By Lauryn Longacre, Staff Writer
Gun stereotypes were the topic of discussion for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion’s (CDI) weekly Let’s Talk event on Tuesday, Nov. 5.
Students and staff gathered to discuss the issues involving guns in relation to schools, race and American culture. Some individuals brought up the issue of desensitization to gun violence in schools and in American culture.
CDI Program Coordinator Amy Davis brought up the ALICE training and her children’s participation in it. ALICE, or “Alert-Lockdown-Inform-Counter-Evacuate” training, is used as to prepare students and staff members to respond to an active shooting.
Activist in residence, Peterson Toscano, said:“For me as a white person, middle class in America, the likelihood that I’d be shot anywhere is just a freak thing that would happen. [Whereas] for other people it is not so out of the realm of possibility.”
Dean of the CDI and Title IX coordinator Dena Salerno mentioned the anxiety she sees in many of the college students regarding gun violence on campus. “A lot of students come now [to college] with severe anxiety,” Salerno said. “That’s not all your fault.”
“I do consider these irrational fears, but not necessarily unwarranted,” Johnson Center for Civic Engagement Coordinator Miranda Carrasquillo said.
Carrasquillo offered a psychological perspective on the anxiety around guns. She noted how it is the natural human reaction to hearing and seeing negative media stories that make us so afraid.
Carrasquillo shared the story of the first time she was pulled over and how she felt a surprising amount of fear: “It was dark, I was alone and I was being pulled over, I didn’t know who was going to come up to me…my father was a state trooper for 25 years, and still this fear came over me.”
Towards the end of the talk, more students opened up on their concerns.
“I definitely realized that guns are treated differently when different hands are holding them and the privilege that you have determines how you will be acknowledged,” senior Anna McDermott said.
“I think it needs to change. I want big implementation from the top, saying this is what needs to change…and I don’t care if everyone is really comfortable with it because it saves the most amount of lives,” McDermott continued.