Penn students more supportive of gun control than general public, survey shows

As the gun control debate heats up on both the national and state stages, a recent survey shows that Penn students stand firmly on the side of more gun control — and reveals that many undergraduates have been personally affected by gun violence.

About one out of every five undergraduates knows someone who has been shot, according to the preliminary results of a study conducted by School of Social Policy & Practice professor Susan Sorenson.

“About half of those — so that means about 10 percent of Penn undergrads — know somebody who was shot in an assault,” said Sorenson, who also teaches a course on gun violence in the Health & Societies Department. The remaining half either knew someone who had been shot by accident, in a self-inflicted incident or didn’t know how the person was shot.

Her findings are the results of poll conducted in late February, which surveyed Penn undergraduates on their opinions on specific gun control measures, their reactions to several mass shootings and their experiences with guns. A random sample of 250 students from each class received an email with the survey. About half responded — a relatively high response rate for an email survey, Sorenson noted.

Sorenson also found that Penn students are generally more supportive of gun control measures proposed in the wake of the massacre at Sandy Hook than the overall United States population. Over 80 percent of students support an assault weapons ban, a ban on high-capacity magazines, universal background checks and mental-health checks, according to preliminary results. The only proposal that students support less than the overall public is placing armed guards in schools — Penn students were only half as likely to support that measure. Overall, the vast majority of Penn respondents said they would prefer a society where it’s more difficult to get guns.

“It might be an age difference, because that’s a general U.S. population, or some greater sense of urgency that we need to do something,” Sorenson said of her findings. “Penn students are not necessarily representative of the U.S. in either age or ethnicity or socioeconomic status.” While emphasizing the impact of age on the results, she added that the results may not necessarily extend to other college campuses.

“It might be different in other states,” she said. “I’d expect it to look different in Wyoming, for example.”

The survey also found that about one in five undergraduates grew up with a gun in their household, a result Sorenson found interesting. “A lot of people … associate guns with less money, but in fact all of the research shows that the higher the income, the more likely people are to have guns,” she said.

Sorenson will present her findings at a conference SP2 is hosting, called “Finding Common Ground, Moving Forward”, today in Irvine Auditorium at 3 p.m. The event is meant to “educate people and to provide a good overview of what we know about guns and gun violence,” Sorenson added.

Speakers will include Harvard University public health professor Matthew Miller, journalist Ali Velshi and Mark Kelly, the husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who was shot in the head by a gunman at a 2011 meeting with constituents.

Sorenson is in the process of conducting more rigorous analysis of her data in order to write a paper to be published in an academic journal.

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