In the last school year, the number of school shootings increased dramatically
Students protest gun violence with strikes after Texas shooting
Following a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, students in at least 34 states and Washington, DC, walked out of their schools to protest gun violence.
USA TODAY
The morning after two teenagers were shot outside her daughter’s school in Nashville, Tennessee, Jeannie Hunter told her 13-year-old she could skip school if she didn’t feel safe there.
To Hunter’s shock, the girl replied, “Murder happens every day,” adding that gun violence was not a good excuse to miss a day of school.
Hunter was scared, sad, and angry that such a brutal crime had been committed in the campus parking lot. When she heard her daughter’s reaction, she thought, “This is the world we left for our children.”
Six months later, Hunter still worries about her daughter’s safety, especially on days when school shootings are in the news, she said.
As students head back to school, some parents are quietly waiting for their children to return, fearful and concerned about their children’s safety on campus. Their concerns are not unfounded, according to new data obtained by USA TODAY that shows gun violence in schools is on the rise.
The findings, released Friday by the nonprofit Everytown for Gun Safety and David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, are unique because they take into account not just mass school shootings you’ve heard about in the news, in which people were killed or injured on campus, but also those in which gunfire disrupted classes. The data suggest we look at the full picture of schools plagued by guns and children exposed to gunfire, not just the worst incidents involving deaths and injuries.
The study found a 31 percent increase in school shootings last school year compared to the previous year. It found that the 2023-24 school year had the second-highest number of incidents since Everytown began tracking school gun violence more than a decade ago. The 2021-2022 school year – when children first returned to campus after pandemic-related closures – saw the highest number of campus gun violence incidents.
The Everytown and Riedman researchers reviewed media reports on shootings at U.S. schools and found that there were at least 144 incidents of gun violence last school year. They defined gun violence as any time a gun was fired on campus. The violence resulted in the deaths of 36 people and 86 injuries. According to the data, 45 children suffered gunshot wounds on campus last school year.
The rise in gun violence on school campuses coincides with a decline in violent crime. Recent data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation show a decline in the murder rate across the country.
Why have there been more school shootings in the last year?
The reasons for the documented increase in shootings on school campuses are unclear.
Riedman, a researcher involved in the project and creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, attributes the increase to “easy access to firearms.”
Others attribute the problem to a lack of security in schools and the mental health of young people who end up bringing weapons to school.
Odis Johnson, executive director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Safe and Healthy Schools, said while it’s possible that more guns are being brought into schools, the increase in shootings documented by Everytown could also mean that cases of gun violence are being better prosecuted today than in the past.
How can we reduce gun violence in schools?
The Republican-led legislatures of Tennessee and Iowa passed laws this year allowing teachers to carry firearms on school grounds, arguing that educators have a responsibility to protect children when there is a threat on school grounds. More than two-thirds of states allow educators to carry firearms, according to data from the nonprofit Giffords Law Center To Prevent Gun Violence.
Many supporters of Everytown for Gun Safety’s work, however, oppose the idea of arming teachers or holding school shooting drills that teach students how to respond if a shooter enters school grounds. Many also oppose the presence of armed police and security guards on their school campuses.
Sarah Burd-Sharps, director of research projects at Everytown for Gun Safety, fears that with more guns in the possession of teachers, “the risk of gun violence in schools would be greater than ever.”
Burd-Sharps said these solutions proposed by gun rights activists “carry higher risks and often cause harm.”
The 2023-24 school year also stood out in the Everytown results as the year with the highest number of police shootings and accidental shootings on campus. Accidental shootings are cases in which a weapon is accidentally fired.
The organization has its own solutions to the campus gun violence crisis. It recommends that states raise the age limit for purchasing semi-automatic firearms, enact and enforce laws to ensure safe storage of firearms, and require background checks on all gun sales.
Survivor of student shooting: “We have normalized this crisis for too long”
Students may be sitting in math class or chatting in the cafeteria when a shooter enters their school campus.
Rebekah Schuler was in the hallway of her high school in Michigan on November 30, 2021, when she heard gunshots from across the hall. A 15-year-old student was found guilty of killing four classmates and injuring six others at the school near Detroit.
Schuler survived the shooting, but the trauma of that day is still felt and resurfaces “day after day,” she said.
Three years later, Schuler, 18, works as an advocate for Everytown, calling on states to pass laws requiring background checks for handguns, secure firearm storage and other measures to protect children.
“We have normalized this crisis for too long, but it doesn’t have to stay that way,” Schuler said.
Students like Schuler who saw, heard or felt the impact of the shooting at their school may experience flashbacks, anxiety and depression, says Rachel Masi, a clinical psychologist who treats young people in New York and works as a research consultant for Sandy Hook Promise. And the children may not know how to talk about their feelings, reacting instead with anger or irritability.
As the school year begins, it’s probably common for students to view fear of gun violence as normal, Masi said, because that’s the reality they grew up with in the United States.
“Part of that normalization comes from them being in this survival mode,” she said. “They know they have to go to school and they think, ‘How am I going to get through that door?’ They distance themselves or say, ‘I have to get over this fear. I have to keep going.'”
La-Shanda West, who teaches social studies in Miami-Dade County Public Schools in Florida, and other educators are preparing to protect children from gunshots this year.
West is working with Sandy Hook Promise and her local teachers union to raise awareness about gun violence prevention. She wants people to understand this school year that “gun violence is preventable” and that anyone who suspects a gun threat or violence on school grounds should report it to authorities.
“This is not the life I want for her”
In Tennessee, where teachers are allowed to carry guns in schools, Hunter, the Nashville mother, worries that gun violence is “not getting better, it’s getting worse.”
She doesn’t want her children to be near a gun, no matter who is carrying it. And she doesn’t want them to witness a crime scene on school grounds like what happened to her daughter and her classmates.
“This is not the life I want for her,” Hunter said. “I don’t want her to say this happens every day. I want her to say, ‘Oh, this is terrible.'”
Contact Kayla Jimenez at [email protected]. Follow her on X at @kaylajjimenez.
