School shooting

Family dysfunction

An angle that is not much mentioned in media but is bolstered by important social scientists is dysfunctional family structure.^[8] Eminent Harvard sociologist Robert J. Sampson wrote: “Family structure is one of the strongest, if not the strongest, predictor of variations in urban violence across cities in the U.S.A." His views are echoed by the eminent criminologists Michael Gottfredson and Travis Hirschi, who have written that “such family measures as the percentage of the population divorced, the percentage of households headed by women, and the percentage of unattached individuals in the community are among the most powerful predictors of crime rates.”^[9] According to Dr. Peter Langman, it is a myth that school shooters come from stable homes, and showed that in one sample, 82% of the shooters were from dysfunctional families, while 18% from intact families.^[10] Analyzing the lists of shooters, Carolyn Moynihan of MercatorNet said that "almost all school shooters come from families where the parents are either divorced or alienated".^[8] Social scientist Bradford Wilcox also observed nearly all "involved a young man whose parents divorced or never married in the first place."^[9] Michael Cook argued that "perhaps they wouldn’t need more gun control if they had better divorce control.”^[11]

Lack of supervision in the family

“Studies have found that within offenders’ families, there is frequently a lack of supervision, low emotional closeness, and intimacy”.^[12] Oftentimes it seems to be a situation where the action is planned out by the intended person. While the targets can be random or there could be specific people, the attempt is generally not something that the offender does spur of the moment. With the offenders that can be reviewed, it is hard to even study this as a specific case or issue. There is not really a specific trait of issue that can be found. Family circles are all different but seem to come from two parent median households most often and with no records of violence or criminality prior to the event. Yet, they have this fascination or are prone to violent thoughts and actions. The one trait that seems to be prevalent in most of the cases is they all generally have a form of depression. With information this vague on the cause people may have for committing these events and not showing specific signs in life prior to the action, it is really hard to put together a mental health plan that can address these issues ahead of time. It may not hurt to have one in place to prevent those that can be predicted, but it will not address the majority of the issue it seems.

Perpetrators who "run amok" in schools and other public settings do also share in common a severe lapse or more pervasive deficit in their capacity for empathy coupled with their inability to contain their aggression—this may be due to their psychopathy, psychotic symptoms (i.e. loss of a sense of reality), and/or to a consequence of significant violent traumatization—such as that of early physical abuse, that contributes to the development of dissociative states of mind (i.e. disavowal of reality, derealization, depersonalization). In short, as clinical psychiatrist Daniel Schechter has written, for a baby to develop into a troubled adolescent who then turns lethally violent, a convergence of multiple interacting factors must occur, that is "every bit as complicated...as it is for a tornado to form on a beautiful spring day in Kansas."^[13]

Many of the shooters told Secret Service investigators that alienation or persecution drove them to violence. According to the United States Secret Service,^[14]

One "trait" that has not yet attracted as much attention is the gender difference: nearly all school shootings are perpetrated by young males, and in some instances the violence has clearly been gender-specific. Bob Herbert addressed this in an October 2006 New York Times editorial.^[15] However, at least three female school shooting incidents have been documented,^[16][17] including Laurie Dann of Winnetka, Illinois.

Though the perpetrators of school shootings are often said to be almost exclusively white males, this is misleading. A study of 48 shooters found that though white males constituted 79% of secondary school shooters, white males were actually a minority among college and other adult perpetrators.^[18] There is significant racial, ethnic, and gender diversity among school shooters.^[19] These shootings have happened in "suburban and rural school districts" and many seem to be random with random targets. Most of these shooters tend to come from two-parent households and have been found to appear on the honor roll at their schools.^[20]

School shootings receive extensive media coverage and are frequent in the US (see list below). They have sometimes resulted in nationwide changes of schools' policies concerning discipline and security. Some experts have described fears about school shootings as a type of moral panic.^[21]

Such incidents may also lead to nationwide discussion on gun laws.^[22]

Younger age

According to Raine (2002), immaturity is one of many identified factors increasing the likelihood of an individual committing criminal acts of violence and outbursts of aggression.^[23] This fact is supported by findings on brain development occurring as individuals age from birth.

According to the Australian-based Raising children network and Centre for Adolescent Health (and a number of other sources^[24]): the main change occurring in the developing brain during adolescence is the (so-called) pruning of unused connections in thinking and processing. While this is occurring within the brain, retained connections are strengthened. Synaptic pruning occurs because the nervous system in humans develops by firstly, the over-producing of parts of the nervous system, axons, neurons, and synapses, to then later in the development of the nervous system, make the superfluous parts redundant, i.e. pruning (or apoptosis, otherwise known as cell death).^[25] These changes occur in certain parts of the brain firstly; the pre-frontal cortex, the brain location where decision-making occurs, is the concluding area for development. While the pre-frontal cortex is developing, children and teenagers might possibly rely more on the brain part known as the amygdala; involving thinking that is more emotionally active, including aggression and impulsiveness. As a consequence each individual is more likely to want to make riskier choices, and to do so more frequently.^[26]

Steinberg (2004^[27]) identified the fact of adolescents taking more risks typically, than adults; Deakin et al. (2004) and Overman et al. (2004) indicate a decline in risk taking from adolescence to adulthood; and Steinberg (2005), Figner et al. (2009), and Burnett et al. (2010) identified adolescent age individuals as more likely to take risks than young children and adults.^[28]

School bullying

"Bullying is common in schools and seemed to play a role in the lives of many of the school shooters".^[29] A typical bullying interaction consists of three parts, the offender/bully, a victim, and one or more bystanders. This formula of three enables the bully to easily create public humiliation for their victim. Students who are bullied tend to develop behavioral problems, depression, less self-control and poorer social skills, and to do worse in school.^[30] Once humiliated, victims never want to be a victim again and try to regain their image by joining groups. Often, they are rejected by their peers and follow through by restoring justice in what they see as an unjust situation. Their plan for restoration many times results in violence as shown by the school shooters. 75% of school shooters had been bullied or left behind evidence of having been victims of bullying, including Nathan Ferris, Edmar Aparecido Freitas, Brian Head, Seung-Hui Cho, Wellington Menezes Oliveira, Jeff Weise, Adam Lanza, and Nikolas Cruz.

Cyberbullying has changed the effect of bullying in another way. "… in the modern era a bully can also do so on Facebook and Twitter for the world to see. Once something is on the Internet, it cannot truly be removed, further enhancing the torment. That type of bullying is infinitely easier for the perpetrator to commit and just as infinitely hard for the victim to address or escape."^[31]

Notoriety

Shooting massacres in English-speaking countries often occur close together in time.^[32] Forensic psychiatrists attribute this to copycat behaviour,^[33][34] which can be correlated with the level of media exposure.^[35][36] In these copycat shootings, oftentimes the perpetrators see a past school shooter as an idol, so they want to carry out an even more destructive, murderous shooting in hopes of gaining recognition or respect.^[37] Some mass murderers study media reports of previous killers.^[38]

Research has now shown the presence of a direct correlation between a desire for infamy and school shootings. This hypothesis was suggested by Justin Nutt in 2013: those who feel as though they are alone and who feel no one will remember them may seek to be remembered through acts of violence. Nutt explains through the examination of the way in which news exposure is connected not to the victims, but the perpetrators. "… in an age of internet news and 24 hour news cycle, to avoid doing so would be seen as poor news reporting, but it also means those who feel nameless and as though no one will care or remember them when they are gone may feel doing something such as a school shooting will make sure they are remembered and listed in the history books."^[31] This has been linked as a leading cause of most school shootings and planned, but unexecuted school shooting. Recent premeditative writings were presented according to court documents and showed Joshua O'Connor wrote that he wanted the "death count to be as high as possible so that the shooting would be infamous." O'Connor was arrested before he was able to carry out his plan.^[39] Infamy and notoriety, "a desire to be remembered" has been reported as the leading reason for planned shootings by most perpetrators who were taken alive either pre or post shooting.

Injustice collectors

In a 2015 New Republic essay, Columbine author Dave Cullen described a subset of school shooters (and other mass murderers) known as "injustice collectors." The essay described and expanded on the work of retired FBI profiler Mary Ellen O'Toole, who has published a peer-reviewed journal article on the subject.^[40] It also quoted Gary Noesner, who helped create and lead the FBI's hostage negotiation unit, and served as Chief Negotiator for ten years.^[41]

Mental illness

The degree to which mental illness does or does not contribute to school shootings has been debated in society.

Although the vast majority of mentally ill individuals are non-violent,^[42] some evidence has suggested that mental illness or mental health symptoms are nearly universal among school shooters. A 2002 report by the US Secret Service and US Department of Education found evidence that a majority of school shooters displayed evidence of mental health symptoms, often undiagnosed or untreated.^[43] Criminologists Fox and DeLateur note that mental illness is only part of the issue, however, and mass shooters tend to externalize their problems, blaming others and are unlikely to seek psychiatric help, even if available.^[44] Other scholars have concluded that mass murderers display a common constellation of chronic mental health symptoms, chronic anger or antisocial traits, and a tendency to blame others for problems.^[45] However, they note that attempting to "profile" school shooters with such a constellation of traits will likely result in many false positives as many individuals with such a profile do not engage in violent behaviors.

School shootings in the United States are one of the most horrific and troublesome issues facing our nation today. Learning institutes should be a safe place for children and adults to study and grow, yet they continuously become scenes of senseless violence, where innocent staff members and students fall victim. Following such tragedies, there is typically widespread debate from politicians and members of the public as to preventative measures that can be put into place, specifically more stringent gun laws (Schildkraut & Hernandez, 2014).

McGinty and colleagues conducted a study to find out if people tended to associate the violence of school shootings with mental illness, at the expense of other factors such as the availability of high-capacity magazines.^[46] Nearly 2,000 participants read a news piece on a shooting in which the shooter is diagnosed as having a mental illness and who used high capacity magazines. One group read an article that presented only the facts of the case. A different group read an article about the same shooting, but in it the author advocated for gun restrictions for people with mental illness. Another group read about the shooting in an article that suggested the proposal to ban large-capacity magazines, which acted to advocate that shootings could stem from a societal problem rather than an individual problem. The control group did not read anything. Participants were then all asked to fill out a questionnaire asking about their views on gun control and whether they thought there should be restrictions on high-capacity magazines. 71% of the control group thought that gun restrictions should be applied to people with mental illness, and nearly 80% of participants who read the articles agreed. Despite the fact that the article exposed the readers to both the mental illness of the shooter, and the fact that the shooter used high-capacity magazines, participants advocated more for gun restrictions on people with mental illness rather than bans on high-capacity magazines. This suggests that people believe mental illness is the culprit for school shootings in lieu of the accessibility of guns or other environmental factors. The authors expressed concern that proposals to target gun control laws at people with mental illness do not take into account the complex nature of the relationship between serious mental illness and violence, much of which is due to additional factors such as substance abuse. However, the link is unclear since research has shown that violence in mentally ill people occurs more in interpersonal environments.^[47]

A 2016 opinion piece concluded that 22% of mass murders are committed by people who suffer from a serious mental illness, and 78% do not. This study also concluded that many people with mental illnesses do not engage in violence against others and that most violent behavior is due to factors other than mental illness.^[48]

Violent video games

It has long been debated that there exists a correlation between school shooting perpetrators and the type of media they consume. A popular profile for school shooters is someone who has been exposed to or enjoys playing violent video games. However, this profile is considered by many researchers to be misguided or erroneous. Ferguson (2009) has argued that a third variable of gender explains the illusory correlation between video game use and the type of people who conduct school shootings. Ferguson explains that the majority of school shooters are young males, who are considerably more aggressive than the rest of the population. A majority of gamers are also young males. Thus, it appears likely that the view that school shooters are often people who play violent video games is more simply explained by the third variable of gender.

The idea of profiling school shooters by the video games they play comes from the belief that playing violent video games increases a person's aggression level, which in turn, can cause people to perpetrate extreme acts of violence, such as a school shooting. There is little to no data supporting this hypothesis (Ferguson, 2009) but it has become a vivid profile used by the media since the Columbine Massacre in 1999.

A summation of past research on video game violence finds that video games have little to no effect on aggression (Anderson,2004; Ferguson, 2007 & Spencer, 2009). Again, this supports the idea that although it is a popular opinion to link school shooters to being violent video gamers, this misconception is often attributable to third variables and has not been supported by research on the connection between aggression and gaming.

Ultimately, this type of profiling is popular in media but not supported by any data (Anderson, 2004).

United States

School shootings are a "uniquely American crisis," according to The Washington Post in 2018.^[54] School shootings are considered an "overwhelmingly American" phenomenon due to the availability of firearms in the United States.^[49] Between the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, there were 31 school shootings in the United States and 14 in the rest of the world combined.^[5] Between 2000 and 2010, counting incidents from 37 countries in which someone was injured or killed on school grounds, with two or more victims, and not counting “single homicides, off-campus homicides, killings caused by government actions, militaries, terrorists or militants,” the number of such incidents in the United States was one less than in the other 36 countries combined; in the vast majority of the United States incidents, perpetrators used guns.^[4][55]

The United States federal government does not track school shootings.^[56] Addressing school shootings in the United States was made more difficult by the passage by United States Congress of the Dickey Amendment in 1996, which mandated that no Centers for Disease Control and Prevention funds “may be used to advocate or promote gun control” and halted almost all study of gun violence.^[54][57]

Between the 1999 Columbine High School massacre and the 2018 Santa Fe High School shooting in Texas, more than 214,000 students experienced gun violence at 216 schools, and at least 141 children, educators and other people were killed and another 284 were injured. 38% of the students who experienced school shootings were African American although African American students were 16.6% of the school population.^[56] Schools in at least 36 states and the District of Columbia have experienced a shooting.^[54]

Many school shootings in the United States result in one non-fatal injury.^[58] The type of firearm most commonly used in school shootings in the United States is the handgun. The three most lethal school shootings, the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Connecticut, and the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Florida, accounted for 43% of the fatalities; the type of firearm used in the most lethal school shootings was the rifle.^[54] High-capacity magazines, which allow the perpetrator to fire dozens of rounds without having to reload, were used in the Columbine High School massacre and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting.^[59]

70% of the perpetrators of school shootings were under the age of 18, with the median age of 16. More than 85% of the perpetrators of school shootings obtained their firearms from their own homes or from friends or relatives.^[56] Targeted school shootings, those occurring for example in the context of a feud, were about three times as common as those that appeared indiscriminate. Most perpetrators of school shootings exhibited no signs of debilitating mental disorder, such as psychosis or schizophrenia.^[54] Between the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado and 2015, "more than 40 people" were "charged with Columbine-style plots;" almost all were white male teenagers and almost all had studied the Columbine attack or cited the Columbine perpetrators Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold as inspiration.^[60]

At least 68 schools that experienced a school shooting employed a police officer or security guard; in all but a few, the shooting ended before any intercession. Security guards or resource officers were present during four of the five school shooting incidents with the highest number of dead or injured: the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, the 2018 Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, the 2018 Marshall County High School shooting in Kentucky, and the 2001 Santana High School shooting in California.^[54][61]

There were 11 firearm-related events that occurred at a school or campus in the first 23 days of 2018.^[62] As of May 2018, more people, including students and teachers, were killed in 2018 in schools in the United States than were killed in military service for the United States, including both combat and non-combat military service, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.^[63][64][65] In terms of the year-to-date number of individual deadly school shootings incidents in the United States, early 2018 was much higher than 2017, with 16 in 2018 and four in 2017, through May;^[64] the year-to-day through May number of incidents was the highest since 1999.^[56] As of May 2018, thirteen school shootings took place on K–12 school property in 2018 that resulted in firearm-related injuries or deaths, including 32 killed and 65 injured, according to Education Week.^[66][57][67] 22 school shootings where someone was hurt or killed occurred in the United States in the first 20 weeks of 2018, according to CNN.^[68]

Canada

This article is listed in chronological order and provides additional details of incidents in which a firearm was discharged at a school in Canada, including incidents of shootings on a school bus. Mass killings in Canada are covered by a List of massacres in Canada.

Mexico

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred at schools in Mexico.

Europe

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred at schools in the continent of Europe.

South America

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred in South American schools.

Asia

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred in schools in the continent of Asia.

Oceania

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred in the Oceanic region.

Africa

The following is a list of incidents of shootings that occurred in schools in the continent of Africa.

Armed classrooms

There has been considerable policy discussion about how to help prevent school and other types of mass shootings. One suggestion that has come up is the idea to allow firearms in the classroom. "Since the issue of arming teachers is a relatively new topic, it has received little empirical study. Therefore, most of the literature does not come from peer reviewed sources but rather published news reports. In addition, most of these reports are not objective and clearly appear to support a specific side of the debate."^[186] So far, data has been inconclusive as to whether or not arming teachers would have any sort of benefit for schools. For years, some areas in the US have allowed "armed classrooms" to deter (or truncate) future attacks by changing helpless victims into armed defenders. Advocates of arming teachers claim that it will reduce fatalities in school shootings, but many others disagree.

Many teachers have had their concerns with the idea of armed classrooms. "One teacher stated that although she is pro-gun, she does not feel as though she could maintain gun safety on school grounds (Reuters, 2012). Teachers expressed the fear that bigger students could overpower them, take the weapon, and then use it against the teacher or other students." Some members of the armed forces have also had concerns with armed classrooms. Police forces in Texas brought up the potential for teachers to leave a gun where a student could retrieve and use it. "They are further concerned that if every teacher had a gun, there would be an unnecessarily large number of guns in schools (even including elementary schools). This large number of guns could lead to accidental shootings, especially those involving younger children who do not understand what guns do."

In order to diminish school shootings all together there are many preventative measures that can be taken such as:

• Installing wireless panic alarms to alert law enforcement.
• Limiting points of entry with security guarding them.
• Strategically placing telephones for emergencies so police are always reachable at any point in the campus.^[187]
• Employing school psychologists to monitor and provide mental health services for those that need help.^[188]
• Coordinating a response plan between local police and schools in the event of a threat.^[189]

In a 2013 research report published by the Center for Homicide Research, they find that many also reject the idea of having armed classrooms due to what is termed the "weapons effect," which is the phenomenon in which simply being in the presence of a weapon can increase feelings of aggression. "In Berkowitz & LaPage's (1967) examination of this effect, students who were in the presence of a gun reported higher levels of aggressive feelings towards other students and gave more violent evaluations of other students' performance on a simple task in the form of electric shocks. This finding points to possible negative outcomes for students exposed to guns in the classroom (Simons & Turner, 1974; Turner & Simons, 1976)."^[186]

In 2008, Harrold Independent School District in Texas became the first public school district in the U.S. to allow teachers with state-issued firearm-carry permits to carry their arms in the classroom; special additional training and ricochet-resistant ammunition were required for participating teachers.^[190] Students at the University of Utah have been allowed to carry concealed pistols (so long as they possess the appropriate state license) since a State Supreme Court decision in 2006.^[191][192] In addition to Utah, Wisconsin and Mississippi each have legislation that allow students, faculty and employees with the proper permit, to carry concealed weapons on their public university's campuses.^[193][194] Colorado and Oregon state courts have ruled in favor of Campus Carry laws by denying their universities' proposals to ban guns on campus, ruling that the UC Board of Regents and the Oregon University System did not have the authority to ban weapons on campus.^[195][196] A selective ban was then re-instated, wherein Oregon state universities enacted a ban on guns in school building and sporting events or by anyone contracted with the university in question.^[197] A commentary in the conservative National Review Online argues that the armed school approach for preventing school attacks, while new in the US, has been used successfully for many years in Israel and Thailand.^[198] Teachers and school officials in Israel are allowed and encouraged to carry firearms if they have former military experience in the IDF, which almost all do. Statistics on what percentage of teachers are actually armed are unavailable and in Israel, for example, the intent is to counter politically motivated terrorist attacks on high value, soft targets, not personal defense against, or protection from, unbalanced individual students.

The National Rifle Association has explicitly called for placing armed guards in all American schools.^[199] However, Steven Strauss, a faculty member at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, offered a preliminary calculation that placing armed guards in every American school might cost as much as $15 billion/year, and perhaps only save 10 lives per year (at a cost of $1.5 billion/life saved).^[200]

Preventive measures

A preventive measure proposed for stopping school shooting has been focused on securing firearms in the home. A shooting in Sparks, Nevada on October 21, 2013, left a teacher and the shooter, a twelve-year-old student, dead with two seriously injured. The handgun used in the shooting had been taken from the shooter's home. Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Red Lake High School in Red Lake, Minnesota in 2005, and Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky in 1997 also involved legal guns taken from the home.

A 2000 study of firearm storage in the United States found that "from the homes with children and firearms, 55% reported to have one or more firearms in an unlocked place." 43% reported keeping guns without a trigger lock in an unlocked place. In 2005 a study was done on adult firearm storage practices in the United States found that over 1.69 million youth under age 18 are living in homes with loaded and unlocked firearms. Also, 73% of children under age 10 living in homes with guns reported knowing the location of their parents' firearms.^[201]

Most states have Child Access Prevention Laws – laws designed to prevent children from accessing firearms. Each state varies in the degree of the severity of these laws. The toughest laws enforce criminal liability when a minor achieves access to a carelessly stored firearm. The weakest forbid people from directly providing a firearm to a minor. There is also a wide range of laws that fall in between the two extremes. One example is a law that enforces criminal liability for carelessly stored firearms, but only where the minor uses the firearm and causes death or serious injury. An example of a weaker law is a law that enforces liability only in the event of reckless, knowing or deliberate behavior by the adult.^[202]

Countermeasures

In 2015 Southwestern High School in Shelbyville, Indiana, was portrayed as possibly the "safest school in America". The school has been used as a "Safe School Flagship" of possible countermeasures to an active shooter.^[203]

• All teachers have lanyards with a panic button that alerts police.^[204]
• Classrooms have automatically locking "hardened doors", and windows have "hardened exterior glass" to deflect bullets and physical attack.^[204]
• Cameras, described as "military-grade", that feed video directly to Shelby County Sheriff’s Office^[203] are mounted throughout the school.^[204]
• Smoke canisters mounted in the roof of corridors can be remotely discharged to slow a shooter's movement.^[204]

Other countermeasures include tools like doorjambs, rapidly-deployable tourniquets, and ballistic protection systems like the CoverMe-Seat.^[205]

The STOP School Violence Act is pending legislation to provide funding grants to schools to be used for implementing security measures.^{[206][207][208]}