The state of New York has established a workplace violence prevention standard applicable to public schools (New York State, 2024), and California is developing one. States with weaker gun laws, such as no-permit carry and Shoot First laws (also known as Stand Your Ground NEA Gun Violence Prevention Guide laws), have higher rates of gun violence (Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, 2024-a). Research strongly indicates that children will access guns when guns are present, including on school grounds. Community violence occurring in and around schools significantly affects students and educators.

The Disproportionate Impact of Gun Violence on Black and Latinx Children and Teens

• In 2002, a 19-year-old student in the Thuringian state capital, Erfurt, shot dead 16 people at the school that had recently expelled him, using weapons he had obtained from his gun club.
• Anyone can be affected by gun violence, but it often disproportionately impacts people of colour, men and boys in deprived communities, and other marginalized groups.
• Training school staff on how to respond to active shooter situations is important.
• The Stress in America survey provides ample evidence of the collective trauma our country faces, including from mass shootings (American Psychological Association, 2023).
• Individuals can lawfully carry concealed firearms in public in every state in the country.

Just three days after the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, editorials began to appear online blaming the shooting on the fact Sandy Hook Elementary was a gun-free zone.76 While proponents of the law believe this helps to keep guns away from schools, opponents of gun-free zones believe that perpetrators may target these areas due to the belief that the victims would not be able to defend themselves as they are unarmed. Department of Education reviewed all targeted school violence incidents from 1974 to June 2000 and identified behavioral warning signs in 93% of the cases.69 In 81% of the incidents, other people, often the shooter’s peers, had some knowledge of the plans.69 In a follow-up study conducted from 2008 to 2017, researchers found that 100% of the perpetrators showed concerning behaviors, and in 77% of school shooting incidents at least one person knew about the attackers plan.70 These numbers represent an important place for an intervention, and the Start With Hello campaign could be a first step in getting individuals the support that they need. For example, the hundreds of thousands of students who may have avoided being physically injured by a firearm during these attacks may still experience long term mental health consequences. Although children and teens are usually not targeted in public mass shootings,8 school shootings in K-12 schools – which include mass shootings – remain one unfortunate exception. On December 14th, 2012, a 20-year-old male, not yet legally old enough to carry a handgun, would go on to commit the deadliest K-12 school shooting in United States history.1 Earlier in the morning, he would first murder his mother, a firearms enthusiast, and steal her Bushmaster XM15-E2S rifle, Izhmash Canta gauge shotgun, SIG Sauer P226, and a Glock 20SF handgun, all of which were bought legally.2 He then drove ten minutes away to Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, a kindergarten through fourth grade primary school where over 400 were students enrolled. This chapter argues that when a school shooting occurs, the harm can go beyond just those who are injured or killed, as the presumption of security is shattered, and the mental and emotional health of the students exposed to the violence is threatened.

Communicate with your child’s teachers throughout the school year, not just when problems arise. Parents need to step in and intervene when children exhibit behavior or attitudes that could potentially harm them or others. Show your children through your actions how to adhere to rules and regulations, be responsible, have empathy toward others, control anger, and manage stress.

This section includes strategies to install evidence-based security upgrades to prevent shooters’ access to education settings, examine the efficacy and potential harm of active shooter drills and school policing, and establish the processes and relationships that will facilitate effective responses. The goals are to minimize emotional, psychological, and physical harm when incidents occur and to have a system in place for immediate, effective response and recovery, which includes establishing crucial relationships with school administrators and community groups. Students exposed to the trauma of violence, crime, and abuse are more likely to suffer from substance use disorders, depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); fail or have difficulties in school; and engage in criminal activity (Finkelhor & et al., 2015); (Cronholm & et al., 2015). Go to reference and gun suicides are on the rise—a public health crisis (American Public Health Association, 2023) that communities and elected officials can prevent. The Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund used four years of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data on gun deaths among people ages 0 to 19 to develop the yearly average.

The last school shooting of this scale in Canada was in 1989, when a gunman murdered 14 women at École Polytechnique in Montréal. Earlier, one of her coworkers at a nearby laboratory had asked “if I knew what was happening at the high school.” The secondary school has just 175 students from Grades 7 to 12, according to the province’s website. The alleged shooter, who was found dead at the school with a self-inflicted injury, is believed to have killed two more people, whose bodies were discovered at a home in the township Police found six people dead and dozens injured when they arrived at the high school in Tumbler Ridge, a town of just 2,400 people in northeast British Columbia, early on Tuesday afternoon. A remote mountain town in Canada has been shaken by the country’s deadliest school shooting in decades, when an armed assailant killed at least nine people.

National Association of School Psychologists

The top 50 laws we focus on represent a wide range of interventions. As new tools and approaches emerge, communities can adapt and strengthen their prevention efforts, ultimately saving lives and building safer environments for all. These professionals play a key role in identifying individuals at risk and connecting them with the support and resources they need. It is essential that this education is delivered by trained professionals or instructors to ensure accuracy and effectiveness.

How do gun safety prevention strategies address mental health concerns in schools?

State education agencies (SEAs) must submit data to the secretary of education on an annual basis, reporting the number of students who were expelled for firearm offenses under the law during the 12-month reporting period. In 2021�22, about 45 percent of public schools reported having sworn law enforcement officers who routinely carried a firearm. For more information about safety and security measures in schools, see the Fast Fact on this topic. Preventing school violence requires addressing the factors that put people at risk for or protect them from violence. A 2019 report from the Secret Service found that in half the school shootings they studied, the gun used was either readily accessible at home or not meaningfully secured. Tuesday’s violence follows a familiar pattern of previous school shootings.