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The latest Common Ground event on April 2 provided a wide-ranging discussion of divisive topics that are on the minds of voters as the Presidential election approaches. Pennsylvania Rep. Matt Cartwright ’83 and former Oklahoma Rep. Steve Russell discussed some of America’s most pressing policy issues. Mimi Geerges, host of CSPAN’S Washington Journal, moderated the conversation.

When gun violence changed his life forever, Lelan O’Brien ’23 decided to take action. After interning with the Brady Campaign, which works to end gun violence, O’Brien served as a Courage Fellow for Giffords, a group led by shooting survivor and former congresswoman Gabby Giffords. This month, O’Brien attended a lobby in Washington, D.C., where he met Giffords and other lawmakers working toward a safer future.

Nearly 100 students, faculty, and staff gathered for a public rally in light of the recent shooting at Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla. Led by the college’s Black and Latinx Student Union (BLSU), the rally was held as a way to remember the victims and foster conversation about Parkland.

Professor of Economics Stephen Wu has analyzed attitudes towards gun control from a 2013 Levitt Center survey of American high school sophomore, junior and senior students.

James Jacobs, the Chief Justice Warren E. Burger Professor of Constitutional Law and the Courts and director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at the New York University School of Law, will present a series of lectures on the topic “Dissecting Gun Control” from Feb. 24 through March 1.

Despite the fact that most high school students feel relatively safe in their schools, a significant number are concerned about the possibility of a mass shooting in their school or community, according to a new national poll of high school seniors conducted by Hamilton College’s Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center in conjunction with Knowledge Networks.

In an opinion piece on the USA Today website, Associate Professor of Sociology Jenny Irons focused on two of the most significant predictors of gun deaths, income inequality and the percentage of the population identified as black. “But for the Grace of Class and Race,” posted on the publication’s site on Sept. 30, Irons expanded the conversation beyond legislation as a solution. “We should look more deeply into the roll race and class play in gun violence in the United States."

Jim Jacobs, a professor of law and director of the Center for Research in Crime and Justice at New York University School of Law visited campus to lecture on the current state of gun control legislation in the United States through the Levitt Center's Security program. Jacobs, who was on the hill at the invitation of Maynard-Knox Professor of Government and Law Frank Anechiarico, attracted a standing room only audience of students and local residents at his April 15 lecture in the KJ Red Pit.