What risk factors predict that a student will carry a handgun to school?

Gun violence in US schools has risen dramatically in the past quarter century. In their Security Journal article released first online in February, Buker et al. noted that many school shootings are linked to “escalations of disputes” among students, some of whom bring guns to school, resulting in handguns being shown or fired. Yet there is limited research measuring how often teens take guns to school and what factors make it more likely that they will. Buker et al. wanted to contribute to risk assessment efforts meant to prevent gun violence. They focused their investigation on two potential risk factors related to carrying guns to school: those related to delinquency and aggression, and those related to fear and victimization. They analyzed data from the study, Technology, Teen Dating Violence and Abuse, and Bullying in Three States, 2011-2012 (ICPSR 34741), which they accessed via a restricted data use agreement from the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (NACJD). The study, conducted by the Urban Institute’s Justice Policy Center, gathered information from a convenience sample of students in various rural, urban, and suburban schools in New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania (some in 2011 and others in 2012) in order to examine the role of technology use in teen dating violence and abuse, and bullying. It contains 669 variables about 5,647 youth in the 7th to 12th grades. The one-time survey was conducted in classrooms by school staff trained by the research team. The questions asked were about delinquency, drug use, school, family life, and experiences related to various forms of dating violence and bullying. The goal of the project was to learn more about the types of abuse experiences youth have, the extent of victimization and perpetration via technology and new media (e.g., social networking sites, texting on cellular phones), and how the experience of such cyber abuse within teen dating relationships or through bullying relates to other life factors.

Buker et al. made use of the respondents’ self-reported, detailed accounts of both their own delinquent/aggressive behavior and their direct personal victimization experiences, “which were rarely included together in the previous studies examining gun carrying among youth.” They looked at two outcome variables: gun carrying in public, and taking a gun to school, and they considered several predictor variables, including measures of bullying, violence against a dating partner, and non-gun related delinquent behavior. Control variables of age, race, LGBTQ status, and depression, anxiety, and anger/hostility were used. Similar to other studies, Buker et al. found that higher scores of self-reported delinquent behavior “increased the likelihood of taking a handgun to school almost fourfold,” and “delinquency increased the possibility of carrying a handgun more than twofold.” Hence, the authors noted that preventing students from taking a handgun to school should not be considered separate from preventing general gun carrying and delinquency among youth. They also found that “dating violence and bullying measures were non-significant risk factors for both outcome variables.” Further, having been the victim of bullying was not a significant risk factor unless it had been a reciprocal bullying experience. And among the control variables, only being male and being angry were significantly related to gun carrying. Despite the common claim that mental health is a significant factor in gun violence, depression and anxiety were not risk factors for carrying guns to school.