STEVENS POINT, WI (WSAU) – The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point welcomed this year’s freshman class to the campus on Thursday amid parent concerns about gun violence happening on school campuses around the country.
UWSP Chancellor Thomas Gibson spoke about the systems and policies the university has put in place to keep students and faculty safe if an incident were to occur at the school, saying, “We’re fortunate to live in a community where we look out for each other, but we do prepare for the unexpected, so we do have an active shooter training program called ALICE, and each member of our university community is required to participate in these trainings, and leadership members of the community have regular tabletop exercises where we try to consider a response for several scenarios.”
ALICE is an acronym that stands for Alert, Lockdown, Inform, Counter, and Evacuate, and the program has trained more than one million people in all 50 states, including almost 6,500 school officials to date.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, there have been 12 intentional shootings at U.S. colleges since 1966 that have killed three or more people, and excluding mass shootings, gunfire on college campuses has killed a total of 94 people and injured another 215 since 2013. There have also been 45 cases of unintentional gunfire on college campuses, resulting in three deaths and injuring 27 others since 2013.
Earlier this year, a Fox News poll found that 87% of voters surveyed said they supported requiring criminal background checks for all gun buyers. The poll also found that the vast majority of those polled support raising the legal age to buy guns to 21 (81%) and requiring mental health checks for all gun purchasers (80%).
