Bullied victims are more likely to carry weapons to school - study

A grim finding from a study based on Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data revealed that kids who had been bullied are the most likely to bring some kind of weapon in schools, a report by CBS 5 News Channel said.

The study, which analyses a detailed survey of 15,000 students in high schools who had been questioned about bullying, pointed to data, which said that one-fifth of the students surveyed had claimed that they fell victims to bullying in the last 12 months. A more disconcerting finding in the report to researchers was an estimated 250,000 bullied students had been carrying guns, clubs or knives in schools in efforts to protect themselves from their bullies within the last 30 days of the survey being conducted.

Senior investigator Dr. Andrew Adesman of the Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, who led the study, said, "They're telling us that there's practically one child in every classroom that's carrying a weapon. This is a group that's not only traumatized psychologically, and they worry for themselves physically, but they also pose a threat to the rest of the student body."

Adelman's team identified the following factors that would lead to students bringing weapons to school: unsafe conditions on the way or in school, experienced having property stolen or damaged, experienced being threatened or injured with a weapon, and was involved in a physical fight. The study also revealed that students from the lower grades, who are female and white are majority of the victims who had been bullied.

Although education authorities along with schools has launched measures and campaigns to prevent bullying scenarios, there has been few legislature support that would increase protection of bullied victims in schools. Recently, the state of Massachusetts has enacted a law that protects Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender (LGBT) students by requiring schools to carry out specific protective measures into real-world applications in more vulnerable populations to be backed up with a four-year study that would track the progress of such efforts, School Library Journal said. It has been noted that Massachusetts is the 17th state in the US who has passed legislation to increase anti-bullying protection in schools.

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Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Cohen Children's Medical Center of New York, Massachusetts

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