Comment: Weapons message must get through

Jun 23 2008 Liverpool Daily Post

THE shocking reality of weapons in our schools is revealed in the Daily Post today, after an investigation taking six months.

Bombarded by headlines of our gun-toting youths and gang culture, it comes as no surprise to read that children have access to guns and knives.

Alarming as it is that 40% of call-outs were to schools with pupils under 11, it seems more worrying that Merseyside Police aren’t automatically called into schools when a weapon is found or used.

In the last two years, Merseyside Police statistics have one gun charge recorded – a public order offence for carrying a BB gun.

It is possible from the figures released that guns aren’t being taken into Mersey-side schools, but, as they only cover incidents on school grounds in school terms, are we getting the real picture?

The reality that children have access to the knowledge to build a petrol bomb is perhaps the most harrowing portrait of school yard violence.

How has society gone from “Tom Brown’s school days” to pupils seemingly using anything as a weapon from a pencil, eggs, scissors and a staple gun to attack fellow pupils and teachers?

Weapons were also used in eight counts of criminal damage. Pupils lashed out with a fire extinguisher, a rivet gun and snooker balls swung inside a sock.

But with Merseyside Police filing 27 weapons-related charges during 2006 and 2007, and Cheshire Police recording 21 incidents in 2007, do the figures make a mountain of a molehill?

Cheshire County Council say that, of the 79 weapons incidents recorded, only 40 occurred in council schools. Taking into account the borough’s 350 schools with 100,000 pupils, they class the incidents as rare.

The difficulty in relating figures from two police forces who record statistics differently adds to the confusion and lack of transparency into what’s really happening in our schools.

The only certain conclusion is that children need to be sent the right mes- sage, not only about the dangers of car- rying a weapon, but also the consequen- ces and criminal record they might face.