Efforts to keep Connecticut schools safe have escalated since a lone gunman walked into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown last year and shot to death 20 first-graders and six adults. But not all threats to school safety come from outside the building.
A Courant examination of state records, coming in Sunday’s Hartford Courant and on courant.com, revealed that hundreds of Connecticut public schools reported incidents involving weapons in the 2011-2012 school year. The weapons included at least 16 handguns and at least two rifles or shotguns.
Sunday’s report will include an online database of every school that reported an incident involving a weapon and a list of weapons reported at each school.
In the 2011-2012 school year, more than 400 knives were confiscated. There were also at least 37 box cutters, 20 razor blades, 17 switchblades, eight swords or machetes and six stun guns.