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
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Recommended Citation
Boyle, Brieann, "East Tennessee State University Student Perceptions of Gun Legislature" (2021). Undergraduate Honors Theses. Paper 652. https://dc.etsu.edu/honors/652
Copyright
Copyright by the authors.