Kerre Woodham: Is there a way we can regulate weapons in schools?

This morning we thought we'd start with the fact that more and more kids, it seems, are bringing weapons to school,

And we're not talking about the States, we're talking about New Zealand. Figures released under the Official Information Act show that 526 students were stood down, suspended or excluded for using or having a weapon at school last year.

That's 80 percent more than in 2018, when there were around 300 students disciplined. Schools differ from what they define as a weapon. There's no one category for what a weapon might be, or how a weapon is being used, it differs school by school, but nonetheless, things that can be perceived as weapons are being brought to school by our schoolchildren.

And we're talking primary aged children as well as intermediate and secondary and there are 80 percent more objects that could be used as weapons being carried into school. Mike, this morning when he was discussing this story, he said - surely this is nothing new. He took a knife to school when he was a boy, ostensibly to peel an apple but it was also to show it off. He didn't mean any harm by bringing it to school.

Louise Anaru, with whom he was having the conversation, the principal of Kaitaia College and the President of the Secondary Principals Association agreed with Mike that that may well be the case today and that may well be the reason why a number of these kids are bringing weapons to school, but young people need to be aware of unintended consequences.

"In my experience, in the situations I've come across, there hasn't been intent  - but I've still taken it really seriously in those contexts because it's important to get the message out that that can cause harm and to take a real strong stance on it, just because of the risk involved. There isn’t intent, but in the worst case scenario it can cause serious harm to our young people."

That was Louise Anaru talking to Mike Hosking on the Mike Hosking Breakfast this morning. I would love to think that it is a case of show and tell. Of ‘oh my God, look what my uncle brought me back from Switzerland - a  Swiss army knife’.

But looking through the Newswires, I wonder. Here's a sample from last year, just when you Google. A teenage boy suffered a serious injury to his face during an alleged assault at his East Auckland School. The attack left him with severe facial injuries that required immediate surgery.

Police are seeking a person of interest after a schoolboy was left with serious facial injuries and an assault on a bus in Auckland's Pakuranga. The boy had three teeth knocked out in the assault, while three others were damaged. 

Here’s a third - an Ashburton family whose son is still recovering after being attacked at school, and say they're also dealing with having been exploited as migrants to New Zealand.

The Year 9 Ashburton College student was left with a fractured eye socket and neck injury and concussion after being allegedly assaulted in class by another student. These are serious attacks.

If these were adults who were perpetrating the acts and the attacks they’d be looking, certainly at a conviction.

In the olden days, it would have been a short stint in gaol, but here it would probably be home detention for that kind of assault, an unprovoked assault on an unarmed person. You know you are talking a serious crime.

And that's only three of them - there are many, many more I could give you from last year, and there are some this year, way more than I ever imagined, and way more serious than I ever imagined.

Maybe kids are bringing weapons to school because they're in fear of their blooming lives. Both on the way to school and while in the playground. If they are being tormented, maybe they feel a show of strength will make the other kids back off.

I would love to know more about the circumstances of it, given that there are different interpretations of what a weapon might be school by school. Given that there are different punishments as a result of bringing a weapon to school. These figures are just an indication they don't tell us anything.

What do you do when you have a child who is being tormented? Not just bullied but tormented and assaulted to the point that they're concussed, they have skull fractures, they lose teeth. It's boys and girls as well. I could have given you some girl’s ones, but I was running out of time.

Do we need to pat down the kids on arrival at school, make them hand them their weapons along with their cell phones? I mean addressing the broader issue of bullying in schools - well, good luck with that because there's been bullying for as long as kids have gathered together in one place at one time.

As long as adults have gathered together in one place at one time. What's happening in the Middle East can be seen as a form of bullying. But trying to mitigate the harm that angry, fearful people can do to one another would be a very good start. 

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