Researcher Says Legislator Misinterprets Study of Mass Shootings

State Rep. Jesse Kremer of Wisconsin wants to eliminate “gun-free zones,” including on college campuses, because, he says, they create easy targets for criminals. And he cites research to show why such zones are ineffective at preventing violence.

“We must immediately dismantle ‘gun-free’ zones,’ particularly those in our public colleges and universities,” Mr. Kremer, a Republican, wrote on his website. “Dr. J. Eric Dietz, director of Purdue University’s Homeland Security Institute, concluded that in a study of all mass shootings since the 1950s, only two occurred outside gun-free zones.”

Mr. Dietz, however, said the study he had conducted on that topic should not be taken as a simple justification for eliminating gun-free zones. “I don’t know where that came from. I certainly didn’t say that,” he said in an interview with The Chronicle after reviewing the passage from Mr. Kremer’s website.

For politicians to misunderstand the nature and results of academic research is nothing new. But academic studies of gun violence may be ripe for such errors in the heated political debates that follow mass shootings.

Mr. Dietz’s reaction to Mr. Kremer’s use of his study highlights concerns that some in academe are raising about what they find is the willful misinterpretation of research on gun violence, as well as the shortage of scholarly inquiry into the causes of and ways to prevent gun deaths.

“Despite the numbers of deaths, injuries, and threats, little attention has been devoted in higher-education research journals and at national conferences of higher-education scholars to studying the undercurrents and effects of gun violence on college campuses,” researchers at the University of Southern California and the University of Pennsylvania wrote in a letter to several other research centers calling for more studies on the subject.

“Political disagreements have stifled forward movement on issues related to gun violence,” the letter says. “Meanwhile, shootings continue to occur in college classrooms and other campus spaces.”

‘Science, Not Emotions’

Mr. Kremer is one of two sponsors of a bill in the Wisconsin Legislature to allow licensed gun owners to carry their weapons into buildings at public colleges. The legislation is not a response to the threat of a mass shooting, he said, but is intended to help protect students and others who have to travel through high-crime areas to get to and from their campuses.

He learned of Mr. Dietz’s research, he said in an email, not from a scholarly abstract or academic journal but in a post on a blog called BuzzPo, which was started by two conservative activists.

That article begins with the assertion that the research “blows apart the liberal’s argument that more guns mean more mass shootings.” The piece describes some of the methodology and results of Mr. Dietz’s study, which used computer modeling to estimate how many fewer victims there might be in locations with armed police guards or a small number of armed staff members, among other variables.

Mr. Dietz, formerly director of Indiana’s Homeland Security Department, said the conclusion to be drawn from his research is that to reduce casualties in active-shooter scenarios, you have to reduce the amount of time it takes the police to engage with the shooter.

His model showed that the number of victims could fall by nearly 70 percent when an armed police officer was on site. Having a small number of faculty members who are armed would reduce the number of deaths by 10 percent to 15 percent, he said.

In the real world, the solution on each campus will depend on its location, the resources available, and how long it takes the police to reach the campus or school, he said. An urban location where outside police forces can respond quickly may have less need for an officer on site. A rural campus, where it takes the police longer to arrive, and where an officer in not on site, may choose to have some staff members carry firearms, he said.

One Indiana school district actually required the principal and vice principals to carry concealed weapons in the school as a condition of employment, Mr. Dietz said.

But he doesn’t think that gun-free zones should be eliminated. As Indiana’s director of homeland security, he concluded that the Statehouse should be gun-free, apart from the armed police officers already there. “It was not a popular decision,” he said. “We don’t need more guns there.”

“We’re trying to inform this with science, not emotions,” he said.

He is also seeking to study the longer-term consequences for students when police or staff members are armed, to see if there is an increase in accidental shootings or other negative consequences. But finding support for that kind of research is hard to come by, he said.

“There’s not a lot of enthusiasm to study this,” Mr. Dietz said, “because a lot of people have already made up their minds.”

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.