Since the beginning of the year, the United States has witnessed a disturbingly high number of school shootings, 69 to be exact, as of October 28. College campuses bore the brunt of 24 of these shootings, whilst K-12 school grounds were scenes for the remaining 45. The aftermath of these violent acts has left a toll of 33 individuals dead and over 77 injured, as revealed through an analysis executed by CNN.
School shootings, for the purpose of these reports, encapsulate all incidents of gun violence that occurred within school premises – stretching from kindergartens to colleges/universities – where at least one individual has been shot, excluding the shooter. The parameters defining school property are inclusive of buildings, fields, parking lots, stadiums, and even buses. Furthermore, accidental discharges of firearms also fall under the category of a school shooting, provided they resulted in at least one individual being shot, barring the cases where law enforcement or school security is the only shooter.
The first year of the pandemic, while closing schools, had the silver lining of seeing a significant drop in instances of gun violence on school grounds. However, the respite was short-lived as recent years have displayed an alarming surge in school shootings. The years 2021 and 2022 have set distressing records for the highest numbers of school shootings since 2008, which is the year CNN initiated its comprehensive tracking. The tragedy at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, in the previous year proved to be one of the deadliest, with 19 students and two educators losing their lives and over a dozen individuals being injured.
This surge in gun violence in schools has spurred students and educators alike into activism, and has even led some educators to exit the profession. An examination of the geographical distribution of these incidents reveals that certain states in the south have experienced higher rates of school shootings relative to their populations compared to others since 2008. Washington, DC is the unfortunate leader of this list, with a total of 5 shootings equating to more than 0.7 per 100,000 people. Texas is not far behind, topping the most overall shootings with a staggering 52 school shootings. In stark contrast, there were five states – Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island – that showed no record of school shootings during this period.
