I would like to formally apologize for a mistake I made in my gun control views piece in the most recent issue of The Claw.

I used a statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and wrote that 5.3 percent of students had taken a firearm onto school campus within 30 days of taking the survey. However, I misread the information and did not discover the error until after publication.

The study results actually showed that 5.3 percent of students had carried a firearm in general within the 30 days prior to taking the survey but not strictly on school campuses. What I should have written was that 4.1 percent of students had carried a weapon to school within 30 days of taking the survey, which not only includes firearms, but also knives and clubs. This is a significant difference from what I originally wrote.

However, my point still stands. Had my statistic been accurate, it would have made my article much stronger and hard-hitting. Even though the number is lower than I interpreted, 4.1 percent is still a high number for students bringing weapons to school, firearm or not.

I am a high school journalist, and I made a mistake, as have many professional journalists before me. And like a professional journalist, I will acknowledge the mistake I made in my piece.