{"id":160964,"date":"2023-04-24T08:13:28","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T15:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=160964"},"modified":"2023-05-01T10:07:39","modified_gmt":"2023-05-01T17:07:39","slug":"are-u-s-schools-dangerous-places-for-gun-violence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/?p=160964","title":{"rendered":"Are U.S. schools dangerous places for gun violence?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Are U.S. schools dangerous places for gun violence?<\/h1>\n

By Mike A. Males, YouthFacts
\nApril 24, 2023<\/p>\n

A number of mass shootings have made the United States\u2019 K-12 schools the focus of the gun\u00a0safety debate and often extreme \u201csolutions\u201d to prevent them. However, a straightforward risk\u00a0analysis shows the chances of being shot or suffering any kind of gun incident, fatal, injurious, or\u00a0otherwise, is far lower in a K-12 school per hour spent there than elsewhere in American society.\u00a0Even assuming maximum risk, an American student or adult staff would have to attend school\u00a0daily for 397 years to suffer even odds of a gun incident of any kind, and for over 200,000 years\u00a0to risk personal gun injury or fatality, about the same risk as a resident of Germany. An\u00a0American child is many times more likely to be murdered by guns at home than at school.\u00a0Drastic measures such as arming school personnel and\/or mass screenings of students using\u00a0dubious psychometric instruments are unwarranted. Gun safety policy should be based on\u00a0reasoned assessments of dangers, not emotional campaigns.<\/p>\n

Highly publicized mass shootings have made K-12 schools in the United States the focus of\u00a0intensive fear, media coverage, and proposed solutions to the country\u2019s epidemic of gun\u00a0violence. Commentators regularly state that students should be \u201cterrified\u201d of being shot in\u00a0schools, parents should be afraid to send their children to school, and extreme measures\u00a0including mass psychiatric screenings of students and hundreds of thousands of armed guards in\u00a0schools at annual costs of tens of billions of dollars should be implemented.<\/p>\n

Fears of school shootings began in the late 1990s and escalated with the 1999 mass shooting at\u00a0Columbine High School. The numbers of school shootings, along with mass shootings in\u00a0general, have risen beginning in 2017. From 2018 through 2021, 144 people died in 602 school shootings, broadly defined as all fatal, injury, non-injury, stray-bullet, and gun brandishing cases\u00a0in or around a K-12 school (Reidman, 2022). This study covers July 1, 2021, through June 30,\u00a02022, a period which includes the Uvalde, Texas, mass school shooting, which accounted for\u00a043% of the student school shooting deaths during the period and which boosted the death toll\u00a0from school shootings substantially above those of previous years. Despite these horrific\u00a0occurrences, the hypothesis of this analysis is that schools will prove safer from gun violence\u00a0than other areas of American society.<\/p>\n

Should children be \u201cterrified to go to school\u201d?<\/h2>\n

The widespread assumption that schools are dangerous places for gun violence suggests that to\u00a0be persuasive, this analysis must deliberately adopt assumptions and measures that make the\u00a0above hypothesis affirming relative school safety harder to prove. To that end, this analysis\u00a0incorporates the broadest possible definition of a school shooting, the maximum enumeration of\u00a0school shooting victimizations, and the one-year period during which the most shootings\u00a0occurred \u2013 all pessimistic, counter-hypothesis assumptions \u2013 to calculate the risks of\u00a0experiencing a shooting in a school per hour spent there.<\/p>\n

How much time do Americans spend in K-12 schools? In 2022, the National Center for\u00a0Education Statistics (2022, 2022a) estimated that 55.7 million students, 3.6 million faculty, and\u00a0three million additional staff were enrolled or employed in 130,930 public and private K-12\u00a0schools. At an average daily attendance of 93.2%, 55.3 million persons would be present in K-12\u00a0schools for an average of 6.64 hours per day for 167 days per year.<\/p>\n

School shootings are defined by the School Shooting Safety Compendium compiled from 25 sources by the Department of Homeland Security\u2019s Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS, 2022) as including \u201ceach and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits<\/p>\n

K-12 school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, day of the\u00a0week.\u201d All shootings, including suicides and those of unknown intent, are included regardless of\u00a0whether they occurred during regular school hours or involved school-related participants. This\u00a0analysis counts all school shootings in the SSSC database from July 1, 2021, through June 30,\u00a02022, victimizing persons under age 19, including all those whose ages are listed simply as\u00a0\u201cchild\u201d or \u201cteen\u201d, as student victims whether they were enrolled in school or not. The few\u00a0victims of unknown age are apportioned to students the same as those of known age.<\/p>\n

Corresponding national firearms death totals used to estimate dangers elsewhere in American\u00a0society are tabulated by the Centers for Disease Control (2022) for calendar year 2021. Ideally,\u00a0comparison of school shootings would be to the exact same time period, but 2021-2022 national\u00a0figures are not yet available. Further, in keeping with the study goal of \u201cstacking the deck\u201d to\u00a0maximize the impact of school shootings, 2021-2022 is chosen for school shootings to include\u00a0the Uvalde mass shooting to maximize school victimization numbers, while 2021 is chosen for\u00a0the national comparison even though preliminary projections indicate 2021-2022 gun mortality\u00a0numbers will be higher. The analysis thus uses the most recent data available at this writing.<\/p>\n

Based on these assumptions, Americans spent approximately 69.4 billion person-hours in K-12\u00a0schools in 2020-21. On a full-time annualized basis, then, American K-12 schools amount to a\u00a0\u201cnation\u201d of 7.9 million people, between the national populations of Denmark (which suffered 84\u00a0shooting deaths in the most recent year) and Belgium (143). Assuming that the 72 total annual\u00a0fatal shootings and 258 shooting injuries (including minor injuries) in 329 school firearms\u00a0incidents in 2021-2022 represent the new normal, there would be 1.02 fatal and 3.75 injury\u00a0shooting casualties per billion school person-hours. Focusing only on students, persons ages 5 17\u00a0spent 62 billion person-hours and, under maximized assumptions, suffered 44 fatalities and 175\u00a0injuries from shootings in schools in 2020-21.\u00a0How does American school gun safety compare to other venues?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

=Based on the most pessimistic assumptions from the highest year for school shootings and a\u00a0broad definition that includes shootings originating off-campus and outside of school hours, a\u00a0student or adult school employee would have to attend school every school day for 397 years to\u00a0experience even odds of having a firearms incident of any kind \u2013 fatal, injurious, missed-firing,\u00a0stray-bullet, or gun-brandishing \u2013 occur at their school. A student would have to attend school\u00a0every school day (allowing for average daily attendance) for 208,000 years to risk being\u00a0personally killed or injured in a shooting, and for nearly 1.2 million years to suffer even odds of\u00a0being killed in a school shooting.<\/span><\/p>\n

For all ages, 2.4% of total time is spent in a K-12 school, and 0.3% of all gun homicides take\u00a0place in a school. Students ages 5-17 spend 12.2% of their total hours in school each year and suffer 3.0% of their gun homicides and 1.8% of their total gun deaths in or around the country\u2019s\u00a0K-12 schools.<\/p>\n

These odds make schools among the safest places in the United States from shootings, fatal or\u00a0otherwise. Per billion person-hours spent elsewhere in society other than at a K-12 school, the\u00a0average American of all ages is 16.3 times more likely (including 7.3 times for homicides and\u00a0211 times more for suicides), and the average 5-to-17-year-old is 6.7 times more likely\u00a0(including 4.2 times for homicides and 50.7 times for suicides), to suffer a fatal shooting.<\/p>\n

However, the United States does not set a high bar for gun safety. How do American schools\u00a0compare to the greater safety from guns found in other Western nations? Figure 1 compares\u00a0firearms death tolls per billion person-hours for the United States and U.S. schools to those of\u00a0Mexico and 18 affluent Western countries (World Population Review, 2020). While the United\u00a0States ranks the worst by far for shooting deaths, its schools rank favorably with other Western\u00a0countries as a whole. A person walking the hallways or campuses of an American school risks\u00a0about the same odds of being shot as a person in Germany.<\/p>\n

This risk calculation in no way diminishes the disturbing reality of school shootings or shootings\u00a0elsewhere, mass and otherwise. Incomplete tabulations indicate that while U.S. schools are much\u00a0safer from gun violence than elsewhere in American society, U.S. schools are much less safe\u00a0from gunfire than schools in other Western countries. \u201cThe notion that school shootings are a\u00a0uniquely American crisis&quot; is difficult to dispute given their alarming frequency in the U.S.\u00a0compared to the rest of the industrialized world,\u201d World Population Review\u2019s analysis\u00a0concludes. Of 330 known school shootings worldwide in 2022, 288, or 87%, occurred in the\u00a0United States (World Population Review, 2022), which has around 4% of the world\u2019s K-12 students. The extent to which nations other than the United States keep complete records of\u00a0shootings in schools is not known, perhaps because such shootings are rare in other countries. The paradox that American K-12 students are much safer from gunfire in schools than elsewhere\u00a0in American society and at the same time much more in danger of shootings than students in\u00a0other Western nations\u2019 schools is the kind of innovative information that can yield powerful\u00a0policy insights.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

Americans who fear gun violence should be more frightened when a child or youth leaves a\u00a0school than when they enter one. As other Western countries have shown, the shooting death of\u00a0anyone, anywhere is a preventable tragedy, but we attach a special sadness to the death of a\u00a0young person because of the greater loss of years and potential. It is because the shooting of a\u00a0young person is a tragedy \u2013 especially in the quantity child gun victimizations occur in the\u00a0United States \u2013 that the most accurate information and carefully designed policies must be\u00a0applied to preventing them.<\/p>\n

The unreasoning panic over school shootings to the exclusion of broader gun violence concerns\u00a0damages effective policy and endangers young people. Gun-rights activists\u2019 campaign to arm\u00a0school officers and teachers is particularly alarming. If just a fraction of 1% of the hundreds of\u00a0thousands of personnel armed with assault weapons who would be installed in schools at costs of\u00a0tens of billions of dollars annually under gun-rights proposals turn out to be mentally or\u00a0criminally disturbed, children would be in far more danger of being shot in school than they are\u00a0now. Indeed, unwarranted shootings of other officers, adults, students, and themselves by armed\u00a0school officers already have occurred. That policy recommendations like these are gaining\u00a0traction results from vast overestimates of the dangers children and youth face in schools and\u00a0misallocation of limited resources available to ameliorate gun violence.<\/p>\n

The failure to set rational priorities means more people, including young people, will be shot.
\nThe small fraction shot in mass school shootings by young peers are granted such high-priority
\nstatus for grief and policy remediation that the vast majority of child victims who are shot at
\nhome by grownups are treated as unimportant and unworthy of mention. The FBI\u2019s tabulation of\u00a0age of shooter by age of victim shows more than three-fourths gun murder victims under age 12\u00a0were shot by adults ages 25 and older; just 5% were shot by peers under age 18, fewer than are\u00a0shot by grownups age 50 and older (OJJDP, 2022).<\/p>\n

Why are schools relatively safe? That, even in a country with staggering gun fatality, American\u00a0schools suffer gun violence levels comparable to those found in Germany, Australia, New\u00a0Zealand, and Belgium appears to relate to one commonality: like other Western nations, and\u00a0unlike other American venues, American schools are almost all gun-free. Straightforward\u00a0mathematical analyses of state gun-law strictness, proportions of households with guns, poverty\u00a0levels, and gun death rates by type consistently show that gun proliferation and poverty levels are\u00a0the major predictors of firearms homicide and overall gun death rates. Domestic violence inflicts\u00a0a much higher gun violence toll on children than shootings in schools.<\/p>\n

The clear desire of political, interest-group, and major-media commentators and authorities to\u00a0avoid the uncomfortable implications of these realities shows the gun debate is more about\u00a0advancing partisan agendas than protecting young people. While it is unarguably true that school\u00a0shootings are tragic and deserve outrage, the exclusionary fixation on them has produced\u00a0extremist \u201cremedies\u201d that would increase, not decrease, danger to students. We do not need\u00a0hundreds of thousands of assault-weapon armed vigilantes roaming school hallways and\u00a0campuses. We do not need mass screenings of tens of millions of students using dubious\u00a0psychometric scorings (see Ferguson, Coulson, Barnett, 2013, 2011). It is long past time to move\u00a0into a realistic era of reasoned assessments of real gun violence dangers and scientific responses.<\/p>\n

References<\/h3>\n

Center for Homeland Defense and Security (2022). Data map for shootings at K-12 schools.
\nhttps:\/\/www.chds.us\/ssdb\/data-map\/\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n

Centers for Disease Control WONDER (2022). Provisional mortality statistics, 2018 through last
\nmonth. https:\/\/wonder.cdc.gov\/mcd-icd10-provisional.html<\/a><\/p>\n

Education Week (2022), Education Statistics: Facts About American Schools.
\nhttps:\/\/www.edweek.org\/leadership\/education-statistics-facts-about-american-<\/a>schools\/2019\/01#:~:text=How%20many%20schools%20are%20there,for%20Education%20Stati
\nstics%20(NCES).<\/p>\n

Ferguson, C.J., Coulson, M., Barnett, J. (2013, 2011). Psychological profiles of school shooters:
\nPositive directions and one big wrong turn. Journal of Police Crisis Negotiations, 11:1\u201317. At:
\nhttps:\/\/www.christopherjferguson.com\/ProfilesSS.pdf<\/p>\n

National Center for Education Statistics (2022). Digest of Education Statistics, Tables 201.10,
\n208-20, 213.10. https:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/programs\/digest\/d21\/tables\/dt21_208.20.asp?current=yes,<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/programs\/digest\/d21\/tables\/dt21_213.10.asp?current=yes,<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/programs\/digest\/d20\/tables\/dt20_201.10.asp?current=yes<\/a><\/p>\n

National Center for Education Statistics (2022a). Schools and staffing survey.
\nhttps:\/\/nces.ed.gov\/surveys\/sass\/tables\/sass0708_035_s1s.asp<\/a><\/p>\n

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) (2022). Easy access to the Supplementary Homicide Reports: 1980-2020.
\nhttps:\/\/www.ojjdp.gov\/ojstatbb\/ezashr\/asp\/vic_selection.asp<\/a><\/p>\n

Reidman, D. (2022). Naval Postgraduate Center for Homeland Defense and Security. K-12
\nschool shooting database. https:\/\/k12ssdb.org\/all-shootings<\/a><\/p>\n

World Population Review (2022). Gun deaths by country, 2022.
\nhttps:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/country-rankings\/gun-deaths-by-country.<\/a> School shootings
\nby country, 2022. https:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/country-rankings\/school-shootings-by-<\/a>
\ncountry. Total population by country, 2022. https:\/\/worldpopulationreview.com\/countries<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Are U.S. schools dangerous places for gun violence? By Mike A. Males, YouthFacts April 24, 2023 A number of mass shootings have made the United States\u2019 K-12 schools the focus of the gun\u00a0safety debate and often extreme \u201csolutions\u201d to prevent them. However, a straightforward risk\u00a0analysis shows the chances of being shot or suffering any kind […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-160964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=160964"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160964\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":160997,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/160964\/revisions\/160997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=160964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=160964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.youthfacts.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=160964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}