
During the past half-century, the United States’ annual number of school shootings has increased more than twelvefold, a new study finds. What’s more, children are now four times more likely to be a school shooting victim, and the death rate from school shootings has risen more than sixfold. “Firearm violence is a public health crisis, and it needs to be addressed,” said lead researcher Dr. Louis Magnotti, a clinical professor of trauma surgery at the University of Arizona College of Medicine in Tucson. For the study, researchers analyzed 2,056 school shootings from 1970 through 2022. The incidents involved 3,083 victims, including 2,033 children ages 5 to 17 and 1,050 adults ages 18 to 74. The yearly number of school shootings has increased from 20 incidents in 1970 to 251 in 2021, researchers found. During that same period, the rate of children becoming a victim of a school shooting quadrupled, rising from 0.5 to 2.2 per 1 million population. Deaths occurred six times as often, rising from 0.2 to 1 per 1 million population. “Not only have school shootings increased, but fatalities have increased even more than the number of shootings,” said Dr. Ronald Stewart, chair of the department of surgery at University Hospital in San Antonio, Texas. He wasn’t involved with the study. Victims and shooters were both predominantly male, 77% and 96% respectively, results… read on > read on >