The killing of three University of Virginia students on Sunday underscores concerns in the US about access to guns on college campuses and the trend of US school shootings overall.
James Alan FoxA Northeastern professor who maintains the longest-running and most extensive data source on mass murders says the recent incident in Virginia, where a former college football player allegedly killed three current student-athletes, highlights a disturbing trend over the past 15 years that has allowed people to carry guns on college campuses in up to 40 states.
Fox says that before the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech — where 32 people were killed, including 27 students — only Utah allowed people with concealed carry permits to have guns on college campuses.
Now, because of his efforts Students for concealed carrya grassroots organization founded after the Virginia Tech massacre, Fox says there are 20 states that allow guns on all campuses.
Another 20 states allow colleges and universities to decide whether to allow guns, Fox says.
Ten states, including Massachusetts, flatly ban guns on college campuses, with the exception of university police and law enforcement.
“The problem is that on a college campus, you have students who are sometimes depressed and suicidal,” Fox says. “And you may have alcohol and drugs involved. You don't want guns in that mix.”
The event in Charlottesville, Virginia comes as Training week details of five-year school shootings. Six months after the mass killing of young students at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, the nonprofit magazine reports that 36 people have been killed and 90 injured as a result of 42 shootings this year at schools from kindergarten through 12th grade.
But Fox says many of these events don't meet the traditional criteria.
What is a school shooting?
Fox notes that people tend to define school shootings as tragic events that victimize students at all levels of education during class hours: Virginia Tech, Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut (26 people, including 20 first-graders who were killed in 2012) and Robb Elementary School (21 people, including 19 students age 10 and younger, were killed).
Fox says Education Week tables don't meet traditional criteria because many of the events in 2022 took place in the school than in school.
“Out of 10 fatal shootings, seven occurred in parking lots and playgrounds and sports fields outside of school,” Fox says of the 2022 data. “It's an important point because when people think about school shootings, they respond wanting more safety at school.”
Fox says that inflating the threat of school shootings leads to policies that he argues can be harmful to students — such as arming teachers with guns and conducting active shooter drills in schools that lead to stress and anxiety that Fox cites as unnecessary.
“The thing is, you have to have a clear set of data to know what to do about it,” says Fox.
Mass Murder Database
Fox says his goal in managing it Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Murder Database (which won the 2022 EPPY Award for Digital Journalism) is to deepen perspective and reduce anxiety around such horrific incidents. He says the same is true of the context he provides for school shootings.
“We focus a lot on those shootings, which are awful,” says Fox. “They absolutely affect the whole community when they happen. But they are extremely rare.”
And yet, Fox adds, the events sometimes lead to drastic measures within schools.
“Forty states require schools to conduct active shooter drills,” says Fox. “Some of the schools do these very aggressive drills that involve fake blood and someone running around with a gun. I've heard of schools that have unannounced drills and go on the public announcement system and announce, “This is not a drill.”
Fox says these measures have a profound impact on students. He quotes a Social media study 2020 that linked school-based active shooter drills to increases in student depression, stress and anxiety, as well as physical health problems among students ages 5 through high school.
Amplification of violent rhetoric
Instead of holding live-shooter drills, Fox recommends that administrators and teachers coach students on how to respond in the rare event that a shooter invades their school space.
“When you get on a plane, they don't drill — they just tell you what to do in case of a water landing,” says Fox. “There are things we can do that will make kids safer without scaring them.”
A general uptick in violent rhetoric has contributed to student anxiety, says Jack McDevitt, a former Northeastern professor who has studied hate crimes for 35 years.
“We're seeing more kids getting involved in hate crimes—and feeling justified—because of the rhetoric they see on websites and social media,” says McDevitt, who helped design the FBI's data collection system and then traveled in more than 60 US. cities, helping to train police departments across the nation to recognize and deal with hate crimes. “To think that schools are immune to the messages that surround us in society would be naive.”
McDevitt says more emphasis needs to be placed on identifying students who need help before they grab a gun to respond with violence. Salvador Ramos, the 19-year-old student responsible for the Uvalde attack, was a bullied loner.
“We don't want to demonize young people, because there are many, many more warning signs than school shootings,” McDevitt says. “But it also happens that in a lot of school shootings, people saw signs that they didn't act. We don't do a very good job of educating people about it.
“Now, there are some places where we're doing really well: There are a lot more people who are willing to step up and say, 'Don't drive tonight because you've had too much to drink, I'll give you a ride home,'” McDevitt adds. “But we don't see people doing that in a situation where someone might be threatening violence at school.”
A focused approach to shots
Overall, McDevitt says, there is a need for a focused, data-driven approach to school shootings.
“Are we raising the definition of what a school shooting is?” McDevitt asks.
Fox says his research found that an average of six students were killed annually in school shootings from 2010 to 2021. For perspective, he notes that 30 students die each year during the move to and from schools.
Overall, the number of shooting deaths (homicide, suicide and gun accidents) across the US reached 45,222 in 2020. Fox notes that school shootings represent a very small percentage of the 3,500 children and teenagers killed in US shootings per year.
“These are terrible events,” Fox says of school shootings. “But it's important to fight the hysteria. Because when there's hype and hysteria, we tend to do things that are ill-advised.”
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