data indicate that many more people carry concealed weapons without a permit

(National Opinion Research Center, 2001). The reality is that almost anyone in the US who wants a gun can get one.

Concealed carry with or without a permit is increasingly a part of US culture.

States that allow concealed carry may have regulations about where weapons are permitted—for example, on the

street but not in courthouses or legislative offices. Many states prohibit the carrying of concealed weapons in

schools, and some either have specific prohibitions against them on college campuses or delegate to the trustees of

public institutions the right to determine what institutional policies shall be.

Although the data change as legislatures come and go, according to one recent analysis, “twenty-four states

completely prohibit concealed weapons on college campuses, even for those who have a concealed handgun license”

(Meloy, 2011, p. 12). Whether such state policies can continue and what public university trustees can do may not

be known until individual cases have moved through the state court system.

As they do so, much may depend on whether current state laws are found to meet federal Constitutional muster,

whether institutions of higher education have been designated as “sensitive” places, and whether public college

facilities are considered to be “school or public buildings.”

Campuses and the General Population: Comparative Data

Since the ostensible purpose of campus firearms policies is to improve campus safety, describing the actual

incidence of crime on campus might help clarify the issues over which the MoreGuns/BanGuns camps are

contending. Such data are available because the Student Right to Know and Campus Security Act of 1990 authorizes

the Department of Education to collect and analyze incidents of crime on every US college campus.

This law, known as the Clery Act, requires each institution to annually report and disclose, among other things, the

number of alleged campus incidents of criminal activity reported to the campus or local police agencies. This is the

source of the numbers reported here, even though Clery Act data have been criticized because institutions may differ

in their interpretations of the self-reporting requirements and may fail to report some offenses in order to protect

their reputations. In addition, students may be reluctant to report crimes, and campus counseling centers may

withhold information based on confidentiality concerns.

The data reported in this article are based on all reported on-campus incidents in US degree-granting, not-for-profit

campuses. Three analyses are presented below. The first is the incidence of specific types of campus crime in 2010;

the second, comparative rates of violent criminal behavior on campuses and in the general population; and the third,

campus and general-population data related to the two violent crimes of murder and manslaughter.

Campus Crime in 2010

Annual Clery data provide a snapshot of crime on campus. The categories of crime and their prevalence on college

campuses in 2010 are shown in Table 1.

Table 1 Number and Percentage of Clery-Reported Crimes on College Campuses, 2010

Violent crimes (N=6,705, 20.8% of total)

Non-violent or property crimes

(N=25,469, 79.2% of total)

Murder Manslaughter Forcible Robbery Aggravated Non- Burlary Motor Arson

Number of

offenses

(N=32,174)

Sex

Offenses

Assault forcible

Sex

Offenses

Vehicle

Theft

15 1 2,897 1,482 2,310 32 21,358 3,347 732

Percent of

total offenses

(100.00%)

0.05% 0.00% 9.00% 4.61% 7.18% 0.10% 66.38% 10.40% 2.28%

Campus murder and manslaughter constitute only 0.05 percent of all reported campus crimes; 79.16 percent of

campus crimes are non-violent in nature. Burglary (in the non-violent category) constitutes about two-thirds of all

reported campus crime. Forcible sexual offenses (9.00 percent) and aggravated assault (7.18 percent) are the most

frequently reported violent campus crimes.

Campus and US Population Violent-Crime Rates

Of the categories of crime included in Clery data, five (murder, manslaughter, forcible sexual offenses, robbery,

aggravated assault) are considered violent; it is the summed total of these categories that are reported here. The FBI

uses these same categories in its reports of criminal activity in the US, making it possible to compare campus

violent-crime rates with rates in the general population.

In order to make the comparison, both campus and general-population violent-crime rates in Table 2 are reported per

100,000 FTE students/citizens.

Table: Table 2 Comparative Violent-Crime Rates, 1997-2010

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Violent

crimes/

100,000

FTE

students

68.6 70.3 66.5 65.0 61.9 60.9 60.3 58.0 59.1 58.3 55.8 52.2 46.8 47.3

Violent

crimes/

100,000

of US

populatio

n

611.0 567.6 523.0 506.5 504.4 494.4 475.8 463.2 469.0 473.6 466.9 457.5 431.9 403.6

College

rate as a

percent of

US

populatio

n rate

11.2

%

12.4

%

12.7

%

12.8

%

12.3

%

12.3

%

12.7

%

12.5

%

12.6

%

12.3

%

12.0

%

11.4

%

10.8

%

11.7

%

The data in Table 2 indicate that rates of violent campus crime have been only between 10.8 and 12.8 percent of the

general-population rates in every year during the 14-year period shown. This is true even though a large proportion

of college students are at the ages most prone to engage in violence, while a significant portion of the US population

consists of groups, including the young and the elderly, that are the least likely to engage in violence.

Even a casual look at the data in Table 2 reveals two trends that may surprise some observers. First, the violent-

crime rate per 100,000 in the general population is not increasing but has been steadily decreasing. Second, the

violent campus crime rate per 100,000 FTE students has been steadily declining at a rate similar to that seen in the

general population (from 68.6 in 1997 to 47.3 in 2010).

Murder and Manslaughter

The number on which the public is most likely to fixate is the rate of murder and manslaughter in colleges and

universities compared to that rate in the nation as a whole. This number is also the most reliable, since murder and

manslaughter are the crimes least likely to go unreported.

The data in Table 3 show that from 1997 to 2010, the annual murder/manslaughter rate for the US ranged from 6.8

to 4.8 per 100,000 persons. During the same period, murder and homicide rates on college campuses ranged from a

high of 0.37 per 100,000 FTE students (in 2007, the year of the Virginia Tech shootings) to a low of 0.06 per

100,000 FTE students. Aside from 2007, when the murder and manslaughter rate in colleges and universities was

6.6 percent of the rate in the general population, college and university rates ranged between 1.1 percent and 3.5

percent of the general-population rates.

Table: Table 3 Comparative Murder and Manslaughter Rates, 1997–2010

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010

Murder and

manslaughter rate per

100,000 FTE students

0.17 0.22 0.10 0.17 0.15 0.19 0.08 0.12 0.11 0.06 0.37 0.11 0.12 0.11

Murder and

manslaughter rate per

100,000 US population

6.8 6.3 5.7 5.5 5.6 5.6 5.7 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.6 5.4 5.0 4.8

Campus rate as a

percent of US

population rate

2.5% 3.5% 1.8% 3.1% 2.7% 3.4% 1.4% 2.2% 2.0% 1.1% 6.6% 2.0% 2.4% 2.3%

So on the one hand, the campus is not an ivory tower free of criminal activity. On the other hand, even those

concerned with campus crime acknowledge that “college campuses do not appear to be ‘hot-spots’ for predatory

offenses, as portrayed by the media, that they are not ‘armed camps’ in which heinous crimes are a regular

occurrence” (Fisher et al., 1998).

The reality is that America's colleges and universities are unusually safe places. The chance of being a homicide

victim on campus in 2010 was about one in 875,000, approximately the same chance that the average US citizen

faces of being struck by lightning.

This suggests that the guns-on-campus debate is about a manufactured rather than a real crisis. Both the MoreGuns

and the BanGuns arguments appear to be ideological solutions in search of a problem.

Prospects for the Future

Although colleges and universities exhibit exceptionally low crime rates by general-population standards, the fight

between MoreGuns and BanGuns is likely to continue unabated because guns on campus is a wicked problem, the

arguments of both groups are based on motivated reasoning, both positions are self-validating, and the polar

positions they advocate are oversimplified.

Wicked Problems

Problems are called wicked when they are ill-defined, can't be solved permanently, and don't yield to traditional

management or problem-solving practices. Instead they rely on political judgments to reach a temporary resolution.

Guns on campus is a wicked problem that can never be satisfactorily resolved until the underlying ideologies are

surfaced and reconciled.

Motivated Reasoning

MoreGuns and BanGuns groups are entrenched in their positions because each processes information to promote

different goals. MoreGuns advocates view data and arguments through the lens of legal values; BanGuns proponents

do the same through the lens of academic values.

Such motivated reasoning leads actors to seek out information that supports their position, to discount information

that does not, and to increase the certainty with which they hold their views. The resultant policy recommendations

are not based on empirical evidence; rather, evidence is selectively collected and interpreted by both sides to support

their a priori commitments to a policy view.

Self-Validation

Both the MoreGuns and BanGuns views are self-validating. The ideological arguments for both positions are

reinforced by interpretations of events. If a student is killed by a gun, it can be argued that the shooting would not

have happened if other people present had also had guns as easily as it can that it would not have taken place if the

campus had banned guns. A low violent-crime rate can be used as evidence to support either position. In fact, all

data (or lack of data) can be used to support a proponent's preconceived ideology.

Oversimplification

Presenting only two positions in the MoreGuns/BanGuns debate oversimplifies, and therefore distorts, the available

alternatives, thus lessening opportunities for agreement or compromise. But the nature of the problem itself can

change upon closer inspection, and even obvious and stark alternatives can become multi-dimensional and therefore

negotiable when they are seen in depth.

For example, the public and the media at different times attributed the Virginia Tech killings to deficient

university/local police relations, faulty intra-campus communications systems, an overly long response time by the

university, loose gun-purchase laws, insufficient attention to disturbed students, and/or deficiencies in provisions for

background checks of gun purchasers. Different narratives lead to different proposed solutions, only some of which

reflect the simple dichotomy of the MoreGuns/BanGuns argument.

Moreover, the MoreGuns/BanGuns dichotomy pays scant attention to the likelihood that regardless of institutional

policies, some guns will be present on campus. For example, a 1997 survey of students in four-year colleges

reported that 3.5 percent of the respondents had a working firearm with them at college (Miller, Hemenway &

Wechsler, 1999).

Another proposal that overly simplifies the problem is to evaluate “persons of concern” on campus and intervene

before they can act on their intention to harm others. But campus murder and manslaughter are what Nassim Taleb

(2009) calls black swans—events so unlikely that there is no way of predicting them.

A good part of that unpredictability stems from the fact that these incidents often involve an assailant with a mental

disorder. Every experienced dean knows that many students and faculty on college campuses have such disorders—

enough to make attending to each one both impractical and cost-ineffective, because the number of the mentally

disturbed who commit violent events is vanishingly small.

Further Research

We know very little about how either gun violence or the presence of guns on campus affect student attitudes and

behaviors (LaPoint, 2009–2010). What have been the responses of faculty, students and administration to dramatic

gun-related events? How might various groups respond to the knowledge that some in their communities are

carrying concealed weapons? What effect might this knowledge have on relationships among students or between

students and faculty?

Would either banning or encouraging guns on campus lead people to feel more threatened or more secure? If

campuses were to declare that concealed weapons may be carried, how many students and faculty would be likely to

carry them (in addition to those who may already carry them despite institutional bans)?

Scholars might inform the debate by maintaining, updating, and disseminating the Clery data in more usable

formats, by preparing and updating an authoritative and current list of institutions that have adopted a gun policy,

and by tracking violent incidents occurring on matched institutions with differing firearms policies. Data such as

these are unlikely by themselves to change hearts and minds, but they may prove useful if the BanGuns and

MoreGuns groups decide to move past unilateral pronouncements and consider sensible compromises that might end

the gun fight. Academics can also challenge participants in the debate to present the evidence that supports the

claims they are making.

If the present cultural conflict has any redeeming social value, some states' adoption of the MoreGuns position while

others maintain a BanGuns policy might establish a quasi-experiment in which the consequences of both positions

can be compared.

Of course, since the present conflict between groups is basically unrelated to data, still more data may still not have

much bearing on their positions. Unfortunately, policymakers are more likely to be swayed by good stories than by

good data, and one improbable hypothetical can be worth a thousand statistical tables.

The rational sequence on the firing range is ready, aim, fire. But the interpretive sequence in the college campus

gunfight is ready (have an ideology), fire (attack using the ideology), and then aim (construct a narrative that relates

the incident to the ideology). Neither MoreGuns nor BanGuns advocates evaluate the results of their activities in

accordance with the ostensible goal of reducing campus violence. Instead, they give examples not of what has

happened but of what might happen if their positions do not prevail.

Given Heller, it appears unlikely that absolute campus bans on firearms, at least at public institutions, can continue

to exist. The question then becomes not whether but rather what kinds of firearms, carried by whom, where, under

what circumstances, and with what restrictions regarding purchasing and permits.

A discussion at the 2011 meeting of the National Association of College and University Attorneys concerned what

kinds of gun restrictions institutions could develop if they wished to restrict weapons, in light of the Supreme Court

rulings and state-level statutes or constitutions that permit concealed carry. The answer was that they should prepare

arguments that identify their institutions as “sensitive places,” avoid absolute gun bans, and create policies that

apply to places where people congregate (Keller, 2011).

We would all like to believe that making the campus safe is a matter of developing better policies and procedures

and that we could accomplish this if we had the will to do so. But the truth may be that campuses are actually

attending to the problem of murders and manslaughter and expending the maximum resources that they should to

address it.

If this is true, we may already be at a threshold level of homicidal violence that must be accepted, because attempts

to lower it still further may negatively influence the social benefits for which these institutions exist.

Rather than trying to further protect a campus from the already low possibility of homicides, resources might better

be allocated to reduce more prevalent forms of campus violence such as forcible sex offenses and aggravated

assault. Solutions to these problems might be more amenable to campus-based policy interventions and may have

the added advantage of reducing the focus on the MoreGuns/BanGuns debate.

The country is filled with guns, guns exist on college campuses, and there doesn't appear to be much that can be

done to completely eradicate them. But it may be that, under most circumstances, institutions can live with them.

Resources

1. American Association of State Colleges and Universities (2008) Concealed weapons on state college campuses:

In pursuit of individual liberty and collective security, Author, Washington, DC.

2. Ayres, I. and Donohue III, J. J. (2003, August) Shooting down the ‘more guns, less crime’ hypothesis.. Stanford

Law Review 55, pp. 1193-1312.

3. Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence (2007) No gun left behind: The gun lobby's campaign to push guns into

colleges and schools, Author, Washington, DC.

4. (2008, 26 June) District of Columbia et al. v. Heller, Supreme Court of the United States

5. Drysdale, D., Modzeleski, D. and Simons, A. (2010) Campus attacks: Targeted violence affecting institutions of

higher education, US Secret Service, US Department of Homeland Security, Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools,

US Department of Education, and Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Department of Justice, Washington, DC.

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victimization.. Criminology 36:3, pp. 671-710.

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http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/educ/guns-on-campus-overview.aspx

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of Higher Education.,

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11. Meloy, A. (2011, Winter) Guns on campus: What are the limits?. The Presidency 14:1, pp. 12.

12. Midwestern Higher Education Compact (2008) The ripple effect of Virginia Tech: Assessing the nationwide

impact on campus safety and security policy and practice, Author, Minneapolis, MN.

13. Miller, M., Hemenway, D. and Wechsler, H. (1999, July) Guns at college.. Journal of American College Health

48:1, pp. 12-14.

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American College Health 51, pp. 57-65.

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16. Taleb, N. N. (2007) The black swan: The impact of the highly improbable, Random House, New York, NY.

17. Winkler, A. (2011a) Gunfight: The battle over the right to bear arms in America, W. W. Norton, New York,

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Robert Birnbaum ([email protected]), currently a professor of higher education emeritus at the University of

Maryland, College Park, has served as vice chancellor at the City University of New York and the New Jersey

Department of Higher Education and as chancellor at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh. His teaching

appointments include a decade each at Teachers College, Columbia University, and the University of Maryland. He

has written books and articles on university organization, leadership, and academic policy.

Article Citation:

Birnbaum, Robert. "Ready, Fire, Aim: The College Campus Gun Fight" Change: The Magazine of Higher

Learning. Taylor and Francis Group, Sept.-Oct. 2013. Web. 09 July 2015.