A profile of rural Texas adolescents who carry handguns to school.

Students in randomly selected eighth and 10th grade English classrooms (n = 1,072) in central Texas schools were surveyed in fall 1994 regarding carrying weapons to school and associated risk factors. Students who carried a handgun to school one or more times during the preceding 12 months were compared to those who had not done so, using discriminant analysis and chi-square. Gun carrying at school increased 138% from seven years earlier in the same area using the same survey procedures. Most students reported they carried a gun out of fear or anger. Those who carried a gun at school had extremely elevated rates of repeated victimization of several types during the previous year: 589% higher for attack at school, 552% higher for attack outside school supervision, 576% higher for attempts to force sex at school, and 216% higher for rape. They also were more likely to enter dangerous situations repeatedly, were 17 times more likely to have used crack cocaine, had less instruction on preventing violence, less knowledge about means of avoiding fighting, and felt an obligation to fight under a wider variety of situations. Study variables accurately classified 78.4% of gun carriers as such. Researchers concluded that efforts at prevention of handgun violence in schools should include interventions to increase the safety of a select group of vulnerable students, while providing psychological counseling to assist them in overcoming emotional effects of victimization as part of larger violence prevention efforts.