Honors Program

Honors in Criminal Justice and Criminology

Date of Award

12-2021

Thesis Professor(s)

Jennifer Pealer

Thesis Professor Department

Criminal Justice and Criminology

Thesis Reader(s)

Bradley Edwards

Abstract

Many Americans are pushing for legislation supporting increased gun control; however many critics argue that increasing gun control will limit Americans’ rights as defined in the Second Amendment. With Tennessee’s passing of the Constitutional Carry, the researcher found it relevant to build on past research and to evaluate East Tennessee State University students’ perceptions of current Tennessee gun legislation in the light of this new act. East Tennessee State University students were surveyed in-person about their perceptions and knowledge of the current Tennessee gun legislation and support for gun control. No significant relationship was found between major and knowledge of Tennessee’s gun legislation, support of gun control, or handgun carry permit respectively. However, a statistically significant relationship between completion of firearm saftey course and major was found; and a negative correlation between support for gun control and knowledge of gun legislation was found as well. Although there are no policy implications as a result of this study, Criminal Justice programs should evaluate their programs to ensure that their students are being informed and retaining their education on current firearm legislation.

Publisher

East Tennessee State University

Document Type

Honors Thesis - Open Access

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.

Copyright

Copyright by the authors.

Included in

Criminal Law Commons

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