“It’s on a lot of people’s minds. What can we do to improve our safety? What can we do to have fewer people die in a shooting incident, and have fewer shooting incidents?” she said.

“This is a great campus, it’s a wonderful environment, and we just want it to be as safe as possible for everybody. And we feel like us carrying our weapons will help with that. We really believe that,” Evan Wallesen, president of UW Students for Concealed Carry, told KIRO.

UW prohibits  weapons on campus, but public colleges and universities in Washington make the decision on their own instead of following a statewide prohibition or sanction of concealed weapons on campus.

Students for Concealed Carry makes the argument that campuses would be safer if students who have a concealed handgun license and firearms training could lawfully carry their weapon on campus.

At the University of Washington, the group was active in 2008 after the Virginia Tech shooting as well. Then, as now, they made similar arguments about safety.

Millennials hold similar views on gun ownership as older generations. A July 2015 Pew Research poll found that protecting the right of Americans to own guns is more important to 47 percent of millennials, while 51 percent thought it was more important to control gun ownership.

Support for the right to own guns has grown among millennials as support for controlling gun ownership has fallen, even though millennials are least likely to own a gun.