Student’s should not have to worry if they should be going home that night when walking into their school building.

Parents should not have to worry if that is the last time they will ever see them again when their child goes of to school.

There should not be a need for safety measures to be put in place or used because someone comes to school with a gun.

When people hear the words school shooting, certain ones may come to mind: Columbine, Sandy Hook, Virginia Tech to name a few.

School shootings are a growing problem that put student and teachers’ lives at risk. This year alone there have been 179 school shootings.

“…so any time that there is a potential threat on campus, the administration goes through a certain set of procedures to address that student or whatever the threat is, a group of students, whatever is coming our way,” Supervisor of Security, Safety, and Student Conduct Ariel Gilbert said. “Then we go through that set of procedures that’s also in accordance with the state requirements and so on that we are bound to and we do everything that we can to mitigate, control the threat as quickly as possible.”

In 2023, the United States faced the most school shootings in its history with 351 shootings. 2024 had the second highest number with 336 shootings. However, 2024 had the highest number of deaths and injuries during a school shooting with 276 victims.

The chart shows the amount of school shootings by year since 1966 till present time.

The number of school shootings began to rise in 2018, nearly doubling from the year prior.

Since the Columbine High School shooting, over 390,000 students have experienced some kind of gun violence while at school.

There are some trends that are worth mentioning. Most of these school shootings (62.1%) have occurred in a high school, and 517 school shootings occurred during the morning.

Overall, the U.S. has faced many school shootings, but certain states have faced significantly more than others.

While some may believe that politics and states’ views would have a dramatic impact on the data, the state with the most school shootings, California, a blue state, disproves this assumption. However, population does seem to have an effect on the amount of tragedies state by state.

California, Texas and Florida have the three highest number of school shootings: California has 277, Texas has 237 and Florida has 159.

Wyoming has the lowest number with two school shootings.

30 states have a number of school shootings in the double digits, and 9 states have a number of school shootings in the single digits.

To see a breakdown of state populations see the following website: https://worldpopulationreview.com/states.

In contrast to the data, California has the strongest gun laws in the United States while Wyoming has the weakest.

The high number of school shootings in California could be due to the population density as California has a population density of 255. Meanwhile, Wyoming has a population density of six.

However, New Jersey (32 school shootings) is the most densely population state, with a density of 1,308 and Alaska (seven school shootings) is the least densely populated state with a density of one.

Gun control is any legal measure that is created to prevent or restrict use and possession of guns.

In United States v. Lopez (1995), the United States Supreme Court ruled the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act unconstitutional.

The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 made it illegal for someone, in a school zone, to knowingly have a firearm.

Since the Sandy Hook massacre, the number of new gun laws is over 700. However, the weapons used in school shootings have mostly been obtained legally.

Depending on someone’s interpretation of the second amendment they may believe that owning a gun is within their constitutional rights.

A majority of school shooters are students in the schools (42.7%) with the next highest amount of shooters having no relation to the school (24.7%).

Copycat shootings are another reason for school shootings.

“Some people are looking for, they desire notoriety because unfortunately, after a school shooting, their name, their photo, where they lived, where they went to school, the people that are connected to, whether it be immediate family members or other things in the community, that all gets widely publicized,” Del Val’s mental health counselor Amanda Matlee said. “…Some people are looking at, hey, this is what happened. These people have now created a legacy for themselves, and I want that for myself.” And then they might emulate that behavior.”

Contrary to popular belief, there is not normally a connection between school shooters having mental health issues.  However, there are trends in social media presence and past trauma.

88% of school shooters have at least one social media account and 76% posted a threatening message prior to the shooting.

72% of shooters had at least one bad moment in their childhood, such as incarnation of a household member, drinking at home, child abuse, mental illness in a family member or substance use, and 60% of participants in a school shooting have reported that they had been bullied either in person or cyberbullied.

“So one of the things that I think is important to point out is just because you’ve had one of these things, it’s not a causational relationship,” Matlee said. “So just because you have mental illness, it doesn’t mean it’s going to cause you to be a school shooter, or just because you have had a history of being bullied, it doesn’t mean you’re going to shoot someone. It just means that there’s a correlation there that there’s a factor, a risk factor, but it’s not a causal relationship.”