"Guns have no place in the hands of our children or in the hallways and classrooms of their schools. Children should be able to go to school without fearing for their safety. Indeed, our schools should be safe havens - places where children are able to escape the violence that engulfs so many of their lives. The time has come to remove guns from the schools of America."

- Senator Feinstein, August 10, 1994

The Gun Free Schools Act, legislation introduced by Senators Feinstein and Byron Dorgan (D-ND) to set a "zero-tolerance" policy to keep America's schools gun free, was signed into law on October 22, 1994 as part of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1994. The goal of this measure was to remove firearms from all public schools in the United States by requiring school districts that receive federal funds to adopt a gun-free school policy and expel for one year students who carry a gun to school.

Each day in America, it is estimated that 100,000 guns are brought into schools.

According to the Centers for Disease Control, two in twenty-five high school students, or 7.9%, report having carried a gun in the last 30 days.

In Los Angeles, according to an ACLU survey conducted earlier this year, 49% of high school students said they have seen a weapon in school, many of them guns.

Gun Free Schools Act -- Three Years Since Enactment

In the first official assessment of the impact of the Gun Free Schools Act, a preliminary report from the U.S. Department of Education provides evidence that the legislation is working.

With reports in from 29 states and the District of Columbia, a total of 6,276 students were intercepted with dangerous weapons and expelled during the 1995-96 school year. Officials said that the overwhelming majority of the cases involved guns. According to the California Department of Education, there were 1,039 firearms related expulsions in public schools in California during the same period -- almost one for every school district in the state.

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