How Many School Shootings? All Incidents from 1966-Present
134 comments
·February 23, 2025aidenn0
soco
So instead of addressing the elephant in the room, we talk about grammar and imaginary situations. No wonder things will never get fixed.
aidenn0
> imaginary situations
Neither situation was hypothetical; they both happened at my daughter's High School. Anecdotal certainly, but not imaginary. Certainly nobody says "There have been two school shootings at that HS in the past few years"
rstuart4133
> Certainly nobody says "There have been two school shootings at that HS in the past few years"
In most countries nobody says that about any school.
WorkerBee28474
The elephant in this room is that the "school shooting" numbers are being inflated.
People say "oh America is so bad it has so many school shootings" then you look at what counts as a school shooting and it's stuff that poses no danger to students and may not have even happened at a school.
plugger
I don't think most Americans or non-Americans really pay too much attention to school shootings one way or another. But when they see semi-regular news of shootings at schools resulting in large amounts of children being slain they're inclined to think something is wrong in the US. And when it comes to the pervasiveness of US gun culture and how easy it is to get tooled up over there, they're not wrong. Regardless of implied stat inflation, the US is still the undisputed school shooting champion of the world.
pfannkuchen
The term should be changed to "school massacre". I think that would cleanly narrow the definition in a way that is compatible with common usage.
Speaking of which, I don't understand why that term fell out of favor. Like we already have a term for "mass shooting". It's not called the "Boston Mass Shooting".
tbrownaw
But then you'd have to include things like bombings and maybe bomb threats. And that might re-focus attention away from the chosen tools and towards the people doing it, which would make it less useful for election season.
motorest
> This definition is broad enough to encompass (...)
And that's perfectly fine. This criteria covers all conceivable scenarios where a kid going to school can be shot. Isn't that the whole point?
aidenn0
When people talk about "stopping school shootings" they don't tend to want to substitute a student with a knife getting arrested at gunpoint with that student stabbing another student.
bdangubic
this may be a bit unfair. stopping school shootings by any sane argument is ALWAYS about gun control.
as an exercise - take any definition of a school shooting you desire. then compare USA with any country on the planet of your choosing (you can even pick random geographical area spanning random number of countries) and see whether the childhood our children are subjected to are comparable. we have failed and are continuing to fail our children, regardless of how you choose to define what school shooting
mrdilkington
The whole point seems to be to cast as wide a net as possible for the definition as so to claim a higher number of "school shootings" than the majority agreed definition suggests.
Makes me wonder what motive people could have to do this.
pfannkuchen
I wonder if your wondering is rhetorical? There is a pretty obvious candidate.
null
jjmarr
A homeless guy shot another homeless guy on my university campus a few weeks ago. It's hard to consider that a school shooting even though it happened on-campus.
DeathRay2K
As a measure of the safety of schools, it seems perfectly reasonable to consider that a school shooting.
seabird
Calling a crime-related shooting in the parking lot of a school at 1am on a Saturday a school shooting is not what most people are discussing when talking about school shootings.
wtallis
If you're going to count shootings at universities as school shootings, then it's reasonable to include shootings that happen over the weekend, because they still have students around on the weekends and at night.
motorest
> Calling a crime-related shooting in the parking lot of a school at 1am on a Saturday a school shooting is not what most people are discussing when talking about school shootings.
Aren't you getting it entirely backwards, though? You're faced with a crisp definition of what a school shooting is, and you're somehow invested in arguing that a shooting taking place at a school isn't a school shooting because of your own arbitrary criteria.
Arguing whether a shooting should be considered a school shooting or not feels like you're completely missing the whole point that there are shootings taking place at schools, which I would imagine would be very concerning.
relaxing
I used to get back from band trips (competitions, away games) in the middle of the night. The buses would drop us off at school where our parents would be waiting to pick us up (the upperclassmen could drive themselves.)
It would have been rather disappointing to get hit by a stray bullet then, and know that it wasn’t considered as important as a daylight incident.
thih9
I find it shocking that there can be different types of school shootings - and that there is time to discuss their classification.
Dylan16807
I'm more inclined to count students fighting off-campus about classroom grudges than to count non-students fighting on-campus.
And the idea of counting both doesn't seem right to me.
Though I'm not sure how my expectations align, in particular when I hear "school shooting" my first expectation is that there are multiple targets, not just one person. And it's hard for me to react to this data unless I know what percentage are single-target and what percentage are multi-target.
bradhe
When data challenges people’s’ world view they find crafty ways to split hairs.
grandempire
The only reason to "consider" it is because you want people to imagine a Columbine-like event.
relaxing
What’s the threshold for number of dead children to be considered a Columbine?
makeitdouble
The impressive part is that kind of thing just naturally happens, and the discussion comes around whether it fits the school shooting framing or not.
tdeck
jjmarr
Funnily enough, this was at Toronto Metropolitan University. We have a safe injection site on campus because it's downtown.
feliciousx
yeah, i can’t imagine raising my kid in an environment where they could actually die from a gunshot. i don’t understand how this is so normalised in a first world country
bagels
Is there some place where it is not possible to be shot? Even space is not safe, Russia brought guns with them.
anigbrowl
You probably would if you'd been in the immediate vicinity. Being shot at (even inadvertently) has a way of changing your persective.
Dylan16807
Getting scared enough to change your perspective sounds like a reason to specifically not expect the people involved to be objective or correctly categorize the event.
anigbrowl
IF there are people involved in a situation where there's a risk of death, that's an objective fact. There is no 'correct classification' issue here. The article collects all shootings that happen on school properties, you can derive subcategories from that. On the other hand, if your selection criteria is, say, 'shootings where someone tries to kill as many students/teachers as possible' you'll omit a lot of very real shooting incidents. It's better to have more data than less.
motorest
> A homeless guy shot another homeless guy on my university campus a few weeks ago. It's hard to consider that a school shooting even though it happened on-campus.
You find it hard to consider a school shooting a shooting taking place at a school?
827a
Depends on how the data is used.
Also if you've ever been to a school like NYU, you'd naturally ask: Where does the school start and end?
motorest
> Depends on how the data is used.
How can you misuse data on school shootings?
Let's go a different way. Say you arrive home and you hear that there was a shooting at a school. What can possibly lead you to argue "oh that doesn't count, because X" ?
> Also if you've ever been to a school like NYU, you'd naturally ask: Where does the school start and end?
Why do you believe this is any relevant? I mean, to start off can you point out which incident fits your hypothetical scenario?
decremental
[dead]
throwaway529
[flagged]
suraci
wtf
people are homeless
homeless guys in a school
a homeless guy in a school with a gun
a homeless guy shot another in a school
and all you care is if it's a school shooting???
wtf
am i the only one who think all of these listed above are unacceptable???
decremental
[dead]
827a
What are you doing, personally, to improve any of those things (beyond just wasting time on the internet)?
motorest
> What are you doing, personally, to improve any of those things (beyond just wasting time on the internet)?
Pretending it's not a problem is a good start. From the looks of this thread, that seems to be a low-hanging fruit that's already out of reach for some.
Also, resorting to ad-hominem arguments is a show of bad faith. Your random person on the street has absolutely no influence on how someone has access to a gun.
jjmarr
As the original commenter, I live in Toronto, Canada. It's pretty simple: homes are too expensive. One bedroom in an illegal sublet of an eighth of a house can be C$1000+/month. Why would anyone pay money to live in a de facto homeless shelter when one can be homeless for free?
If we want to fix this, we need to build more supply. The system we have now has too much regulation and permitting designed to block development, so the only stuff that gets built is single family luxury housing or extremely large multifamily apartment complexes.
ccppurcell
Maybe they don't live in America. I have paid taxes in countries with good social safety nets for example, which helps alleviate homelessness.
suraci
well, that's a good question
I'm afraid there's nothing i can do to improve this
the only thing i can do is trying to avoid rationalizing it
there are so many things like this that I'm incapable of changing
anonnon
Note that the surge in school shootings is despite a marginal secular decline in household gun ownership: https://www.vpc.org/studies/ownership.pdf
m4r1k
Absurd that 2021-2024 saw massively more shootings than 1966-2020 combined. Clearly it’s getting out of hands. What’s the reason behind this huge rise?
morgengold
No one knows for sure, but if I take the perspective of a socially alienated young person who is angry, resentful, and feels a growing desire for revenge, I would say hours of screen time, social media dynamics [1], and widespread economic insecurities only worsen the situation. It is easy to become resentful and aggressive when you are isolated and feel left behind. Additionally, it is much easier to become radicalized as an isolated individual online. I believe that in the last century, it was more difficult to become radicalized from your own bedroom, and people had more social interactions, even if they weren't actively seeking them out.
[1] Anxiety surges in GenZ around its introduction: https://jonathanhaidt.com/social-media/
anonnon
I suspect the copycat effect is a large part of it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shooting_contagion
The media has historically, starting with Columbine, been extremely irresponsible when it comes to school shootings, showing little of the discretion that it does when it comes to youth suicide (for which they've adopted professional standards informed by CDC, WHO, etc. recommendations: https://afsp.org/ethicalreporting/), to the point that it's given perpetrators fame that's endured decades after their demise: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/30/us/school-shootings-colum...
And they're doing this not just out of recklessness, but out of a pretty clear bias and desire to leverage these events to produce support for gun control.
anigbrowl
Youi're showing a lot of cognitive bias here. It's very reasonable for the media to cover mass casualty events, that's definitely their job.
Another thing that has changed (which you haven't addressed at all) is that there are communities of mass shooting enthusiasts online who collect data on them, lionize the perpetrators, spread their manifestos, and encourage others to commit similar acts. People write guides with a mixture of justification for motives and sharing of practical techniques and advice, similar in format to the magazines periodically published by Al Qaeda. At least one such outfit has been designated as a terrorist group in several countries and several of its members have been arrested and are facing criminal charges.
CompanionCubee
>Another thing that has changed (which you haven't addressed at all) is that there are communities of mass shooting enthusiasts online who collect data on them, lionize the perpetrators, spread their manifestos
Which is directly enabled by the coverage mentioned in GP.
chneu
Without any research I'd wager mental health among teens and young adults is very bad.
They don't really have a future. At least not a fun one to look forward to.
CobrastanJorji
Interesting that 2% of school shooters are the school's police officer. I guess that's not surprising, since they're presumably the only person who'd regularly have a gun on campus.
what
Because this DB doesn’t just consist of what most people would consider a school shooting, but likely includes any discharge of a firearm on school property.
motorest
> Because this DB doesn’t just consist of what most people would consider a school shooting, but likely includes any discharge of a firearm on school property.
And that's perfectly fine. That's exactly the problem that concerns people. No one is saying "well my kid got shot but thankfully it was by the police/security guard and not a rando".
CobrastanJorji
I haven't seen the raw data (and I'm surprised they require you to request it), but since 280 or so of the incidents are "accident," and since police officers have guns, I imagine a good chunk of that 2% would be police officers accidentally firing their guns.
shipp02
How have 40% of the perpetrators escaped? Seems a little high given how sensitive of a subject school shootings are.
seabird
If somebody got into with somebody else after the high school football game and popped a few off before running away and nobody snitched, they're not going to find them.
Take note of the "parking lot" and "escalation of dispute" data points.
motorest
> How have 40% of the perpetrators escaped? Seems a little high given how sensitive of a subject school shootings are.
What's the success rate of catching any random shooter?
anonnon
I understand it's an emotional topic, but the article is just dry data, and flagging it (along with half the comments in this thread) was unnecessary. I wouldn't even care that much if it weren't for the fact that HN clearly penalizes accounts based on how their submissions and comments are flagged by other users. @dang could you please unflag it?
anonnon
BTW the point of my submission was to highlight the anomaly that the number of school shootings (and victims) is paradoxically surging despite gun ownership declining and murder rates--while spiking after 2020--still being well-below historic highs: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/26/briefing/murder-rate.html
everyone
Is this globally or in one specific country though? It doesnt say anywhere on the page as far as I can see.
riffraff
It's in the USA, you can see the tableau data showing the states and such.
Also school shootings are not really a thing outside the US, e.g. there's been a handful in Europe in this decade.
null
pmags
There seems to be a disingenuous attempt by many respondents to get readers to focus on definitions and ignore the trends.
I suggest you to look at the second graph showing the fatal/wounded data pretty much mirrors the incident data. Then ask yourself if this is problematic.
EDIT: Here's one account of what these statistics mean for those involved: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/23/health/teacher-shooting-p...
mgarfias
are they still counting a pair of gang bangers shooting each other in the parking lot a school shooting?
seabird
Yes.
>The definition used for the K-12 SSDB is: a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day of the week, or reason.
jebarker
Because that's totally fine and in no way suggests guns are problematic.
ikawe
Counting yes, but the charts in the article show that the largest group of shooters is students. About 1/3 are unrelated to the school or have an “unknown” relationship .
It’s a short list of charts - worth a quick scroll through if you didn’t already.
what
Why can’t a gangbanger also be a student?
motorest
> are they still counting a pair of gang bangers shooting each other in the parking lot a school shooting?
Do you think that shootings at school are not school shootings?
defrost
You're more than welcome to include such incidents from the UK and Australia when comparing Australian, UK, and US school shootings.
With or without them the USofA is still Number One.
bagels
Why should we not be concerned with that? People shooting eachother is bad, but also, bystanders get shot all the time in these.
timeon
It is much easier for gangs to obtain guns in country where guns are so accessible.
cancerhacker
[flagged]
Dylan16807
> preconceived racist notions of the data
Is "gang banger" automatically racist? And even if it is, saying that data should be excluded doesn't sound like it's playing into any stereotypes.
And when they criticize the previous data collection, that's not "preconceived", it's a real observation.
tough
plenty of very white nazi gang members on those bands
gddgb
[flagged]
> All shootings at schools includes when a gun is fired, brandished with intent to harm, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week.
This definition is broad enough to encompass e.g. someone barricading themselves in an apartment a few blocks away with a 5.57 rifle and shooting at the police; this happened at my daughter's HS, and a bullet did land on the campus just because the campus is large and was in the same general direction.
It also seems like it would be broad enough to include a police officer drawing their duty weapon on a student threatening another student with a knife (also happened at my daughter's HS), but I'm less sure about that.
Neither of those would be considered "school shootings" by the vast majority of the population.