The Brown University shooting Dec. 13 marked the 391st mass shooting of 2025 according to the Gun Violence Archive. Brown also joined the long list of schools and universities plagued by gun violence in 2025, including the Oct. 25 shooting at Lincoln University and the April 17 shooting at Florida State University. 2025 was also the seventh year in a row that experienced more violent shootings than days in a year, a fact that demonstrates both the rise of school-related shootings as well as the disturbing increase in gun violence generally.
The U.S. Department of Education placed Brown under investigation Dec. 22 for violating the Clery Act due to the supposed failure of their security system during the tragedy. The Clery Act requires colleges and universities receiving federal funding to publicly report campus and local crime statistics, security policies and emergency procedures. While it is necessary that universities implement ample security procedures, the federal government placing the blame on safety infrastructure deflects responsibility from their failure to create policy that adequately protects students from gun violence.
While accountability in response to the failure of safety systems is necessary, these investigations portray gun violence at universities as a procedural misstep rather than an institutional failure on the part of the federal government. Federal regulation is sparse, and many decisions regarding firearm controls are relegated to the states. This patchwork of laws places an undue burden on universities and localities, requiring them to contrive their own solutions to gun violence rather than rely on a federally-mandated answer — this also means universities wrongly take the blame for security failures in the wake of tragedies.
This approach of leaving regulations to the states has not effectively reduced gun violence, despite pushes from senators, lawmakers and grassroot activists to further legislate firearms. Although Congress passed legislation in 2022 that extended funding for states that enforced red flag laws, mental health programs and crisis intervention services, the act was structurally limited because states could opt out of this, making federal impact uneven. This further shifted responsibility to the states, deferring national responsibility to protect students and citizens alike, even though rising gun deaths reveal that state autonomy on these issues does not adequately address the problem of school gun violence.
The nuances in state law pertaining to background checks, waiting periods and permits perpetuate the interstate flow of firearms — even states with stricter gun laws will experience violence due to the weak laws of their neighbors. Indeed, research from the National Library of Medicine suggests that the rise in gun violence may be related to the lack of national coherency in firearm regulations, rather than safety protocol violations.
This correlation between gun deaths and inconsistent state policy presents a clear necessity for national legislators to develop federal legislation managing the interstate flow of firearms — and creating more consistent policy that protects. These conclusions point to the lack of structural coherency in reporting public and private gun sales perpetuating this gun violence, further revealing how the responsibility lies in federal hands instead of the university communities that have faced tragedy.
Specific safety protocols may vary slightly according to a specific university — but it does not change the fact that both private and public universities are required to adhere to the Clery Act if they offer federal financial aid to their students — a criterion that encompasses over 5,500 postsecondary institutions as of 2025. But even while colleges and universities are bound to federal law, they are also held to the standards imposed by city and state regulation, granting universities little control over the minimum standards set by their state government. They can only impose their own campus-specific regulations for preventing and mediating gun violence — for example, the University notably prohibits concealed carry on Grounds, contrasting state law allowing concealed carry with a permit. When individual schools are made responsible for implementing idiosyncratic safeguards, the blame heaped on these same schools becomes even more unjust.
Even when universities adopt their own policies, coordinating with changes in local government decisions can still impact broader safety systems. Recently, Charlottesville voted to discontinue its contract with Flock Safety due to concerns about the features of its automatic license plate reader system despite the same system’s success in helping locate the Brown shooter. These controversies highlight how universities and local jurisdictions have to create their own patchwork of systems that balance privacy and safety, comply with federal law and prevent security breaches because of the lack of federal action. This causes universities and localities to take on a daunting amount of responsibility for the larger structural issue that perpetuates tragedy — namely, that there is no uniform standard for the prevention of gun violence at universities.
Though it is important to ensure that schools are complying with safety protocol, the issue of gun violence is still prevalent and cannot be fully reconciled solely by a school’s own campus safety regulations in addition to local, state and federal law. Colleges and universities will never be able to hold the same power or responsibility as lawmakers, and it is time legislators consider how they might solve the problem rather than rely on the victims of it.
Ultimately, the nation should stand beside Brown and Michigan State University among thousands of other schools and higher education institutions falling victim to these practices who are only trying to heal their communities, and redirect the attention to the inaction of our lawmakers.
Jenna Caron is an opinion columnist who writes about politics for The Cavalier Daily. She can be reached at opinion@cavalierdaily.com.
The opinions expressed in this column are not necessarily those of The Cavalier Daily. Columns represent the views of the authors alone.
Read More
EDITORIAL: U.Va. must steady the ship against tidal waves of uncertainty
By Editorial Board | YesterdayThe community must acknowledge the flaws of this Board transformation in order to hold future governors accountable
OLIVER: Where are our standards?
By Seamus Oliver | 2 days agoEven those critical of the process that appointed him have admitted Beardsley’s considerable fundraising ability, but does he check any other box?
MADARA: Virginia’s standardized learning system requires reform for English Learners
By Teddy Madara | January 22, 2026By not devoting enough attention to developing English proficiency among non-native speaking ELs, these students are disadvantaged in their exams, and consequently their graduation rates and their futures.
