Weapon Carrying on School Property Among Middle School Students

Abstract

Objective: To examine the association between carrying a weapon at school and the age of onset of substance use, other indicators of violence, and other health risk behaviors among middle school students.Design: In 1995, a modified version of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Youth Risk Behavior Survey was administered to 2227 students (49% were female) attending 53 (of 463) randomly selected middle schools in North Carolina. Weapon carrying on school property during school hours was measured with 2 questions assessing carrying a gun and carrying other weapons such as knives or clubs. The Youth Risk Behavior Survey also assessed other indicators of violence, drug use, suicide plans and attempts, and being threatened with a weapon at school. Variables significantly (PՅ.001) associated with gun and other weapon carrying by 2 tests were analyzed with stepwise logistic regression using the likelihood ratio approach. Odds ratios (ORs) were adjusted for all other variables in the model and 95% confidence intervals (CIs) were computed.Results: Our study showed that 3% of students had carried a gun and 14.1% had carried a knife or club to school. Gun carrying was associated with increased age (OR, 1.57 [95% CI, 1.15-2.14]); male sex (OR, 5.62 [95% CI, 2.42-13.03]); minority ethnicity (OR, 3.30 [95% CI,05]); and earlier age of onset of cigarette (OR, 0.85 [95% CI, 0.74-0.97]), alcohol (OR, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.71-0.94]), marijuana (OR, 0.81 [95% CI, 0.71-0.92]), and cocaine use (OR, 0.73 [95% CI, 0.62-0.86]). Knife or club Editor's Note: I think school-based prevention programs targeting substance abuse and violence prevention should begin in nursery school and sooner, in the home.

Weapon Involvement in the Victimization of Children

“…In Table 4, we report incident level characteristics for all youth (analyses were run separately for younger [ages 2-9] and older [ages [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17] youth with similar findings-not shown in Table): Weapon-involved incidents were more likely to be part of an indirect only victimization or an incident that involved both direct and indirect forms of victimization (rather than direct only). Weaponinvolved victimizations were more likely to be perpetrated by a peer, and result in injury.…”

“…Despite its relevance to public health, extant research on youth firearm exposure has focused on weapon carrying as the primary focus of exposure. [3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10] However, youth are also exposed to firearms and other weapons through direct victimization and witnessing violence; understanding how often and in what ways this occurs is critical to the field's broadening conceptualization of youth victimization.…”

Measurement of Sibling Violence

“…This might be especially salient to the present study as weapon carrying has been found to be most predominant for young people in the 13-to-16 year age range (DuRant, Krowchuck, Sinal, & Woods, 1999). Additionally, despite inconsistent evidence for the influence of gender on ISV perpetration (see Minnett, Vandell, & Santrock, 1983;Roscoe et al 1987), it is widely acknowledged that differences exist between adolescent males and females, for their use of both physical violence and weapons (Brennan & Moore, 2009).…”

Handgun carrying among White youth increasing in the United States: New evidence from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health 2002–2013

“…In addition to males more likely to carry handgun than females (Pickett et al, 2005), research has identified racial and ethnic differences. Studies in the U.S. indicate that African-Americans and Latinos are more likely to carry weapons such as handguns compared to Whites and Asians (e.g., Craun & Detar, 2015;Durant, Krowchuk, Kreiter, Sinal, & Woods 1999;Spano, 2012) in part because of more extensive and greater duration of involvement in criminal violence (Bierie, 2014;Craun & Deter, 2015;Doherty & Ensminger, 2014). However, there is a relative dearth of nationally representative studies on racial/ethnic differences in handgun carrying among youth.…”