Preventing Violence in Our Schools

No Gun Zones
Schools must also create “No Gun Zones.” Everyone from the NRA to the ACLU agrees that kids should not take guns to school. There is no way to argue that it is okay for a kid to pack a weapon in school. Let’s examine school violence and the environment in which our kids are living. How many kids have been killed or injured by fires in American schools in the last five years? The answer, to the best our knowledge is none. Go into any school in America and you see fire sprinklers, fire exits, fire alarms, and fire extinguishers. Kids practice fire drills over and over in preparation for a fire, something that has not killed or seriously injured a school student in years. Clearly, the preparation and fire drills are working.

How many were killed or injured from violence in American schools? According to the Secret Service, in 1998 there were 35 murders and 257,700 serious injuries. How many were killed or injured by fire? Not a one, but a quarter of a million were killed or injured by school violence. The job of law enforcement is not to prevent fire; their job is to prevent violence in the schools. If we were to award grades, the firefighter would get an A. What grade would you give our cops?
Counter-Terrorism Warfare
Let’s also consider metal detectors in school, but let us call them “Counter-terrorism warfare.” Whether we are battling domestic terrorism, international terrorism, workplace violence, or school violence, it is counter-terrorism warfare. If we are going to use metal detectors in schools, they need to be employed advantageously.

They are ineffective when always placed in the same location, just as a speed trap is ineffective when it is always set in the same location. Chief Dorn suggests that they be employed at a few, randomly selected school buses every day, so that kids have to pass through them as they get off. Inside the school, randomly selected classes are chosen throughout the day so when the bell rings kids pass through the metal detectors as they exit. Several times a year, everyone enters the assembly through a metal detector. Once a year, the kids must pass through the detectors to leave the assembly. All locations are chosen randomly and without advance publicity. According to an article on ABC News.com., concerning security in grade schools after a six-year-old allegedly shot and killed another six-year-old; metal detectors in elementary schools are rare. Less than half a percent of elementary schools had them in 1996-97, the most recent year for which the National Center for Education Statistics has figures. Only 1 percent nationally conducted random metal detector checks, and only one in 10 had police or law enforcement officials at school. (ABC NEWS.Com,. 2000) Overall, only 4 percent of all schools in America conduct random metal detectors checks and of those, only 1 percent do it every day. (Newsweek, 1998)

http://www.killology....

Three major issues with this strategy.

1) Frequent searches for weapons communicate to the kids that it is common practice for kids to carry. You defeat yourself when you try to teach them not to if you're telling them at the same time that everybody else does it.

2) The object of the federal safe schools legislation was to remove fear from the classroom. If random searches for weapons are commonplace at schools, how do you think this makes the kids feel about coming to school at all? After all, they don't get searched for guns when they go outside to play or when they go to church or when they go over to their buddy's house to play. School becomes an especially dangerous place in their minds if searches happen there, but not elsewhere. And what about the bullies that carry guns onto the playground or on their way to or from school, then stash the gun in some hiding place before they enter the school? You'll notice that tallies of injuries at schools include injuries sustained on school grounds plus injuries sustained while kids are traveling to and from schools. Very few of the injuries happen inside the school buildings, really--most of it happens while kids are between school and home.

3) Most kids who brings guns to school got them from home. This means the adult owner of the gun was inept or careless at keeping the gun away from the kid and/or teaching the kid not to handle it without their supervision. The adult gun owner is also the person who is teaching the kid core attitudes about the proper use of guns. If the kid is using the gun to bully others and maintain power over others, again, the adult gun owner who introduced the kid to these ideas is really to blame. I would rather see the adult gun owners prosecuted severely when a kid brings their gun to school.

LOL

Come on, YOU having an issue with other peoples postings.

The statement presented by the solution is “IF YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU WILL DO THE TIME, WE WILL CATCH YOU.” The others will not have to worry about it because they are not criminals.

Random searches are the best solution with the highest returns. You will never have a 100% fool proof solution. If you have one please patent it quick. Banning all guns; is already taken.

LOL

Come on, YOU having an issue with other peoples postings.

The statement presented by the solution is “IF YOU DO THE CRIME, YOU WILL DO THE TIME, WE WILL CATCH YOU.” The others will not have to worry about it because they are not criminals.

Random searches are the best solution with the highest returns. You will never have a 100% fool proof solution. If you have one please patent it quick. Banning all guns; is already taken.

Al, the bottom line is, who is to blame, really? The gun owner, or the kid? You buy the gun, you're responsible for it. You're responsible for where it is at all times. You are responsible to store it securely so kids can't get it. Every kid with a gun got it from an irresponsible adult.

Let's put the blame where it's due, okay?

Not only that, an additional argument is that it's unrealistic to expect every school district in the country to have the money to do the type of screening you suggest. One reason the Utah legislature gave for not putting metal detectors or police in every school is the cost. In part this is due to the fact that we have so many school-age kids per capita--the highest in the nation. Small wonder that it's stretching our tax dollars--about 50% of Utah's tax money goes into our school system to pay for the basics of educating the kids, and we're still ranked about 49th or 50th of all the states in per pupil spending. We really haven't got much left for security measures.

Cost-wise, it's more reasonable to discover the guns in kids' possession the way we always have (and we discover quite a few), and then vigorously prosecute the gun owner for failing to keep his gun away from kids.

But you can't prosecute irresponsible gun owners unless you have laws that enable it. One problem in Utah is that transferring a gun to a minor is defined as only a misdemeanor. As for the penalties, you'd get stiffer punishment for litterbugging. This is a travesty, and obviously, the law needs tweaking--the severity of the risk to the kid and others is bad enough, this ought to be defined as a worse crime and penalties upped to the "deterrent" level--.

"Every kid with a gun got it from an irresponsible adult."

How about an responsible criminal?

How about a responsible drug dealer?

How about a responsible gang member?

Go to a local high security prison and talk to some inmates on how things work on the street.

BTW:

On some of your past logic statements:

http://www.nj.com/pri...

Your logic has a hard time finding success.

"Every kid with a gun got it from an irresponsible adult."

How about an responsible criminal?

How about a responsible drug dealer?

How about a responsible gang member?

Nearly 500 children and teenagers each year are killed in gun-related accidents.
About 1,500 commit suicide.
Nearly 7,000 violent crimes are committed each year by juveniles using guns they found in their own homes.
Senator Herb Kohl, sponsor of the safety-lock measure.

Two-thirds of the 41 students involved in 37 school-shooting incidents from 1974-2000 got their guns from their own home or that of a relative.
U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center and the U.S. Department of Education, "Safe School Initiative," May 2002.

In 72% of unintentional deaths and injuries, suicide, and suicide attempts with a firearm of 0-19 year-olds, the firearm was stored in the residence of the victim, a relative, or a friend. (n=98)
Grossman et al., "Self-inflicted and Unintentional Firearm Injuries Among Children and Adolescents: A Harborview Injury Prevention and Research Center Study," Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, August 1999.

BTW, one of the Jonesboro school shooters was an Eddie Eagle graduate.

"BTW, one of the Jonesboro school shooters was an Eddie Eagle graduate."

Is the Eddie Eagle program designed to address all age groups or is it focused?

I'm looking at the Brady Center's solution / package right now, very weak !!!

www.killology.com has some great information and books on the subject.

Better solutions = results

Feel Good Solutions = We will try harder next time, send me more money.

"BTW, one of the Jonesboro school shooters was an Eddie Eagle graduate."

Is the Eddie Eagle program designed to address all age groups or is it focused?

I'm looking at the Brady Center's solution / package right now, very weak !!!

www.killology.com has some great information and books on the subject.

Better solutions = results

Feel Good Solutions = We will try harder next time, send me more money.

Al, it looks like CAP laws work if you enable felony prosecution for violating them. Like I said, you need to raise penalties to the deterrent level--. Here's the abstract on only one of several research articles on this topic, but it gives a good overall summary:


PEDIATRICS Vol. 106 No. 6 December 2000, pp. 1466-1469

Reexamining the Association Between Child Access Prevention Gun Laws and Unintentional Shooting Deaths of Children

Received Mar 20, 2000; accepted Sep 6, 2000.

Daniel W. Webster and Marc Starnes
From the Center for Gun Policy and Research, Johns Hopkins University School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland.

Context. A previous study estimated that child access prevention (CAP) laws, which hold adults criminally liable for unsafe firearm storage in the environment of children, were associated with a 23% decline in unintentional firearm mortality rates among children.

Objective. To reassess the effects of CAP laws and more fully examine the consistency of the estimated law effects across states.

Design. A pooled time-series study of unintentional firearm mortality among children from 1979 through 1997.

Setting. The 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Participants. All children <15 years.

Main Outcome Measures. Rates of unintentional deaths attributable to firearms.

Results. When the effects of all 15 state CAP laws enacted before 1998 were aggregated, the laws were associated with a 17% decline unintentional firearm death rates among children. The laws' effects were not equal across states. Florida's CAP law was associated with a 51% decline; however, there were no statistically significant aggregate or state-specific law effects in the other 14 states with CAP laws.

Conclusions. Florida's CAP law1 of only 3 such laws allowing felony prosecution of violators appears to have significantly reduced unintentional firearm deaths to children. However, there is no evidence of effects in the other 14 states with CAP laws. Key words: child access prevention laws, unintentional firearms deaths.

I'm out of town, I will post another study that had a different review on that issue later.

I feel your quoted program works as well as your deer contraceptive solution.

Reviews on the Brady Education Solution?

More later.

I feel your quoted program works as well as your deer contraceptive solution.

I don't believe I tried to sell anybody on it. But you have to admit that the link you gave indicated that it worked--it was just too expensive. Not that the materials cost that much, but government red tape escalated the price tag. Just as important from a logic standpoint, the link also pointed out that your solution doesn't work. You'll recall that the biggest deer problem is where there are too many humans for hunting to be safe. Look at your own logic, please.

BACK to the topic--the Florida law was unlike most other states' laws studied because it made unsafe storage a felony. It was unclear from this abstract how severe the penalties were, but they were undoubtedly stiffer than what you'd get for a misdemeanor in Florida. It was also unclear whether the penalties for this type of felony in Florida were substantially different than the penalties in the other two states that also made it a felony. You'd have to look at the similarities and differences in each state's laws and probably do a more focused study to determine what made the difference between Florida's outcomes and these other two states' outcomes. And maybe the thing that made the difference between Florida and these other two states was something as simple as gun ownership rates.

At any rate, a 51% reduction in unintentional deaths, which was statistically significant, was realized after this law was enacted. So your conclusion that this law didn't work is balderdash. It did too work! Do you even know what statistical significance means? As a matter of fact, you could safely say that CAP laws may have reduced deaths in the other states that enacted them because these states saw a drop in deaths too. It was just that the statistical strength wasn't strong enough to say for sure. In any case, it was clear that enacting CAP laws did not increase unintentional deaths.

Reviews on the Brady Education Solution?

It can't be any worse than Eddie Eagle. BTW, there's a research facility in Colorado that specifically studies the effectiveness of violence prevention programs. (Not quite the same thing as CAP, but quite relevant to the gun violence topic.) If you want to bring yourself up to speed on the subject, you may want to browse their website or contact the facility for more info. I'm sure their bibliography section has additional info. on the effectiveness of other behavior intervention programs too. Here's their link:

http://www.colorado.e...