Gun-Free School Research Articles

The Effect of Gun-Free School Zones on Crimes Committed with a Firearm in Saint Louis, Missouri.

There have been no peer-reviewed, quantitative research studies on the effectiveness of gun-free school zones. The objective of this study was to use a cross-sectional, multi-group controlled ecological study design in St. Louis, MO city that compared the counts of crimes committed with a firearm occurring in gun-free school zones compared to a contiguous area immediately surrounding the gun-free school zone (i.e., gun-allowing zones) in 2019. Gun-free school zones were measured and analyzed in two ways. In the primary analysis, boundaries of the tax parcels were used for each school as the beginning of the gun-free school zone. Results from this analysis, after adjustment for pair-matching and confounding, were null. In the secondary analysis, gun-free school zones were measured as beginning at the geographic centroid of the school's address. After adjusting for the pair-matching and confounding, this analysis showed 13.7% significantly fewer crimes committed with a firearm in gun-free school zones compared to gun-allowing zones. These results suggest that gun-free school zones are not being targeted for firearm crime in St. Louis, MO.

Zero Tolerance Policy Analysis: A Look at 30 Years of School-Based ZT Policies in Practice in the United States of America

Using the state of Georgia as a backdrop, this paper highlights the current state of the GFSA (Gun-Free Schools Act) in the United States of America, initially enacted in 1994, 30 years later. The progress of school-based ZTPs (Zero Tolerance Policies) in practice shows that progress remains slow a quarter of a century later. In response, this paper looks at the origins of school-level ZTPs, the intended and unintended consequences and identifies strategies for making substantial progress moving forward. Using Georgia law and the Fulton County school system as drivers toward change, this paper looks at State, County, and Regional-level implementation of School-based ZTPs, in alignment with the GA legal standard, to add to the existing knowledge base in this realm. By pointing to what has and has not been working, this paper seeks to bring efficacious strategies for improvement to the forefront (i.e., increasing the use of positive, collaborative behavior interventions and supports, using aggregate data to reduce the number of disciplinary actions that force students out of the classroom, creating reasonable limits on the use of law enforcement in public schools) to allow all students to learn in environments that are safe, non-punitive, and impartial.

Troubleshooting the Gun-Free School Zones Act: A Call for Amendment in the Age of Constitutional Carry

Troubleshooting the Gun-Free School Zones Act: A Call for Amendment in the Age of Constitutional Carry

The 1994 Gun-Free Schools Act: Its Effects 25 Years Later and How to Undo Them

The prevalence of harsh discipline policies and practices in schools negatively affects students’ abilities to academically and socially thrive (Brown, 2007; P. Noguera, 1995; Skiba et al., 2011). ...

Adolescent Drug Use in Connecticut Private High Schools: Zero Tolerance, Contextual Peer Influence, and Deterrence Effectiveness

After the 1994 Gun-Free School Act, schools expanded the use of zero-tolerance policies with all Connecticut private high schools implementing punitive drug and alcohol policies. Based on the criminological theory of deterrence, zero-tolerance policies deliver severe and certain punishments designed to deter rational actors from engaging in problem behaviors. Existing research suggests that adolescents perceive rewards more strongly around peers and lack impulse control, raising the possibility that peer pressure may override rational deterrence in an adolescents’ decision-making process. An “immune group” of adolescents predisposed to ignore punitive deterrents may play a sizable role in inducing peer drug use. If peer influence supersedes deterrence in a significant number of cases, adolescents who are affected both by deterrents and peer pressure may be at a higher risk of following the example of the “immune group.” This study raises the question of whether Connecticut private high school students’ drug use is correlated with perceptions of punishment mandated by school policy and contextual peer influences. A questionnaire that measured students’ drug use on a scale of 1 to 4, perceived severity and likelihood of punishment from 0 to 10, and interaction with drug using peers from 0 to 10, was completed by 50 respondents. The study found no correlations between student drug use and perception of punishment likelihood and severity but found contextual peer influences to be positively associated with expected student drug use in the future. While the results of this study are limited to Connecticut private high school students, the observed tendency in students to disregard risks and pursue peer-involved drug use may be generalized in adolescents. Even in places where school discipline is not a wide issue, the impact of contextual factors like peer influence must be reconceptualized in thinking about school drug policies.

From Punitive to Restorative, Punishment to Healing

Zero-tolerance policies have had an adverse effect on students in school since their inception in the 1990s. They began to grow in popularity with the implementation of the Gun-Free School Act (GFSA) in 1994. The GFSA justified making more behaviors punishable as fears of school violence and gang-related shootings grew. As the negative effects of zero-tolerance policies and their contributions to the school to prison pipeline became apparent, there has been an emphasis on ways to combat them. Restorative justice and practices have been used in school settings as a way to combat these policies. Implementing restorative practices in schools can have a positive influence on students and fight zero-tolerance policies and the school to prison pipeline. J.C. Roe Center in New Hanover County is an alternative school that is implementing restorative practices in a variety of ways to help at-risk students who have been expelled or suspended from their home schools. Using restorative practices in the classrooms at J.C. Roe has a positive effect on the students as it is teaching mindfulness, focus, and self-calming techniques.

Under the Law

The weapons ban at elementary and secondary schools began with passage of the Gun-Free School Zones Act in 1990. Schools are subject to federal, state, and local policies regarding the presence of guns on school property. The federal laws affect both adult and student behavior regarding guns at schools. State laws tend to address both possession of weapons at schools in addition to the right to conceal weapons. States also determine whether local school districts can enact their own more restrictive policies regarding guns at schools.

Effects of a Firearm Zero Tolerance Policy on Student Expulsions and Suspensions

Zero tolerance approaches to school discipline are often thought to improve campus safety, but there is little evidence regarding their impact on student exclusions from school. Using historical panel data on all elementary, middle, and high schools in Wisconsin from 1991-92 to 1998-99, this study employs an interrupted time-series, school fixed effects model to evaluate the impact of the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994, the original zero tolerance discipline policy, which mandated a one-year expulsion for student possession of a firearm. I find no evidence of an impact on expulsions and find a reduction (rather than an increase) in middle and high school suspensions.

Does the Punishment Fit the Crime? The Impact of Zero Tolerance Discipline on At-Risk Youths

I n response to disastrous, yet relatively rare, instances of deadly school violence. Congress, in 1994, passed the Gun-Free Schools Act (GFSA) ,The GFSA mandated that each state pass legislation that requires a one-year expulsion for any student who brings a firearm to school for schools to be eligible to receive certain federal education funding. This legislation resulted in the implementation of zero tolerance policies and practices in the vast majority of U,S, public schools over the past decade (Fenning & Bohanon, 2006; Skiba & Rausch, 2006), By the 1996-97 school year, 94 percent of U,S, public schools had zero tolerance policies for ftrearms, 91 percent for other weapons, 88 percent for drugs, and 87 percent for alcohol (Kaufman et al,, 2000), What impact has this increasing use of zero tolerance discipline policies had on our most vulnerable, at-risk groups of students? The pervasive impact of zero tolerance discipline pohcies and practices in today's U,S, public schools cannot be overstated,This tough and swift one-size-fits-all punishment has resulted in a near epidemic of out-of-school suspensions. Zero tolerance discipline policies disproportionately affect African American and Hispanic students, who are suspended at approximately three times the rate of white students (Fenning & Bohanon, 2006; Rausch & Skiba, 2004), These discipline policies have also resulted in alarming numbers of students being referred to law enforcement and being arrested for minor skirmishes,A striking example recently occurred in Chicago, when 25 students, ages 11 to 15,wereroundedup, arrested, taken from school and put in for engaging in a food fight (Saulny, 2009, p, A18), In the nottoo-distant past, situations such as these would have been handled by school officials, often leading to a detention or parent conference,The American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan (2009) recently issued a report titled Reclaiming Michigan's Throwaway Kids: Students Trapped in the School-to-Prison Pipeline, which documents and analyzes data that sho-w ho-w the frequent use of suspensions and expulsions disproportionately affects African American students and contributes to their dropping out of school and how these increasingly severe disciplinary policies criminalize student behavior and place students on a high-risk path to incarceration. For example, on any given day, nearly one in 10 young male high school dropouts and one in four African American dropouts is either in jail or in juvenile detention (Giroux, 2009), Zero tolerance discipline policies are antithetical to social work values and a democratic society and harm a significant number of young people (Dupper, 2010),There used to be a time when discipline in schools involved listening, exploring underlying issues, and deciding on a disciplinary response that was connected to the nature of the offense. Today, reason and judgment have been replaced with discipline practices that criminalize student behavior and create a school culture of fear and social control (Giroux, 2009), The cumulative impact of zero tolerance discipline policies is often insidious. For example, most would agree that students should be excluded from school for dangerous behaviors that pose a risk to others. However, there is evidence that out-of-school suspensions are not limited to only the most serious and dangerous student

Lawyers, Guns and Money: Why the Tiahrt Amendment’s Ban on the Admissibility of ATF Trace Data in State Court Actions Violates the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment

The Tiahrt Amendment provides in relevant part that ATF trace data be inadmissible in evidence, and shall not be used, relied on, or disclosed in any manner, nor shall testimony or other evidence be permitted based on the data, in a civil action in any State (including the District of Columbia) or Federal court... This Amendment has hamstrung cities and localities which, in an effort to combat crime with civil litigation, have brought actions against the gun industry sounding in public nuisance, with trace data being crucial to the success of such actions. Because this Amendment regulates state as well as federal court proceedings, it is defensible, if at all, under Congress’ Commerce Clause power.President Obama backed away from a campaign promise to repeal the Amendment, but the Amendment appears vulnerable to constitutional attack. In United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court found that the Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) of 1990 exceeded Congress' Commerce Clause power because it was directed at criminal conduct, not commerce, and in Printz v. United States, it found that interim provisions in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment because they purported to direct state executive officers to participate in the administration of a federally enacted regulatory scheme. This article argues that the state court evidentiary provisions on the Tiahrt Amendment are not meaningfully different from the GFSZA and the interim Brady provisions, rendering them similarly indefensible under the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment.

LAWYERS, GUNS, AND MONEY: WHY THE TIAHRT AMENDMENT’S BAN ON THE ADMISSIBILITY OF ATF TRACE DATA IN STATE COURT ACTIONS VIOLATES THE COMMERCE CLAUSE AND THE TENTH AMENDMENT

The Tiahrt Amendment provides in relevant part that ATF trace data be inadmissible in evidence, and shall not be used, relied on, or disclosed in any manner, nor shall testimony or other evidence be permitted based on the data, in a civil action in any State (including the District of Columbia) or Federal court... This Amendment has hamstrung cities and localities which, in an effort to combat crime with civil litigation, have brought actions against the gun industry sounding in public nuisance, with trace data being crucial to the success of such actions. Because this Amendment regulates state as well as federal court proceedings, it is defensible, if at all, under Congress’ Commerce Clause power.President Obama backed away from a campaign promise to repeal the Amendment, but the Amendment appears vulnerable to constitutional attack. In United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court found that the Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) of 1990 exceeded Congress' Commerce Clause power because it was directed at criminal conduct, not commerce, and in Printz v. United States, it found that interim provisions in the Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act violated the Tenth Amendment because they purported to direct state executive officers to participate in the administration of a federally enacted regulatory scheme. This article argues that the state court evidentiary provisions on the Tiahrt Amendment are not meaningfully different from the GFSZA and the interim Brady provisions, rendering them similarly indefensible under the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment.

Guns in schools : a closer look at accidental shootings : review article

Violence has become a pervasive part of the social fabric of South African society, and researchers have shown that young people are twice as likely as adults to be victims of at least one crime. As a result schools are frequently perceived as places associated with harm and fear. This paper sets out to briefly explore the policy context, describe some of the shooting incidents and considers some ways of addressing accidental shootings in school. While there are many concerns related to school violence, this paper focuses on accidental shootings. Some simple steps are proposed to make students more aware of potential tragedies associated with guns. • Schools should have periodic talks or lectures about the lethality of guns, especially with boys and students should be made aware of the incidents that have occurred in schools. • Parents must be made aware that many youths get guns from home. Guns need to be locked-up, or not owned at all. Parents must be made aware in writing that they can be held responsible if a gun is taken from home by a youth and brought to school. • Students should be made aware of the importance of immediately reporting if they see a gun or suspect that a student has a gun. This should be done periodically throughout the school year. These steps cannot guarantee a gun-free school or that gun-related violence will not occur; rather, they are steps that are useful in helping to prevent a tragedy, as they raise awareness and communication about guns in school. Keywords: school shootings, school violence, school safety, crime prevention South African Psychiatry Review Vol. 9(4) 2006: 216-219

Constitutional deliberation in Congress: the impact of judicial review in a separated system

In Constitutional Deliberation in Congress J. Mitchell Pickerill analyzes the impact of the Supreme Court’s constitutional decisions on Congressional debates and statutory language. Based on a thorough examination of how Congress responds to key Court rulings and strategizes in anticipation of them, Pickerill argues that judicial review—or the possibility of it—encourages Congressional attention to constitutional issues. Revealing critical aspects of how laws are made, revised, and refined within the separated system of government of the United States, he makes an important contribution to “constitutionalism outside the courts” debates. Pickerill combines legislative histories, extensive empirical findings, and interviews with current and former members of Congress, congressional staff, and others. He examines data related to all of the federal legislation struck down by the Supreme Court from the beginning of the Warren Court in 1953 through the 1996–97 term of the Rehnquist Court. By looking at the legislative histories of Congressional acts that invoked the Commerce Clause and presented Tenth Amendment conflicts—such as the Child Labor Act (1916), the Civil Rights Act (1965), the Gun-Free School Zones Act (1990), and the Brady Bill (1994)—Pickerill illuminates how Congressional deliberation over newly proposed legislation is shaped by the possibility of judicial review. The Court’s invalidation of the Gun-Free School Zones Act in its 1995 ruling United States v. Lopez signaled an increased judicial activism regarding issues of federalism. Pickerill examines that case and compares congressional debate over constitutional issues in key pieces of legislation that preceded and followed it: the Violence Against Women Act of 1994 and the Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 1997. He shows that Congressional attention to federalism increased in the 1990s along with the Court’s greater scrutiny.

Zero Tolerance for Children: Two Wrongs Do Not Make a Right

The federal government, through the Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994 (GFSA), required states to enact zero tolerance legislation mandating school districts to expel students automatically for a period of one year if they brought weapons to school. Under threat of losing federal education dollars, states complied. In turn, school districts developed disciplinary policies that reflected state mandates. In Virginia, as in other states, concern has mounted that application of these policies sometimes results in inequitable and nonsensical treatment of children. In this paper, the evolution of zero tolerance policies is traced from their progenitor, the GFSA, to the school district level. Utilizing Virginia as an example for the emergent case law, this article illustrates the debate on zero tolerance consequences among which may deny students access to schooling and ultimately development as reflective members of a democratic society.

Surveillance of school violence, injury, and disciplinary actions

AbstractThe safety of America's schools is a major issue. Yet, the magnitude of the problem cannot be accurately assessed because some of the data concerning incidents and disciplinary actions come from reporting systems that are seriously flawed. In this article we examine how data from student self‐report surveys and other sources can be used to assess the weaknesses in current school incident‐reporting systems and improve the validity of surveillance data on school violence. Particular attention is paid to assessing the validity of data from Gun‐Free Schools Act (GFSA) reports on the number of guns in schools in light of nationally representative student survey data. We also discuss the difficulties of obtaining accurate surveillance data and suggest changes in surveillance systems that could produce more valid estimates of violence and injury in our nation's schools. © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

The Amended Gun-Free School Zones Act: Doubt as to Its Constitutionality Remains

The judicial decision making contemplated by the Constitution... unlike at least the politics of the moment, emphatically is not a function of labels. If it were, the Supreme Court assuredly would not have struck down the Gun-Free School Zones Act, the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1871, or the Civil Rights Act of 1875. And if it ever becomes such, we will have ceased to be a society of law, and all the codification of freedom in the world will be to little avail.'

The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994: Zero Tolerance Takes Aim at Procedural Due Process

The Gun-Free Schools Act of 1994: Zero Tolerance Takes Aim at Procedural Due Process

Kiyoko Kamio Knapp

Under our federalist system, the axiom has it, family law resides within the province of the states. This article disputes that axiom and seeks to arrive at a more precise understanding of the relationship between federalism and family. In its 1995 decision in United States v. Lopez, the Supreme Court invalidated the Gun-Free School Zones Act, a federal statute criminalizing handgun possession in proximity to a school yard. When Congress passed the Gun-Free School Zones Act, the Court held, it exceeded its authority under the Commerce Clause. Defending the need to impose limits on the scope of congressional power, the Court explained: [U]nder the Government’s. . .reasoning, Congress could regulate any activity that it found was related to the economic productivity of individual citizens: family law (including marriage, divorce, and child custody), for example. Under the theories that the Government presents. . .it is difficult to perceive any limitation on federal power. . . Family law, in the Court’s view, is the area of law paradigmatically suited to state control. Congressional regulation of family would signal the falling of the final outpost of federalism. It would mean that the powers of Congress were no longer enumerated, but had devolved into plenary police powers-the very spectacle of completely centralized sovereign control against which the framers of the Constitution struggled.

The Warfare on and over American Government in Waldonian Perspective

What's happened? Why is my government such a terrible thing? -- Congressman Henry Hyde, remarks on the House floor, April 2, 1996 From the perspective of Waldonian thought, war against American government challenges public administration to preserve and promote the integrity and capacity of government to pursue the constitutional and policy objectives and values for which it is responsible. To paraphrase James Madison in Federalist Paper 51, provision for defense must be commensurate to the danger of attack. Public administration should not succumb to a failure of nerve or to simplistic, grandiose, and mechanistic schemes of reform in the face of intellectual, political, emotional, and physical assaults. Waldonian thought is a strong provision for defense against the danger of attack and the superficial and mechanistic responses this war invites. In the war over and on government there are assertions, arguments, and actions to the effect that government does not, cannot, or should not carry out its constitutional and policy responsibilities. Differences in values and policy often are expressed as attacks on government. The war on and over government advances distrust of action by government. To use the words of the National Performance Review, government is broke and broken (Gore, 1993). In historical perspective, contemporary warfare on government might prove to be a phase in a modified version of Arthur Schlesinger Jr.'s interpretation of the cycles of American history (Schlesinger, 1987). In this interpretation the American public alternates between reliance on public and private action to address its concerns. Forms of Warfare The major forms and sources of warfare are constitutional and legal, economic, political, moral, media-exploitative, and nihilistic. The constitutional and legal form may be the least visible but the most important. This form has three levels. At the Supreme Court level, several justices -- in some cases a majority, in some a minority -- question the constitutionality of federal action in various forms. They raise questions that have long seemed settled. Whatever the intent, the effect is to bring into question the legitimacy of various kinds of federal policies and administration. Two cases are illustrative. In U.S. v. Lopez (131 L Ed 2d 626, 1995), five members held that the Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 exceeded Congress's authority under the commerce clause, only the second such holding in almost 60 years. In Seminole Tribe of Florida v. Florida (64 US Law Week 4167, 1996) five members held that Congress lacks power under the Indian commerce clause to abrogate states' Eleventh Amendment immunity from suit in federal court for violations of federally created rights. These cases raise uncertainty for established practices. The second level of legal warfare is a lack of emphasis on the rule of law in public administration (Moe and Gilmour, 1995) The basic documents of the National Performance Review (NPR) barely mention the role of the rule of law and constitutional values in the brave new world of administration the NPR envisions. The NPR ignores the purposes of government expressed in the Preamble to the Constitution, such as a more perfect union, justice, the general welfare, and liberty. It ignores such central values as due process and equal protection in administration. The NPR defines administration as pursuit of results -- excluding from its concept of results the realization of the fundamental values upon which the nation was founded, and upon which the legitimacy of government and public administration rests (Rohr, 1986). The third level of legal warfare is carelessness about or indifference to law, or worse, in the behavior of both political and career administrators. Whatever the merits or demerits of the behavior of government officials in the Ruby Ridge and Waco incidents, the record indicates an indifference to legal requirements and values in official reports and explanations of these events (Stern, 1996). …

Kids, Guns, and Homicide: Policy Notes on an Age-Specific Epidemic

Concern about the violent young offender is a cyclical phenomenon in the United States, usually lagging a few years behind general public alarm about rising crime rates. The sharp increase in violent crime in the United States between 1965 and 1974 occurred without any particular focus on adolescent offenders. After 1975 and until the beginning of the 1980s, however, youth crime and the young offender became the featured problem in public and legislative debates.1 The moral panic about drugs and drug control that was launched in the mid-1980s, like the reaction to the crime problem in the late 1960s, did not center on young offenders for a number of years. Since about 1993, however, the young offender and particularly the violent young drug offender has been a special target of public anxiety and governmental activity. One aspect of the attention young offenders are getting in the 1990s is brand new, rather than merely a cyclical recurrence. For the first time in modern history, middle-adolescent offenders are being identified as a high-risk and highusage group for firearms. The federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention now issues reports on reducing youth gun violence.2 Drive-by shootings, fear of guns, the demand for metal detectors in schools, proposals for special legislation, these are the youth violence soundbites of the 1990s. The most poignant reminder of the change in public focus was the passage of a federal law that established the creation of as a policy ambition of the national government.3 The sad part of this stated ambition is that gun-free schools were regarded as an accomplished fact for all of previously recorded American history. This essay is a brief examination of three dimensions of the juvenile firearms use epidemic of the period since 1985. Part II of the essay will examine the factual foundation for concerns about rising youth gun use. It will compare