School shootings are on the rise in America.
Precedent shows gun restrictions can help.

The U.S. leads the world in this tragedy.

By a lot.

181,866

school shootings have occurred in the U.S. since 1970.

68681

people have died.

What constitutes a school shooting?

The Naval Postgraduate School’s K-12 School Shooting Database includes any incident where a gun was brought onto school property from 1970 to 2022. This project only looks at incidents as of May 29, 2022 that meet the definition of a “school shooting,” as used by the U.S. Government Accountability Office. The criteria is incidents where a gun is fired on school grounds, on a bus, during a school event, during school hours, or right before or after school.

School shootings decreased during a 10-year federal ban on assault weapons.

After the ban expired in 2004, assault weapons became legal unless otherwise banned by the state. From 1994 to 2004, far fewer shootings occurred than in the last ten years. During this period, population growth may have contributed to this change, but the federal assault rifle ban was a major factor in the decline in school shootings.

Data from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence reveal a direct association between stronger gun restrictions and fewer school shootings.

Amid a rising number of school shootings going into the 90s, Congress enacted the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 . The law prohibited the manufacturing, selling or possessing assault weapons in many cases. Mass shooting fatalities were 70% less likely to occur than before and after the ban. The legislation was followed by a decline in school shootings per year — that is until the ban expired in 2004 due to a sunset clause. Soon after, the nation saw another rise in school shootings in 2005 and 2006.

School Shootings 1994-2004

School Shootings 2011-2022

The black dots on this range plot represent school shootings within the ten-year period of the federal assault weapons ban. This data is from Sept. 14, 1994 to Sept. 14, 2004.

The red dots show shootings in the last ten years without a federal assault weapons ban. This data is from May 29, 2012 to May 29, 2022.

Nearly every state saw a significantly greater number of school shootings in the past ten years than in the years where assault weapons were banned.

Disclaimer: Data was unavailable for some states.

Currently, only 8 states have banned assault weapons

Assault Weapons Ban

Assault Weapons Restrictions

No Assault Weapons Ban

Eight states in the U.S. have assault rifle bans as of 2022 and two states restrict the sale and possession of assault rifles. Other states have enacted laws that specifically protect children, like child access prevention firearm laws and safe storage or gun lock requirements. Thirty-four states have enacted a child access prevention firearm law, while 14 states have enacted safe storage or gun lock requirements. In states with child access prevention firearm laws, parents risk liability for allowing children unsupervised access to guns, encouraging parents to safely store their weapons. Safe storage and gun lock requirements necessitate the safe storage of guns. Sixty-eight percent of guns used in gun-related incidents on school grounds were obtained from a household frequented by the shooter.

Deadly school shootings this year occurred in states that don't have assault weapon bans.

The Consequence? Lives.

4.6 million

minors in the U.S. live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm.

6x

The United States has had over six times more school shootings as of 2022 than all other countries combined.

68.36%

of school shootings since 1970 were not preplanned.

The United States Had the Highest Number of School Shootings of Any Country from 2009-2018.

This data was compiled based on CNN analysis of news reports and only accounts for school shootings from January 1, 2009 - May 21, 2018. The parameters for accounts recognized as school shootings were as follows:

Shooting must have involve at least one person being shot (not including the shooter)
Shooting had to have occured on school grounds
Gang violence, fights and domestic violence was included (but count is NOT limited to those categories)
Grades kindergarten through college/university level as well as vocational schools were included
Accidental discharge of a firearm as long as the first two parameters were met were included

But Why?

There are 120.5 guns in civilian possession per 100 civilians in the US

The United States has had six times more school shootings than all other countries combined (from 2009 to 2018).

There are more guns in the United States than there are people.

US federal law states that Americans are not required to undergo a background check before purchasing a firearm from a private seller.

In 2017, researchers found that 57% of firearms over the course of two years were obtained without a background check in states that don't have gun restrictions.

Guns Kill People.

The United States leads the world in both school shootings and rates of civilian-owned firearms

According to a Small Arms Survey from 2017

The University of Washington School of Medicine's Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which is an independent health research organization, analyzed findings from a 2018 Global Burden of Disease study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

They found that, when accounting for population, firearm homicide rates in the U.S. are 22x greater than they are in the entire European Union. Rates are 23x greater than in Australia. Gun violence made up more than 7% of deaths among U.S. children under 20.

So far in 2022, at least 23 children have died in school shootings across the United States.

It's June.

The deadliest of these all was the Uvalde, Texas shooting. An 18-year-old man entered Robb Elementary School on May 24 and killed 19 students and two teachers with a legally bought AR rifle. This shooting reignited the debate around gun control and the question of what it will take for gun violence to end in the United States.

The Uvalde shooting was the most deadly school shooting in Texas' history and was made possible because of the lack of gun control laws. In Texas, it is possible for an 18-year-old to purchase an automatic rifle (the most commonly used gun in mass shootings), but you must be 21 to have a license to carry a handgun.

The data collected shows the correlation between increased school shootings in the absence of a federal assault weapon ban. The United States has one of the most permissive gun control laws of the countries in the developed world. Consequently, the US leads the global trends in gun ownership by civilians and school shootings. Assault rifles, one of the deadliest weapons, can be purchased in many states in the US without significant oversight.

Students and teachers throughout the entire United States are trained on how to react in the event of a school shooting. On May 24, teachers and students had to utilize that training in Uvalde, Texas, and later, had to mourn the deaths of their classmates and teachers.