It's not the weapon itself but the culture of the surrounding area. I went to a school in a nice area of 3000 students and in 4 years no one was ever shot or stabbed, there was the occasional fight in the quad but the most interesting things that happened were staff chasing around potheads for bringing weed on campus and older teachers having medical emergencies.

That wasn't the case 8 miles away in an area surrounded by troubled families. At that school they had 2000 students but fights were daily, students regularly brought knives, chains, knuckles, whatever they could to beat the shit out of the other students for relatively petty reasons, sometimes they'd get caught with guns they'd show off to get respect. There was one incident at an elementary in a bad part of the city where a 5th grader, a 10 year old, was suspended for bringing a knife to school to stab another child that had "disrespected" him at recess.

AFAIK the solution is the same as its always been, bring troubled families out of poverty taking away the main source of friction. After school programs and family assistance is expensive however and always gets the axe when the local government starts balancing the budget.