A Study of Occasional and Intensive Weapon Carrying Among Adolescents Using a Nationally Representative Sample

• Author: Ilhong Yun,EuiGab Hwang
• DOI: 10.1177/1541204011400451
• Published date: 01 October 2011
• Date: 01 October 2011
• Subject Matter: Articles

A Study of Occasional and

Intensive Weapon Carrying

Among Adolescents Using a

Nationally Representative

Sample

Ilhong Yun

1

and EuiGab Hwang

2

Abstract

This study employed the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescents (Add Health) data, a nationally

representative sample of adolescents. The focus of the study was to examine whether similar risk

factors underlie both occasional and intensive adolescent weapon carrying. Multinomial logistic

regression analyses revealed that the characteristics of the two types of weapon carriers are

largely overlapping but with some disparities. In addition, this study revealed a strong effect of

prior victimization on the probability of weapon carrying, employing a victimization measure that

included only serious and violent victimization experiences.

Keywords

weapon carrying, delinquency, multinomial logistic regression, add health

Introduction

Contrary to lay people’s perception, extremely violent victimizations on American school grounds

are rare (Miller, 2003; Snyder & Sickmund, 2006). The odds of a student being killed at school

is estimated to be only about one-in-a-million (Brooks, Schiraldi, & Ziedenberg, 2000; Lawrence

& Mueller, 2003). However, this is not to say that all schools in America are safe.

According to the Uniform Crime Reports, a total of 1,554 juveniles under the age of 18 were

killed in 2007; more than half (52%) were killed by firearms (Federal Bureau of Investigation,

2008). Although the majority of juvenile homicides are attributable to firearms, weapons such as

knives and other sharp objects also pose a great danger to adolescents; wounds from stabbings far

outnumber firearms-related injuries by over 300%(Simon, 1996). The National Center for Educa-

tion Statistics (2008) showed that some 19%of students in Grades 9 to 12 reported that they had

1

Department of Police Administration, Chosun University, South Korea

2

Department of Police Administration, Kyonggi University, Suwon, Kyonggi, South Korea

Corresponding Author:

Ilhong Yun, Department of Police Administration, Chosun University, 375 Seosuk-dong Dong-gu, Gwangju 501-759, South

Korea

Email: IlhongYun@boisestate.edu

Youth Violence and JuvenileJustice

9(4) 366-382

ªThe Author(s) 2011

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DOI: 10.1177/1541204011400451

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carried a weapon, such as a gun, knife, or club, anywhere in the community, and about 6%reported

that they had carried a weapon on school property in 2005.

Given the particularly serious consequences of violence involving weapons such as guns and

knives, the last two decades have witnessed a burgeoning literature on students’ weapon-carrying

practices on school campuses (Cao, Zhang, & He, 2008; Malek, Chang, & Davis, 1998; Rountree,

2000; Sheley & Wright, 1995; Steinman & Zimmerman, 2003; Wilcox & Clayton, 2001). While the

accumulating body of research has greatly contributed to our knowledge and subsequently informed

various school safety policies, we point out that many of these studies did not attempt to differentiate

adolescents who carry weapons to school intensively from those who do so only occasionally.

That is, by modeling weapon carrying as binary (i.e., ‘‘never’’ vs. ‘‘one or more’’), most researchers

have failed to examine potentially different risk factors underlying between occasional weapon

carrying and more intensive weapon carrying. Research in delinquency and crime has uncovered

decades ago that differential etiology underlies between episodic, adolescent-limited delinquents

and life-course persistent adolescents (Farrington, 1991; Loeber, 1982; Moffitt, 1993). In a similar

vein, we argue that adolescent weapon carriers might be distinguished into two different groups—

occasional and intensive.

To date, there exists only one study (Steinman & Zimmerman, 2003) that has differentiated inten-

sive gun carriers from episodic carriers. The results of the study indicate that predictors of intensive

gun carriers are a subset of predictors of episodic gun carriers. Thus, they conclude that episodic and

intensive gun-carrying differ only by a matter of degree and not by quality, suggesting that similar

prevention and intervention strategies could be brought to bear on both patterns of gun carrying.

Although Steinman and Zimmerman’s study is a meaningful step forward in the weapon-carrying

literature, the generalizability of their findings is limited: their sample consists of only 705 African

American public high school students from a single city in the Midwest, and the weapon of interest

was limited only to guns. As suggested by Cao et al. (2008), the majority of studies on adolescent

weapon carrying are local in nature in terms of the samples employed and focused largely on at-risk

youths, such as minority adolescents from inner cities or adolescents from poor communities.

Although such studies are important in their own right, an investigation of a nationally representative

sample of youths might produce more generalizable outcomes. The purpose of the current study is to

contribute to the growing body of literature by examining whether different risk factors underlie

occasional versus intensive weapon carriers. Also we employ the National Longitudinal Study of

Adolescent Health (Add Health) data from a nationally representative sample of adolescents in

Grades 7 to 12 aiming at reaching a more generalizable conclusion than those produced by most prior

studies. If it is revealed that distinct processes influence occasional and intensive weapon-carrying

practices,then it may be recommended to tailorseparate prevention andintervention strategiesaccord-

ingly. Further,such a refined finding can serve as a valuable addition to the existing knowledge base.

Models of Students’ In-School Weapon Carrying

Unlike the relatively well-established criminological theories explaining the etiology of crime and

delinquency, a comprehensive a priori theory of adolescents’ weapon carrying is lacking. Instead, a

constellation of factors derived from diverse—often competing—theoretical backgrounds have been

employed to explain the etiology of weapon carrying.

Protection Model

Often referred to as the fear and loathing hypothesis (Wright, Rossi, & Daly, 1983), the protection

model suggests that victimization, fear, and subsequent desire to protect oneself are the key moti-

vators of weapon carrying. Adolescents who are victims of crime and those who become fearful

Yun and Hwang 367