Up to 90,000 Carry Guns to Class in U.S., Experts Say

The day after a Dorsey High School honor student shot himselfto death on a school bus, students on campuses around Los Angeles said they were shocked that the young man had taken his own life. But they were not surprised that he had a gun.

“I don’t blame him” for carrying a gun, said one 12th-grader at Los Angeles High, who would not give his name. “If I could get my hand on (a gun), I’d have one too, because in my neighborhood, every time I go home, people chase me and beat me up. You need it to be safe.”

Some experts estimate that each day, as many as 90,000 children in America carry guns to class. A survey of 20,000 high-schoolers by the Centers for Disease Control last year found that one out of five reported carrying a weapon at least once in the previous 30 days.

In Los Angeles Unified--the nation’s second-largest school system--more than 300 guns were confiscated from among students on the district’s 651 campuses last year, and many of them came from students like Wilfred Wright, the Dorsey baseball player who died Tuesday after shooting himself in the head in front of teammates.

Students interviewed Wednesday said guns are easy to come by, and common enough near--if not on--campuses, that they don’t feel compelled to turn in a classmate they see toting one.

“It’s frightening, but I really don’t think it’s going to hurt me, as long as I don’t mess with anybody,” said Los Angeles High senior Carol Sauma.

“For the most part, the kids who get (caught) are the ones with the decent profiles,” said Hector Madrigal, who heads the district panel that conducts disciplinary hearings for students caught with weapons. “It’s the ones who have malicious motives that our district has a difficult time identifying because of their sophistication.”

There are undoubtedly hundreds of guns that go undetected in district schools each year.

“Nowadays you walk into school, you’re not going to know what (people) are carrying,” said Rene Rodriguez, a student at Indian Springs High, a continuation school in West Los Angeles. “They have backpacks, big jackets. They could have anything.”

His classmate, Omar Ramos, agreed. “I know kids who bring their guns to school, either for protection or to show them off,” he said.

Many guns are discovered when students are overheard boasting to their friends, but Madrigal said most youngsters who bring guns to school are not being “macho,” but trying to protect themselves from dangers--real or imagined--in their neighborhoods.

“One of the most common themes our panelists hear is that kids felt unsafe getting to school or home from school,” said Madrigal. “In the majority of the cases, there’s a sincere sense of peril and they believe (carrying a gun) is the right thing to do . . . maybe the only thing to do to protect themselves.”

And the problem is not confined to inner-city neighborhoods or to high school campuses, he said. “We have expulsions for guns throughout the district and at every level,” he said.

In the last year alone, 30 guns were taken from elementary students, 137 from junior high pupils and 140 from high-schoolers.

Sources for the weapons range from older friends and neighbors to classmates and to parents who keep weapons at home to protect their families from intruders. Wright killed himself with his mother’s gun, which he apparently took to protect himself after threats from gang members.

“You can ask many youngsters and they’ll tell you exactly where on the street you can buy a gun,” said Buren Simmons, a crime prevention specialist for Los Angeles schools. “They know who’s selling guns. If they don’t get one on the street, they can often get a weapon from their own home, from where parents thought they had secured the gun.”

Under district policy, students caught with guns are typically expelled and assigned to alternative education programs. But individual schools are free to choose from a variety of measures to limit the presence of guns on campus, ranging from random security checks to classes in nonviolent conflict resolution. School security agents often rely on tips from students who see classmates with guns.

Unlike other large districts--including New York, Miami and Detroit--Los Angeles does not routinely use metal detectors to screen students for weapons, although they are occasionally used at sporting events that tend to attract large crowds.

In New York, in response to the fatal shootings of two students on a high school campus last month, officials have agreed to spend $28 million to develop the most elaborate school security system in the nation.

Forty campuses will be equipped with metal detectors and X-ray machines to examine book bags and purses. Students will be screened for weapons each day and 140 additional security guards will be hired to patrol campuses.

Approximately one-fourth of the nation’s largest school systems now employ metal detectors on some of their campuses and some Los Angeles school board members support their use. But the expense and logistics of scanning thousands of students at a time has made the procedure impractical for widespread use.

“Detroit discovered when they put metal detectors in their high schools, it was taking 2 1/2 to 3 hours to get all the children through,” said Ronald Stephens of the National School Safety Center in Westlake Village. “You’re trying to prevent violence, but you can’t even begin the educational process until you get all the kids through the door.”

Stephens, a nationally recognized expert on combatting school violence, said schools are trying a variety of approaches to keep guns off campus, including conflict-resolution courses that teach youngsters to handle problems without resorting to violence.

“It may mean more peace officers, or more parent volunteers in the schools, or a curriculum that stresses nonviolence, or better alternative schools for the (problem) students, or a gun safety hot line so kids can report weapons anonymously,” Stephens said.

“There’s no one easy answer, because the weapons problem is not simply a school problem,” he said. “These kids are bringing weapons to school because of problems that affect them in their own lives.”

Guns in Schools

Following is a list of the number of guns confiscated in or near the 651 schools of the Los Angeles Unified School District in the past four years.

GRADE LEVEL ‘87-88 ‘88-89 ‘89-90 ‘90-91 Elementary schools 26 34 41 33 Junior high schools 84 105 125 137 High schools 123 116 153 140 Total 233 255 319 310

SOURCE: Los Angeles Unified School District