I was in high school when teenagers attacked a school in Columbine, Colorado. It wasn’t the first gun violence in a school, but it was the first that had that level of press, and so, for many of us, the first we knew about.
In the last decade, they’ve been much more frequent, and especially brutal, including the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary that took the lives of more than two dozen people, including 20 children, aged 6 and 7, and Uvalde Elementary, where the 20 victims were between the ages of 9 and 11.
At last, statistics are showing the pattern beginning to reverse, although the numbers are still horrifyingly high.
What Is A School Shooting?
The exact definition of a school shooting can be hard to pin down. We’re talking about lives, not just those taken, but those affected by the trauma of losing classmates, or fearing for one’s own life in a place that should be safe.
However, the best tracking tools we have are the numbers, and the K-12 Shooting Database is the resource that records and counts every time that a gun is brandished on a school campus, and every time a bullet is fired. The statistics do include incidents that happen on campus or outside of school hours, with the understanding that all firearm incidents on school campuses are a risk.
To explain this, the collaborators of the database describe a 2018 incident during a football game at Palm Beach Central High School in Florida, which the local sheriff said shouldn’t be counted as a school shooting, since the shooter and victims were not students — but students and parents were affected, as they evacuated the property in fear for their lives.
How Many School Shootings Per Year?
By the definitions described above, there were 52 school shootings recorded in 2005 and 41 in 2015. The number leapt to more than 100 per year every year from 2018-2020, then even higher — 257 in 2021, 308 in 2022, and peaking at 350 in 2023.
In terms of calendar years, 2024 saw a slight dip to 337 shootings.
If we look at school years, rather than calendar years, the 2024-2025 year is also where we see the first dip. The three previous school years saw almost identical numbers, with 328, 327, and 328 incidents in the year, respectively, but the 2024-2025 school year had 254 incidents. That still amounts to an average of about three incidents per school day, so it’s not exactly time to breathe a big sigh of relief, but it does give us cause to hope that some of the measures being taken are working.
However, while the number of incidents has decreased, the number of victims remains high. In 2024, 267 victims were injured or killed in school shootings, up from 249 in 2023, and down from a peak of 273 in 2022.
Numbers Do Not Show Full Impact
As previously mentioned, we talk about school shootings in terms of numbers and statistics because they are measurable. They’re a tangible way to track changes over time, which is important if we want to try to understand the impact of legislation, security measures, and other changes.
However, the human impact is visible, even if it’s not as easy to measure.
Our kids are going to schools where they enter through metal detectors and have their backpacks searched. They’re walking past armed officers on their way to class. In the classroom, they’re enduring armed intruder drills, where they practice hiding silently and blocking doors with furniture.
While we don’t have exact numbers that tell us how much this impacts our kids, we do know that mental health struggles in kids are skyrocketing. A study released last December noted that kids born between 1997 and 2012 (Gen Z) report the highest rates of anxiety seen in generations. While that study examined factors including media exposure and social isolation, we may never pin down how much damage feeling unsafe at school can do.
Do We Know Why The Numbers Are Finally Dropping?
Unfortunately, a provision known as the Dickey Amendment bans the use of federal funds by the CDC to promote gun control measures, and has been interpreted as prohibiting the CDC from studying the effects of gun violence. Only in 2018 did Congress issue guidance saying that funding could be used to research gun violence, but it mustn’t have the aim of promoting any gun control legislation. That year’s spending bill clarified:
“While appropriations language prohibits the CDC and other agencies from using appropriated funding to advocate or promote gun control, the Secretary of Health and Human Services has stated the CDC has the authority to conduct research on the causes of gun violence.”
However, we do have at least some data. The CDC reports that data from 2019-2023 shows anonymous tip lines stopping 38 acts of violence on school campuses, and preventing six planned attacks. Data on the effects of metal detectors and school resource officers is less clear.
What Should Parents Do Now?
While the decrease in incidents is hopeful, it is by no means conclusive.
Parents, educators, communities, and legislators must work together to continue to push for measures that keep our kids safer. We can also continue to push for better studies, and more funding for studies, that examine the causes and effects of gun violence, and the safety measures that best prevent them.
We can continue having conversations with our kids about safety and mental health, and supporting educators and educational systems with the same aims. Families can work for gun safety at home. For families that own firearms, this includes safe storage, and for all families, this means teaching kids gun safety basics.
Most importantly, parents must stay engaged and aware. We should be paying attention to our kids’ mental health, to school policies and relevant legislation, and to the measures our communities take in both preventing and responding to violence.