School shooting statistics show that firearms have become the leading cause of death for American youth in recent years. This comes in many forms, from accidental shootings to suicides to school attacks.
While only making up a small percentage of these gun deaths, the number of shootings and gun incidents at K-12 schools and universities in the US has increased since the late 1990s. What was once a rare tragedy has become a regular part of American life, with numbers reaching record highs in the early 2020s.
This article will provide a snapshot of the issue and a brief representation of all of the key information you need to know about school shootings in the U.S.
The Numbers: Quantifying the Impact of Guns in Schools
Incidents:
- Up to 233 shootings at K-12 schools in 2025.
- Up to 64 shootings at colleges and universities in 2025, according to our analyses of Everytown Research data.
- 2023 had the most school shooting incidents in history. There were up to 352 incidents in K-12 schools and 30 in higher education.
Exposure:
- 507 people have been killed and 1162 injured across all shootings at schools since 2013, according to the data from Everytown Research.
- 390,000 students have been exposed to gun violence at school since the 1999 Columbine High School shooting, according to Sandy Hook Promise.
Long-term impact:
- 27.8% greater likelihood of students developing chronic absenteeism after a shooting.
- 21% increase in youth antidepressant prescriptions after a local shooting.
- Over $100,000 is the lost lifetime earnings per survivor of school gun violence.
Read on to learn more about these numbers and others.
How School Shootings Are Defined and Counted
Depending on where you look, the number of school shootings this past year could range anywhere from one incident to 233.
Why do different organizations report such different numbers for school shootings in the US? The answer is definitions. What one database counts as a “school shooting” may not count as another’s. This leads to public confusion and debate about the scope of the problem.
School Shooting Database Definitions
Key factors that usually distinguish sources from one another include a threshold for a number of victims (shot and/or killed), the intent and use of the firearm on campus, and whether or not they include shootings in higher education in their counts.
The following lists different sources and their criteria for quantifying school shootings:
- K-12 School Shooting Database(233): Counts any time a gun is brandished with intent to intimidate, fired, or a bullet hits K-12 school property. Includes gang-related incidents, domestic violence spillover, suicides, accidental discharges, after-hours events, and school-sponsored activities off campus (such as sporting events).
- Everytown for Gun Safety (159): Counts any incidents where guns are fired on both K-12 and college campuses, including those with and without victims.
- CNN School Shootings Database (75) and Gun Violence Archive: Counts K-12 and higher education incidents of gun violence where there is at least one victim (injured or killed).
- Education Week (18): Counts shooting incidents at K-12 schools where there was at least one person injured or killed.
- Mother Jones (1): Counts incidents in K-12 schools and at colleges where at least three people were shot and killed.
How Mass Events Impact Statistics
A small number of mass shootings account for many of the deaths compared to the hundreds of lower-casualty incidents each year. Death and injury curves spike in years with big massacres, even if the total number of incidents is the same as in other years. Media reports focus on mass casualty events and underreport the cumulative toll of smaller incidents.
Recent campus shootings at colleges, including Brown University in December 2025, add to overall school-related gun violence, even though they’re not included in K-12 data.
The connection between big, headline-grabbing massacres and the many smaller, less-covered incidents matters: both traumatize students, families, and communities. Both need to be addressed in prevention efforts.
Trends in Shooter Characteristics and Motives
Understanding who and what perpetrates school shootings helps contextualize risk and guide prevention efforts. Demographic and motivational patterns emerge clearly from data analyses of shootings.
Shooter Demographics
Age Distribution: Around 89% of shooters in K-12 schools are younger than 22 years old, commonly, around high school age (15-18). Shooters at colleges and universities tend to be college-aged or older, with an average age of 28, according to PBS.
Gender: The vast majority (98%) of school shooters are identified as male. This pattern holds across virtually all mass shootings and lower-casualty incidents.
Relationship to School: Between 43.1% and 45% K-12 shooters are current or former students of the targeted school. Adult intruders, family members, and staff account for a smaller percentage of incidents.
Causes and Motivations
Certain factors can increase the risk of someone perpetrating a shooting at a school, including having a history of bullying or rejection, mental illness or behavioral problems, idealization of violence, and/or abuse. These things can lead to harmful political, religious, hate-based, or retribution-based motivations.
However, according to a 2020 study by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), only about 14% of gun violence that takes place on K-12 school property is school-targeted. This means that most shooting incidents happen for other reasons. About a third of incidents are related to disputes (like conflicts or fights that happen on school campuses), and 16% of incidents are actually accidental. The rest of the gun violence incidents at schools are largely made up of suicides and attempts, domestic incidents, incidents where a victim is specifically targeted, and illegal activity-related shootings.
Warning Signs and Leakage
Statistics on warning signs and prevention strategies show that many school shootings aren’t completely “out of the blue.” Research shows identifiable patterns that, if recognized, can prevent school shootings from happening.
The data on pre-attack behavior is striking. According to a report by the U.S. Secret Service, 85% of school shooters engaged in weapons-related planning, like researching, stealing, acquiring, and practicing using the firearm, and almost all shooters (94%) shared their intent with others verbally or online prior to their attack.
Most mass school shooters show behavioral red flags—fascination with prior shootings, violent ideation, or direct threats. Peers and bystanders often have critical information but don’t report because of fear or skepticism.
Weapons Used
Handguns are the most common weapon used in school shootings, used 84% of the time, though rifles, which are used in 7% of cases, are more deadly in these situations.
Firearm access correlates directly with incident rates:
- 4.6 million U.S. kids live in homes with at least one loaded, unlocked firearm.
- This increases the risk of both intentional shootings and suicides.
- Almost half of gun-owning parents think their kids don’t know where the guns are stored. This contradicts surveys of kids who know exactly where the guns are stored.
Safe storage is a huge prevention opportunity backed by research from the National Center for Disease Control and Prevention studies.
Where and When School Shootings Happen
School shootings tend to cluster in certain regions, school levels, and school campus locations. They can happen during and after school hours, challenging assumptions about when students are most at risk.
Nation-Wide Geographic Patterns
Southern states have reported the highest numbers of school shootings overall since at least 2008, but states with other smaller populations are more likely to have a higher shooting rate per capita when adjusted for population. In 2025, California, Texas, and Tennessee had the highest number of school shooting incidents. In contrast, Delaware has the highest exposure rate to school shootings per capita, at 359 per 100,000, followed by Washington, D.C. (356), Utah (166), Arkansas (130), and Nevada (127).
States with few to no recorded school shootings in the past twenty years include Wyoming, New Hampshire, Maine, North Dakota and South Dakota, Alaska, Montana, Vermont, and West Virginia.
School Level Distribution
Nearly 60% of K-12 shooting incidents occur at high schools, reflecting the concentration of older students and complex social dynamics. Around 20% take place at elementary schools, 10.2% at middle schools, 2.1% at junior high schools, according to the K-12 SSDB. Colleges and universities also experience shootings.
On-Campus Locations
Contrary to popular imagery of classroom attacks, many K-12 shootings occur outside of the classroom, and up to two-thirds happen in outdoor areas. Common locations for shootings include:
- Parking lots and exterior grounds
- Hallways and common areas
- Athletic events and sports fields
- Cafeterias and gathering spaces
- School buses and transportation areas
Identifying trends in location for college and university shootings can be more difficult, as college campuses face different complexities than K-12 schools: They are made up of multiple multi-level buildings, and can be open to the public and not require any type of sign-in.
Incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting (2007) and the Michigan State University shooting (2023) involved the shooter moving between multiple buildings/areas on campus, whereas the Northern Illinois University shooting (2008) and the Brown University shooting (2025) were isolated to one building on campus.
Timing and Context
Most school shootings have happened during morning classes, according to data from Statista. But, they don’t exclusively happen during class instruction: The next most common time when school shooting incidents happen is during sports events.
Statista’s research found that, since 1999:
- 513 shootings happened during morning classes
- 385 happened at sports events
- 376 at dismissal
- 342 during afternoon classes
- 217 at night.
Contributing factors to out-of-school-hours gun violence include gang-related disputes, interpersonal conflicts, domestic violence spillover, suicides, and accidental discharges. Each category requires different prevention approaches.
Impacts on Students and Communities
Beyond the immediate deaths and injuries, school shootings create deep mental health, academic, and economic ripples. Children exposed to these events carry the trauma into adulthood and are affected by their life outcomes for decades.
Mental Health Impacts
Exposed students have higher risks of posttraumatic stress disorder, anxiety, depression, and substance abuse. Research shows that antidepressant prescriptions for youth living near schools that have had a shooting increased by over 21% in the years following an event. There has also been a potential correlation seen between exposure to shootings and increased risk of suicide among young survivors in recent years.
The psychological impact goes beyond those directly present. Students in nearby schools, communities, watching media coverage, and loved ones of victims all experience secondary trauma.
Academic Impacts
As a result of the associated trauma and mental health struggles, survivors of and students exposed to school shootings in K-12 are:
- 12.1% more likely to miss classes, and 27.8% more likely to develop chronic absenteeism, according to the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
- Likely to have standardized test scores decline by up to 5%.
- At risk of repeating grades.
These things can result in a drop in graduation rate by 2.9%. Additionally, affected students are less likely to attend or complete college after high school.
Economic Impacts
The long-term financial impacts go into adulthood: Shooting-exposed students are less likely to be employed in their mid-20s. Their earnings tend to be 13-14% lower annually,
- One study estimated that cohorts of exposed students lose around $100,000 each in lifetime earnings. This equates to around $5.8 billion total annually across all exposed students, according to a working paper by the National Bureau of Economic Research (page 30).
Community-Wide Ripples
Schools and communities face long-term challenges:
- Teacher turnover and difficulty hiring and retaining educators. One poll found that 22% of teachers have considered leaving education over school safety fears.
- Changes in school climate from added security measures (metal detectors, active shooter drills, etc.).
- Psychological costs for students and educators from constant vigilance.
- Community trust and cohesion may fracture after an incident.
Interventions to Curb School Shootings
Schools, districts, and communities can implement a wide range of social and technological strategies to help prevent gun violence at schools. These include:
- Threat assessment teams that are trained to evaluate and respond to concerning behavior.
- Anonymous reporting systems (tip lines) so students can share concerns safely and discreetly.
- Behavioral health support and mental health services in school settings.
- Training for educators to recognize warning signs and respond.
- Installing discreet security technology, like AI gun detection, that can proactively monitor schools and college campuses and improve threat detection capabilities.
- Building school climates where students feel safe to report concerns.
- Creating community violence intervention (CVI) programs.
Research shows the most effective prevention strategies combine multiple approaches: reducing firearm access, improving threat detection, building school climates, and addressing underlying mental health and abuse issues.
Key Takeaways
Gun violence in American schools remains a significant crisis, with up to 233 shootings in K-12 schools and around 64 at colleges and universities recorded in 2025. This marks a dramatic escalation since 1999, but a slight decrease from previous years.
The consequences of gun violence at schools are far-reaching, severely impacting the mental health and lifetime outcomes of exposed students. Crucially, the data suggests prevention is highly feasible, as over 90% of shooters who target schools exhibit warning signs beforehand. Understanding these statistics is vital for informing prevention efforts, supporting survivors, and protecting future generations.
Omnilert is committed to reducing the impact of gun violence on school grounds. We offer a range of tools to meet schools’ and colleges’ security needs, including AI gun detection, mass and emergency notification systems (ENS), and integrated security workflow automation. Click here to learn more about school security systems.
Read our reports on 2024 school shootings and 2025 school shooting data here.
Education Security Solutions
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What is a “school shooting,” and why do the numbers vary so much?
There is no one definition of a “school shooting.” Different organizations count different types of incidents based on whether someone was hurt or killed, whether it was intentional, and whether higher ed campuses are included. Some databases count any incident where a gun is fired or brandished on school property, and others only count multiple-victim incidents. These varying definitions are why the numbers are so different.
Are school shootings really increasing, or are we just hearing about them more?
The data shows school-related gun incidents have increased since the late 1990s, with record highs in the early 2020s, according to several different tracking methods. While increased media attention and better data collection play a role, multiple independent databases show an actual increase over time, not just more reporting.
How common are school shootings compared to other forms of youth gun violence?
School shootings make up a small percentage of overall youth gun deaths. Most firearm-related deaths among young people are due to suicide, accidental shootings, or violence outside of school. But school shootings have an outsize impact because they expose large numbers of students to trauma and disrupt entire communities.
Do school shooting stats include colleges and universities or just K-12 schools?
It depends on the source. Some databases only track K-12 schools, and others track both K-12 and higher education campuses. This can make it difficult to gain a true understanding of the scope of gun violence in education.
