Washington Post Commentary: Allowing guns on campus will invite tragedies, not end them

By Daniel Webster and Ronald Daniels

Daniel Webster is a professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research. Ronald Daniels is president of Johns Hopkins University.

Texas this year became the eighth state to require state colleges and universities to allow civilians with permits to carry concealed guns in public places. As a result, the University of Texas at Austin — a school that 50 years ago suffered the trauma of the nation’s first campus mass killing — must allow guns to be brought onto campus.

To those behind the campus-carry movement making such inroads in Austin and other state capitals, that’s a good thing. This effort is based on the belief that allowing more guns in public places will lead to less violence. But does the evidence support this premise? A new report released by Johns Hopkins University, with co-authors from Stanford University and the University of Massachusetts at Boston, surveys the best available research and says no.

Read more on the Washington Post.

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