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Beyond Argumentum in Terrorem: The Contested Rhetoric of Campus Carry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 November 2020

ALBION M. BUTTERS
ALBION M. BUTTERS*
Affiliation:
John Morton Center for North American Studies, University of Turku. Email: albion.butters@utu.fi.
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Abstract

This essay reflects on the use of competing rhetorical frames of fear strategically used by the academic community of The University of Texas at Austin in the debate on Campus Carry policy. With the legalization of concealed handguns on campus, fear emerged as a prominent trope in public discussions, albeit used in very different ways by supporters or opponents of the law. Against the more standard interpretation of fear-based rhetoric as an exploitation of others’ insecurities, this essay draws on mixed-methods research to examine expressions of fear by activist opponents of Campus Carry and the way in which supporters of the law sought to deconstruct it.

Type
Forum: Perceiving Security and Insecurity: The Campus Carry Law in Texas
Information
Journal of American Studies , Volume 55 , Issue 2 , May 2021 , pp. 262 - 273
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and British Association for American Studies 2020

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References

1 Eberly, Rosa A., “Essay on Criticism in the Face of Campus Carry,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 46, 4 (2016), 351–57, 356CrossRefGoogle Scholar, italics in the original. Eberly is associate professor in the Department of Communication Arts and Sciences and the Department of English, Pennsylvania State University.

2 This mixed-methods study includes qualitative material (e.g. semi-structured interviews, open-ended testimonials, focus groups) collected during two fieldwork periods in 2018–19, along with a representative “Campus Carry” survey of UT Austin undergraduates (N = 1,204) conducted in February–March 2019 by the research team of the John Morton Center, University of Turku, Finland. Support for this study was provided by the Academy of Finland (grant 310568).

3 See Melzer, Scott, Gun Culture: The NRA's Culture War (New York: New York University Press, 2009)Google Scholar; Merry, Melissa K., Warped Narratives: Distortion in the Framing of Gun Policy (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Goss, Kristin, Disarmed: The Missing Movement for Gun Control in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar.

4 Bitzer, Lloyd F., “The Rhetorical Situation,” Philosophy and Rhetoric, 1 (1968), 1–14, 4Google Scholar.

5 See Levinger, Matthew, “Love, Fear, Anger: The Emotional Arc of Populist Rhetoric,” Narrative and Conflict: Explorations of Theory and Practice, 6, 1 (2017), 1–21Google Scholar; Wodak, Ruth, The Politics of Fear: What Right-Wing Populist Discourses Mean (Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2015), 5CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Harding, David R., “Public Opinion and Gun Control: Appearance and Transparence in Support and Opposition,” in Bruce, John M. and Wilcox, Clyde, eds., The Changing Politics of Gun Control (Oxford: Rowman & Littlefield, 1998), 196–223Google Scholar.

6 Matthew Watkins, “Three UT Professors Sue to Block Campus Carry,” Texas Tribune, 6 July 2016, at www.texastribune.org/2016/07/06/3-ut-austin-professors-sue-state-over-campus-carry, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

7 The term appeared first in connection with Campus Carry in faculty complaints lodged with the UT Austin administration when it was deciding whether or not to allow guns in the classroom. See Campus Carry Policy Working Group, “Final Report,” Dec. 2015, 3, 11, https://utexas.app.box.com/v/CCWorkingGroup-FinalReport, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

8 For instance, note its use in the title of Wolcott, Christopher M., “The Chilling Effect of Campus Carry: How the Kansas Campus Carry Statute Impermissibly Infringes upon the Academic Freedom of Individual Professors and Faculty Members,” Kansas Law Review, 65, 4 (2017), 875–911Google Scholar.

9 Interview, 25 April 2018.

10 Interview, 27 April 2018.

11 Interview, 17 April 2018.

12 “Campus Carry Isn't Bad for Higher Education; Paranoia about Campus Carry Is,” Ammoland Inc., 9 March 2016, at www.ammoland.com/2016/03/campus-carry-isnt-bad-for-higher-education-paranoia-about-campus-carry-is/#axzz5lFiZFDkE, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

13 Scott, John (ed.), A Dictionary of Sociology, 4th edn (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), 492Google Scholar.

14 “Anti-Campus Carry Activists Have Nothing to Fear but Fear Itself,” Ammoland Inc., 29 March 2016, at www.ammoland.com/2016/03/anti-campus-carry-activists-nothing-fear-fear/#axzz5nQ7mKasH, accessed 23 Oct. 2019. On the allegations of child abduction, abuse, and sacrifice by occultists in the 1980s and 1990s, see Victor, Jeffrey S., Satanic Panic: The Creation of a Contemporary Legend (Chicago: Open Court Publishing Company, 1993)Google Scholar.

15 “SCC's Preliminary Response to Campus Carry Policies Approved by UT-Austin President Gregory Fenves,” 17 Feb. 2016, at www.scribd.com/document/319141232/Texas-Students-for-Concealed-Carry-Campus-Carry-Press-Releases-Op-Eds-Oct-2-2015-Aug-1-2017, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

16 Harding, “Public Opinion and Gun Control,” 197.

17 Wayne LaPierre, “Stand and Fight,” Daily Caller, 13 Feb. 2013, at https://dailycaller.com/2013/02/13/stand-and-fight, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

18 Ibid.

19 The grounds for such fear do exist. According to the “Campus Carry” survey, more than half (54%) of UT undergraduates believe that it takes too long for law enforcement or security personnel to respond to a crime situation.

20 See Hall, Rachel, “Expecting the Worst: Active-Shooter Scenario Play in American Schools,” in Ghertner, D. Asher, Goldstein, Daniel M., and McFann, Hudson, eds., Futureproof: Security Aesthetics and the Management of Life (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2020), 175–99Google Scholar.

21 Rosa, Eugene, McCright, Aaron, and Renn, Ortwin, The Risk Society Revisited: Social Theory and Risk Governance (Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 2013)Google Scholar.

22 “Why Are Professors More Afraid of Guns Carried Legally than Illegally?”, 23 Feb. 2016, at www.scribd.com/document/319141232/Texas-Students-for-Concealed-Carry-Campus-Carry-Press-Releases-Op-Eds-Oct-2-2015-Aug-1-2017, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

23 Students for Concealed Carry, “Common Arguments against Campus Carry,” at http://concealedcampus.org/common-arguments/#23, accessed 23 Oct. 2019, bold and italics in the original.

24 See www.facebook.com/groups/txsccc, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

25 Pro-Campus Carry focus group participant, 19 April 2018.

26 Brett Sanders, “Never Met Her,” 31 Aug. 2016, at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar1a878M98w, accessed 23 Oct. 2019, but since made private; viewable still at www.youtube.com/watch?v=86HIuCXVh9A, accessed 12 May 2020.

27 Ana Lopez, “What Would You Do If You Saw This Terrifying Video Of ‘You’?”, 16 Sept. 2016, at www.refinery29.com/en-us/2016/09/123294/cocks-not-glocks-gun-activist-violent-youtube-video, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

28 The first sentence is the refrain in the Meatloaf song “In the Land of the Pig, the Butcher Is King” (songwriter Jim Steinman, on the album Bat Out of Hell III: The Monster Is Loose, 2006). Other lyrics of the song taunt the defenseless animals waiting to be killed: “They've got no standards / So we lower the bar / ’Cause they're waiting for us” and “Can't you hear the slaughterhouse bells?”

29 Lauren McGaughy, “UT-Austin Police Investigating Bullet Casings Left on Campus,” Dallas News, 19 Sept. 2016, at www.dallasnews.com/news/higher-education/2016/09/19/ut-police-investigating-bullet-casings-left-campus, accessed 23 Oct. 2019. While this incident did lead to a police investigation, it did not result in anyone being charged.

30 UT testimonial #6, 14 Feb. 2019; UT testimonial #6, 20 Feb. 2019; UT testimonial #5, 14 Feb. 2019.

31 Gerdes, Kendall, “Trauma, Trigger Warnings, and the Rhetoric of Sensitivity,” Rhetoric Society Quarterly, 49, 1 (2018), 1–22, 5Google Scholar; Scott A. Bass and Mary L. Clark, “The Gravest Threat to Colleges Comes from Within,” Chronicle of Higher Education, 28 Sept. 2015, at www.chronicle.com/article/The-Gravest-Threat-to-Colleges/233449, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

32 Gerdes, 5.

33 On the classroom as a specific locus of emotional vulnerability see Trujillo, Karen R., “The Learner, the Teacher, and the Classroom Community: Building Safe Spaces for Emotional Sharing,” in Orelus, Pierre W. (ed.), Language, Race, and Power: A Critical Discourse Analysis (New York: Routledge, 2017), 92–103Google Scholar.

34 Nick Roll, “Texas Professors’ Campus Carry Suit Thrown Out,” Inside Higher Ed, 10 July 2017, at www.insidehighered.com/quicktakes/2017/07/10/texas-professors%E2%80%99-campus-carry-suit-thrown-out, accessed 23 Oct. 2019; US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, Jennifer Glass et al. v. Ken Paxton et al., No. 17-50641, 16 Aug. 2018, at www.ca5.uscourts.gov/opinions/pub/17/17-50641-CV0.pdf, accessed 23 Oct. 2019.

35 Ana Lopez, “Oh, Shoot: A Sociological Analysis of Gun Culture in the Age of Campus Carry,” BA thesis, The University of Texas at Austin, 2019, available online at https://repositories.lib.utexas.edu/handle/2152/75480, accessed 9 April 2020.

36 “Campus Carry” survey.

37 For a quantitative analysis of the impact of guns on commitment to class participation, see Soboroff, Shane, Lovekamp, William, and Jenkot, Robert, “Social Status and the Effects of Legal Concealed Firearms on College Campuses,” Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 20, 3 (2019), 376–88, 385Google Scholar. On an analysis of the chilling effect through emotional-response theory, see Jones, Hannah E. and Horan, Sean M., “Guns on Campus: Campus Carry and Instructor–Student Communication,” Communication Education, 68, 4 (2019), 417–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

38 Bitzer, “The Rhetorical Situation,” 6.