State Firearm Laws, Gun Ownership, and K-12 School Shootings: Implications for School Safety

ABSTRACT

Limited research has been conducted on the state-level factors that may be associated with intentional school shootings. We obtained school shooting data from the Washington Post that identified any act of intentional interpersonal gunfire in a K-12 school over the course of two decades. We also compiled new data on active school shootings during the same twenty-year time period, which identified any attempted mass shooting incident in a K-12 school. We conducted a time-series analysis to measure the association of permissiveness of state firearm laws and state gun ownership with K-12 school shootings and active shootings. More permissive firearm laws and higher rates of gun ownership were associated with higher rates of both school shootings and active school shootings after controlling for critical covariates. Specific recommendations for K-12 schools to consider as they seek to prevent acts of intentional gunfire on school grounds are presented.

KEYWORDS:

• School violence
• mass shootings
• shooting shootings
• school safety
• active shootings
• gun violence

Acknowledgments

The paper was written for the Firearm Safety Among Children and Teens Consortium. This work was funded by NICHD grant no. R24HD087149. No potential competing interest was reported by the authors.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability

Data is available upon reasonable request from the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed on the publisher’s website.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by NICHD under grant no. R24HD087149. Funded by the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HHS - NIH). Awarded to Regents Of The University Of Michigan. Awarded on Sep 5, 2017. CFDA 93.865 - Child Health and Human Development Extramural Research.

Notes on contributors

Paul M. Reeping

Paul M. Reeping is an epidemiology PhD candidate studying at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.

Louis Klarevas

Dr. Louis Klarevas is Research Professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.

Sonali Rajan

Dr. Sonali Rajan is Associate Professor of Health Education in the Department of Health and Behavior Studies at Teachers College, Columbia University. She also holds a secondary faculty appointment in the Department of Epidemiology at the Mailman School of Public Health.

Ali Rowhani-Rahbar

Dr. Ali Rowhani-Rahbar is the Bartley Dobb Endowed Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence at the University of Washington.

Justin Heinze

Dr. Justin Heinze is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in the School of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and co-Director of the National Center for School Safety.

April M. Zeoli

Dr. April Zeoli is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University.

Monika K. Goyal

Dr. Monika Goyal is a pediatric emergency medicine specialist, Associate Division Chief of Emergency Medicine and Trauma Services and Director of Academic Affairs and Research at Children's National Hospital. She is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Emergency Medicine at the George Washington University School of Medicine.

Marc A. Zimmerman

Dr. Marc A. Zimmerman is the Marshall H. Becker Collegiate Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan, and co-Director of the UM Institute of Firearm Injury Prevention and the National Center for School Safety, and Director of the CDC-funded Michigan Youth Violence Prevention Center.

Charles C. Branas

Dr. Charles C. Branas is the Gelman Endowed Professor and chair of the Department of Epidemiology at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health.