Report: Guns confiscated in Minnesota schools have skyrocketed since 2020

NINA MOINI: Data from the Minnesota Department of Education shows that the number of guns brought onto school grounds has skyrocketed since the start of the pandemic. That's what Minnesota Star Tribune reporters Mara Klecker and Jeff Hargarten found after looking at the numbers going back a quarter century.

They found out that all of the reports of guns in schools over the last 25 years, of those, 30% have happened since 2020. Wow. Jeff and Mara are on the line now to explain more. Thank you both for coming on and sharing your reporting with us. Really appreciate it.

JEFF HARGARTEN: Thanks for having us.

MARA KLECKER: Thanks for having us.

NINA MOINI: Jeff, I'd love to start with you. You looked at a lot of data, again, from the Department of Education here in the state. What were some of the most striking numbers that you saw there? We heard about that 30%.

JEFF HARGARTEN: Well, I'll start with saying that in these data or statistics-driven stories, they can start in a couple of places. Either we've got our data sets already, and we can ask it questions, or we have a question already and we find a data set to find it, or we have a data set and we ask it questions. In this case, we had a question already, which was whether or not there are more guns being brought to school, especially in the wake of the Annunciation shooting. And going into that with that mindset, we were able to extract the number of firearms.

And that was really the most striking thing to me because we see this kind of spike in gun-related crimes and gun proliferation after the pandemic in a lot of different spaces, particularly the public safety space. So to see it in the educational space is both alarming, but also somewhat expected, given that it's an echo of broader trends.

NINA MOINI: You mentioned the tragedy that happened at Annunciation Catholic School and Church, but generally, what patterns did you see about these incidents like this, Jeff, in terms of what was the weapon, how was it uncovered, motive, that type of thing?

JEFF HARGARTEN: Well, the data is not as detailed as we would like it to be. We have aggregate numbers of the types of weapons that were associated with disciplinary incidents in Minnesota schools, going back about 25 years. From that, we can determine whether or not there are handguns, whether or not it's long guns, like rifles.

And included in that, too, are categories like air guns, like BB guns, pellet guns, and then replica guns as well, which can all be used to threaten people or scare people or hurt people. And so we were able to break it down like that. And what we find is that the most striking number was just the number of handguns that are being brought to school now, far bigger than the pre-pandemic academic years.

NINA MOINI: And Mara, what are you learning about how students were tending to get a hold of those weapons?

MARA KLECKER: Yeah, again, like Josh said, the details of how kids got the guns or motive can't be revealed in this aggregate data. But in talking to school leaders, we really found out that this is a post-pandemic spike, in part because kids didn't feel safe traveling to and from school. And you can assume that maybe they got some of these handguns from home or out in the community. We don't have those answers in the data. But that's really what drove this spike, which is alarming.

NINA MOINI: Mara, did you ever have a sense that the numbers are higher because perhaps people are looking for guns more, or there's more of an effort around it? Or how do you factor in the last 20 years?

MARA KLECKER: Yeah, like Jeff mentioned, proliferation of guns in the community in the first years of the pandemic, I think that's driving some of these numbers as well. And that's really kind of bringing schools into this interesting space where they're trying to think of, do we have a responsibility to talk to parents and students about safe gun storage? Is that a responsibility that falls cleanly in the laps of school leaders? Maybe, maybe not.

But obviously, they're seeing the results of having more guns in the community and that trickling into the school. So lots of interesting questions that school leaders kind of have to tackle in realizing just how many guns are out there in the community.

NINA MOINI: Mara, did you get a sense that schools are doing more to try to catch the guns before they come onto campus? Or are they putting more resources toward that?

MARA KLECKER: Absolutely, yeah. The school leaders I talked to really emphasized this combination of both hardening and softening solutions. And hardening solutions are the real physical barriers-- a weapons detection system, safe and secure entrances, protocols in terms of figuring out who is coming into a school.

And then the softening solutions are the more preventative-oriented programs that school leaders are putting in place, where they're really trying to build relationships with kids and make sure that they're both identifying students that might be at risk for violence or bringing a weapon to school, but also building enough relationships so that they're hearing from peers who maybe are the first ones to know that a student may be carrying a gun or may be planning on bringing a weapon to school. So lots of different ways to both prevent and respond.

NINA MOINI: And just kind of building on that, Jeff, Mara's talking about efforts at school. We talked a little bit about parents and lawmakers. I mean, who else is tackling this issue? Whose responsibility is it?

JEFF HARGARTEN: I mean, that's kind of a root question. When we look at this kind of data, it frequently which can tell us who what, when, and where. It can't tell us how or why. And this is such a broad issue of firearms proliferating throughout our society. It is one of the more difficult things. We've written extensively about gun violence and about the availability of guns over the years. And it is just one of those systemic problems across the country.

And I mean, gun control is one of those constant sort of issues that's always at hand, especially after whenever there's a horrific mass shooting, whenever there's any kind of gun violence in schools. And it seems somewhat like maybe an intractable problem to some. And that is the existential question where if I had a good answer for that, I might be making-- I might be having a different career than I do now.

NINA MOINI: Right. Anything you would add to that, Mara?

MARA KLECKER: Yeah, I think Jeff said it well, but the theme that really came up in this reporting is that anyone in school really feels the weight of this. They feel the responsibility of keeping kids safe in school. And they also know that kids need to feel a sense of safety in order to learn.

And yet they're saying, we can't carry this weight and this responsibility on our own. We can't solve all of the issues in society even though we know that schools are a hub for all things good and bad in our community. And so they're feeling all of these community issues come to them. But they also are saying, well, it needs to come with a community-wide solution and plan to actually really make sure kids are feeling safe in all spaces.

NINA MOINI: Did you uncover anything that parents or students who are learning about this and maybe really alarmed could be doing or should be doing? We hear a lot of, oh, call your lawmakers or call your school board, but are there any other types of community-driven efforts that are going on, Mara?

MARA KLECKER: Yeah. One really interesting partnership between the St. Paul School District and the Violence Prevention Program out of Hamline University was really interesting because they're trying to understand their root-- they're doing research to try to understand the root causes of why students feel like they need to have a weapon on them.

And I think that sort of thinking and really identifying the root causes here and getting at that preventative piece is probably one of those kind of community-wide efforts and partnerships that I think can really help us understand possible solutions. And again, that takes partnership with school leaders, students, and then a group outside of the actual school district.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, trying to understand why this is happening, digging deeper. And I'll kick the last question to you, Jeff. With all of these questions that are out there, what's your reporting all of you going to be tackling next around this issue? I mean, this is a pretty big finding. It's kind of like, what do folks do with that? [LAUGHS]

JEFF HARGARTEN: Oh, exactly. And that is the question that was before me now, is like, what did the newest numbers look like? When we go back to these reports, we actually had to request a more recent year, '23, '24. We have yet to have '24, '25. And then soon enough, we're going to have '25, '26.

And seeing where that trend line goes based on these numbers-- and these are uniform reports, so we can make we can make apples-to-apples comparisons over time, for the most part. And seeing where that goes will be very interesting. When we look at other metrics of gun violence in this country and in the state, we do see things ebb a little bit in recent years. And so I'd be interested to see whether or not that's happening in our schools as well.

NINA MOINI: Yeah. Thank you both so much for sharing your reporting with us. Important stuff. Thanks for stopping by.

MARA KLECKER: Thanks.

JEFF HARGARTEN: Thank you.

NINA MOINI: That was Minnesota Star Tribune data reporter Jeff Hargarten and suburban K-12 schools reporter Mara Klecker.