According to the Gun Violence Archive, as of Jan. 29, 2023, there have been 46 shootings across the country, with 81 killed and 182 injured. Students and faculty at the University of Wyoming weighed in on how these numbers affect their thoughts about coming to school every day.
For some like student Charlotte Farley, UW is a safe place where the thought of a mass shooting seems far-fetched.
“I’ve lived in Laramie my whole life. For the most part, we haven’t had much of an issue. I think we’re too small for a lot of things to happen,” student Charlotte Farley said.
Psychology major and senior Hannah Brown shared similar thoughts.
“I think campus is a pretty safe place in general, so I’m not too worried. I think it also has to do with how small we are because I know smaller campuses tend to be more safe,” Brown said.
Staff on campus also feel safe, but they want to draw attention to how situations like this can affect people. For university staff, it isn’t as much about their personal safety as it is for others, specifically those in marginalized or targeted groups.
“On a daily basis, I feel reasonably safe, but I know this kind of violence can happen to UW at any moment. We should never feel immune to its possibilities or effects.” English professor Nancy Small said.
“I also think a lot about portions of our campus who feel particularly vulnerable to violence being called out, picked on, or targeted. It’s not fair or healthy for some of us to live in fear,”
She went on to ask, “How can we support everyone as valued members of our community?”
Other students said that despite feeling safe, they do think the university should be doing more.
“I feel like there should be some more classes and events saying, here’s how you can protect yourself in this world and how you can prepare for different situations,” sophomore Willow Larson said.
While students may not undergo active shooter drills in class, UWPD does work to ensure their officers are prepared to quickly and efficiently handle any threats to campus. They even have an explosive detection and tracking dog named Otto.
“I mean, with the way the world seems to be going in these attacks, getting more complex and complicated, we kind of take it upon ourselves to review those cases and look at potential patterns,” Sergeant Josh Holland said. “There’s really no typical profile for an offender in these cases. We look at what led up to it and dispel some of the myths,”
“We found that it’s not usually somebody who just snaps, and then they go out and attack. There’s usually a lot of breadcrumbs that we just didn’t see, or people aren’t putting the pieces together in advance,” he added.
In order to try and keep the UW community safe and alert, the police department offers a text alert program, community training, their police department training, and a link for what to do in case of an active shooter on their website.
