Guns Are Fake, but Risk Real : Schools: Educators find more students carrying look-alike weapons on campuses, and warn of potentially fatal mistakes.

A jealous high school student, eager to stop another teen-ager from flirting with his girlfriend, warns him to stay away by opening his jacket to reveal a handgun tucked into his pants.

A teen-ager leaving campus for lunch with a carload of friends extends a pistol from the window and points it at students in the parking lot.

And a middle-school student, tired of the taunts and shoves from bullies on the morning bus ride, slips a gun into his waistband before boarding.

Those gun threats occurred in Irvine this school year, frightening students, police and school officials even though each of the handguns turned out to be real-looking fakes.

More students, officials say, are bringing look-alike handguns to school with an attitude that they’re not as bad as carrying the real thing.

Schools officials in Irvine have confiscated seven look-alike handguns this school year, the highest number reported by a school district in Orange County. A couple of years ago, simulated handguns were unheard of at Irvine schools, officials said.

The increase prompted the school superintendent and the Irvine police chief to send a letter to parents in December, warning of the very real dangers posed by handgun replicas.

Officials in other school districts say they also are catching students bringing fake guns onto campus, though less frequently than Irvine.

Tustin school officials took one from a freshman this school year, and Huntington Beach school officials said they confiscated their first realistic-looking handgun from a high school student last week. Fake handguns were also taken from students this year in the Fullerton Joint Union High School District and the Capistrano Unified School District.

Officials in other districts with high schools said they do not have statistics for this year or, as in Garden Grove Unified’s case, refused to release information on weapon-related incidents.

Most school district officials said they are still seeing more real guns than fake ones. Santa Ana Unified School District, for instance, confiscated 15 real handguns from students last school year but found just four look-alike guns.

In the 640,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, officials said they confiscated about half a dozen replica handguns last school year, compared to more than 200 real guns taken from students at the district’s 650 schools.

Replica handguns include everything from real-looking squirt guns to BB guns to fake handguns designed specifically to duplicate actual models.

“They look exactly like the real thing, except they don’t shoot,” said Eric Bianchi, an Irvine police investigator who handles juvenile crimes.

The realistic-looking guns can be purchased by mail from companies advertising in gun magazines, although California prohibits their sale except for theatrical use, a public display or for military and civil defense exercises.

School officials said students who take look-alike guns to school do so for the same reason students bring real guns--to offer an aura of protection or bravado. Other times, students bring fake guns just to show friends.

“I think some of the kids are carrying them because they truly are scared,” Bianchi said. “Ten years ago, kids used to say ‘I’ll beat the crap out of you.’ Nowadays they say, ‘I’m going to get my gun and kill you’ or ‘I’m gonna get my homeboys . . . and kill you.’ ”

Other times, Bianchi said, students take the fakes to school as a toy to show friends. That was the case with the replica handgun taken from a Tustin high school freshman last fall.

“It was a ninth-grader at high school who hadn’t left the fifth-grade kind of thing,” said Brad Lantz, director of student services for the Tustin Unified School District.

The teen-ager took the look-alike gun to school and later gave it to another student, who carried it around school in his belt, Lantz said. Neither student used it in any threatening manner, he said, but both students were disciplined.

In Huntington Beach last week, school officials took a replica handgun from a high school student who had been carrying it in his backpack. It turned out to be a cigarette lighter, said John Myers, assistant superintendent, but “it looks identical to a semiautomatic pistol.”

Huntington Beach high school officials have seen other fake handguns on campus, such as BB and pellet guns, he said, but never one as realistic as the one seized last week. The student did not threaten anyone with it, but was turned in by other students who saw it.

Students caught with replica guns often insist they did nothing wrong because they’re only toys, said Anthony Dalessi, director of child welfare and attendance for the Santa Ana Unified School District.

“But we try to get the point across that, ‘Is it a toy to a gang member across the street or to a policeman?’ ” Dalessi said. “They don’t know it’s a toy gun from a distance. The police will be the first to tell you that. They can’t walk over and ask.”

Look-alike handguns, made out of metal and plastic with removable ammunition cartridges and slides that can be cocked back to simulate loading a bullet into the chamber, sell for $100 or more.

But schools are seeing cheap and easily available pellet guns or even black plastic squirt guns that look much like real weapons.

Santa Ana’s one look-alike handgun taken from a student this school year turned out to be a squirt gun, Dalessi said.

Some of the Irvine students caught with the handgun replicas said they chose them because they wanted others to believe they were armed but didn’t want to hurt anyone, said Paul Mills, director of child welfare and attendance.

“It’s a bravado issue--’See how brave I am, I’m carrying this gun,’ ” Mills said. “Yet the inward perception is I’m not doing something as wrong by having a fake one than a real one.”

School districts don’t think the same way.

As long as a fake handgun is used in a threatening manner, school districts said, they will expel students exactly as if they were carrying the real thing. The state Penal Code and Education Code outlaw brandishing simulated handguns. The Education Code also prohibits students from bringing any dangerous object to school.

Under a new weapons policy approved by the Los Angeles school board Monday, students caught with fake guns--including electric stun guns--will be expelled from school for at least two semesters.

Irvine schools want to end the popularity of the fake handguns because they create an aura of fear among students and can lead to violence, Mills said. A student who believes his rivals are carrying guns will want to get one too, he said.

“And when push comes to shove,” Mills said, “a real tragedy could occur.”

Times education writer Sandy Banks contributed to this story.