With federal gun control on ice, advocates look to other solutions for school shootings

Source: The Hill

01/12/25 6:00 AM ET


Advocates are urging greater action against school shootings in 2025, saying the only way to slow the bloodshed is a combination of moves from legislators, schools and parents. Multiple trackers counted an increase in school shootings last year, and experts are calling for solutions ranging from violence prevention programs to better-secured firearms at home.

The multipronged approach could be the only way to affect real change on school shootings under a unified GOP government that is unlikely to make any substantial moves on gun control. “Make no mistake, these are not right or left issues, these are life or death issues. As 2025 gets underway, there’s no stopping our progress in states across the country because when it comes to the leading cause of death for children and teens, nothing will stand in our way,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, head of research at Everytown for Gun Safety.

The number of school shootings in a given year can be difficult to count as organizations use different definitions of such events and pull their data from different sources. Education Week’s school shooting tracker, which only counts incidents that occurred during school hours or at school-sponsored events, found 39 shootings in 2024, with 18 people killed and 59 injured. Those incidents outpaced 2023 but were less than in 2022.

Everytown, however, looks at any time a shot is fired on school grounds, even if no one was injured or killed. The group recorded 219 incidents of gunfire on grounds last year, with 59 deaths and more than 160 injuries. “I would say that last school year did see over 30 percent increase in incidents of gunfire, and that is particularly concerning in a time when violent crime overall in this country is going down,” Burd-Sharps said.

Read more: https://thehill.com/homenews/education/5074729-school-shootings-gun-control-everytown-sandy-hook-trump-safe-storage/