Report: Guns only a fraction of all weapons found in Pa. schools
Safety infractions in Pennsylvania schools number the tens of thousands every year, but the number of gun possessions among its millions of students since the Columbine High School massacre in April 1999 has paled in comparison to the number of other weapons that were found, according to state reports.
School Safety Reports issued annually by the Pennsylvania Department of Education document 842 types of firearms found in schools since the start of the 1999 school year to the close of the school year in 2017, while there were more than 50,500 knives and other weapons (cutting instrument, explo-
sive, BB/pellet gun and other) were reported in that same timeframe. Firearms represent only 1.6 percent of all weapon possessions.
At a local level, Delaware County numbers trend similarly in that timeframe, with 37 firearms found compared to 1,627 other weapons. Firearms represented 2.2 percent of all weapon possessions in county schools.
Going further, nine firearm possessions are collectively listed from 1999 to 2002. Separate entries for handguns and other firearms represented 14 illegal weapon offenses, each, up to 2017, but no rifles/shotguns were ever founded in the schools.
Knives were always the highest illegal weapon found in the state and the county with approximately 30,000 and 850 reports, respectively.
On the whole, safety infractions and firearm/ weapon possession may have already reached their plateaus as their numbers trend downward, or fluctuate in a specific range.
Safety incidents, which include assaults, harassment, property crimes, and weapon offenses, are recorded as well. Approximately 82,000 statewide incidents were recorded in each of the school years ending in 2007, 2008 and 2009. Delco peaked in this area in 2009-10 with 2,960 while slowly decreasing to an average of about 2,250 for each of the last five years.
Currently, students who are in possession of a weapon on school property may be expelled for not less than one year.
County officials took charge following the Sandy Hook massacre in late 2012 to prevent such events by installing the Delaware County Panic Alarm School System (Del-PASS) in every single county school in 2013 to alert authorities to emergency situations. County Council Chairman John McBlain said last week that it was used once in 2015 for a stabbing at the Jack M. Barrack Hebrew Academy in Radnor.