Students and family members reunite at Shoultes Gospel Hall after a student opened fire at Marysville-Pilchuck High School, in Marysville, Washington, October 24, 2014. (Reuters)
There have been at least 150 school shootings in the United States since 2013, an average of nearly one per week, according to the group, Everytown for Gun Safety.
The advocacy group created the map below showing the locations of those shootings.
To create the map, “school shooting” was defined as, “anytime a firearm is discharged inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement”.
Flowers are left at a memorial outside Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Oregon, Oct. 3, 2015. The gunman who killed his English professor and eight others at an Oregon community college committed suicide after a shootout with police. (Reuters)
Instances in which guns were taken to school but were not fired, or were fired off school grounds after having been on school grounds, are not included on the map.
In a 2014 report, Everytown for Gun Safety found that in 70 percent of the incidents, the shooters were minors and that nearly two-thirds of these perpetrators used guns they’d gotten from home. One-third of the shootings happened after a verbal argument or other confrontation.
Critics, such as John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, take issue with Everytown’s numbers.
“A number of fact checks have found significant mistakes in Everytown’s report,” Lott said in an email. “Among their mistakes, they include: shootings that are off of school property and do not involve people who have anything to do with the school, legitimate self defense gun uses, and gang shootings and lone suicides that were well outside of school hours that do not involve anyone connected to the school.”
Deadly school shootings can have a profound impact on schools and student performance, according to a recent analysis.
Louis-Philippe Beland of Louisiana State University and Dongwoo Kim of the University of Missouri found that enrollment in 9th grade — the first year of high school — drops following a deadly shooting, but the numbers of students in the other grades do not.
Beland and Kim also found that standardized test scores in math and English drop for up to 3 years following a deadly shooting. Previous research suggests exposure to trauma can damage the hippocampus, a part of the brain that’s thought to be the center of memory and emotion.
The negative effects can last long after the students’ school years. Research shows adolescent victims of violence are more likely to suffer from depression as adults.
Map from Everytown for Gun Safety
There several incidents included which happened during the summer break or night time hours when kids aren’t in school. After sporting events shouldn’t count as there are routinely non-students on campus or campus grounds when these happen. We know there are more shootings, but there is really no need to inflate the numbers even more. Let’s be accurate and include only incidents which happen during regular school hours.
Your post makes no sense. Have you never heard of summer classes? Or night classes at colleges? My guess is that you haven’t been to a school in a very long time.
Every single one of your suggestions reeks of excuse-making and bias. You pretend to be so concerned about inflated numbers, but you’re certainly okay with deflating the numbers, aren’t you? The data here is solid, period!
Your assumptions are troubling since we don’t know each other. My point is, this is misleading. People see “school shootings” in a headline and the reasonable assumption is that kids are in danger. Of the cases I alluded to, one happened at 2am and another was around 10pm (doubtful classes were going on during those hours regardless of the time of year). Another was on a Sunday afternoon (again no students). Mass shootings are on the rise, that isn’t the question. School shootings are increased as well, let’s just be accurate and on the same page as to what a school shooting actually is.
Agreed 100%.
I’m so tired of mis-information, purposely intended to hook me emotionally. There is plenty of emotion on this issue. Don’t invalidate it with false stats. Don’t insult our intelligence.
Odd. This shows two shootings in Utah, but I can find no report of a school shooting in Utah since 1989. And in that one the bullet missed. The last death was in 1920. Maybe they are counting suicides on school grounds. Those don’t get reported widely.
This is very misleading. The two in Utah were 1) An attempted suicide in Provo and 2) a teacher accidentally shot herself in the leg in a restroom.
God bless the dead
I hope the US government to reduce the spread of terrible weapons Thanks
Sorry the US Govt, like the state govts, are constrained by the Constitution. We have constitutional law in our country.
Having the courage to change some articles in US constitution shouldn’t be viewed as unconstitutional or un-American!
What’s a terrible weapon?
Would be nice if we could click the dot to pull up the data.
Provide education to children on the harm and side effects that may be caused by firearms, US government should lay a policy to rectify the supply and use of weapons in Public.
This will safe guard the victims in dangers.
Protect students in school, work on precautions and safety.
From
Deo.
According to FBI data, gun violence is down & has been decreasing since the 1990s, including in recent years, even as the rate of firearm ownership in America has increased. School shootings are statistically rare as compared to other shootings. According to the FBI, most shootings occur at home. There were more shootings in restaurants than in school.
The gun violence data includes suicides and about half the people killed by guns each year are suicides. So it’s misleading to cite a figure showing all gun deaths & letting readers believe that all gun deaths are murders.
The 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to keep & bear arms & that was upheld by the Supreme Court in DC v. Heller. You may not agree w/ this opinion but it is the law. The govt cannot ban all guns and the govt must show why a proposed gun control law is necessary & does not violate the 2nd Amend. The burden is on the govt, not the other way around.
There is no evidence that increased gun control decreases gun violence. In fact, after Chicago & DC imposed their handgun bans (later struck down as unconstitutional), gun violence in those cities increased.
Mentally ill people were the perpetrators in nearly all of the recent mass shootings but none of the gun control advocates are talking about how to help mentally ill people or prevent them from becoming violent.
Alcohol kills more Americans than guns, according to the CDC, so maybe we should ban alcohol? Oh wait, we tried that. Look how well that turned out.
To create the map, “school shooting” was defined as, “anytime a firearm is discharged inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement”.
Pretty much right there in the story, you should try reading it.
The map doesn’t reflect all the shootings in the United State. If it did it would be red all over. The GOP’s Answer is more Gun and no back ground checks for the insane! Shoot um up bang, bang. This country is out of control and the Chumps, Cruses, and Christy, and the rest of the clowns that are getting money from the NRA and by the way most members of the NRA think the leaders of it don’t represent them. The Gun manufactures control the NRA. Sell more guns! We are on the eve of Destruction!
In view of the comments I have read thus far, I would first like to add that when presenting data on a public platform with such sensitivities attached to the subject, it is always better to be as accurate with the information as possible. It adds much more credibility to your point on the subject matter and alleviates time spent on refuting or questioning the facts. Please note that I am not implying that the figures are incorrect or correct as I have not done the research myself. I just wanted to make a general statement regarding accuracy of data.
In saying that, whether the shootings happened during school hours or not is a moot point. The basis of the article and the ensuing map is an attempt to convey that there is a real problem with gun voilence in our schools. Hence, the debate shouldn’t be about whether the data is 100% accurate or not but should be centered around a discussion on how we reduce these numbers of incidents in real time on the ground, in real numbers.
The author of the article should be commended as opposed to being critiqued as at least she is doing something positive and we are now having a discussion about it. Bringing the focus on these delicate topics and continued dialogue is a path to bring about change.
In reference to the comment that the article is misleading as it suggests that our kids are in danger, I think that perceived danger to our kids can be viewed as a matter of personal perspective from parent to parent. I would think that my child was is in danger in lets say the Florida state school system based on the map but a parent might not feel that way in North Dakota. Irrespective of whether or not the numbers are 100% accurate or whether there should be only half the amount of those red dots on the map or not. The fact is that this happens far too frequently across the board and yes, based on the evidence, frequency and the scale of some of these incidents, our kids are in danger.
Far too much time have been spent on some of the comments debating numbers. We should use this platform to discuss ways of reversing this dangerous and growing trend of gun violence in our schools and communities on a whole. Comments such as the one made by Deo Issack is a valid suggestion and a great way to start.
I will leave the discussion of gun control and the legalities and moralities surrounding gun laws to minds who are far more qualified on the subject than I am. I hope in the end decision makers will make the necessary changes and take the precautions that will make our schools a much safer place than they are now.