“I could actually get, like, shot,” one high school student told The Washington Post. “I’ve got to be wary of who to be around at school—and whether they’ve got a gun or not.”
The student’s fears come at a time when school shootings on K12 campuses are only becoming more common over time. In fact, the “K-12 School Shooting Database” suggests that we’re already nearing last year’s record number of incidents where a gun was fired on school grounds. Now, a new exclusive analysis from The Washington Post reveals that these incidents are no mere coincidence. Simply put, more students are showing up to school with guns than ever before.
The Washington Post analyzed data from 47 of the largest school districts in the U.S. which suggests that between the 2018-19 school year and the 2022-23 school year, there’s been a 79% increase in guns found on campus over this five-year period. In some districts, the number of guns seized more than doubled.
For instance, in the last complete school year before the pandemic, the Arlington Independent School District in Texas only discovered one firearm on its campus. Last school year, they found 19.
“Kids are more likely to carry firearms, and even bring firearms into school, if they have been victims of violence themselves, if they aren’t connected to a community, if they have post-traumatic stress,” Megan Ranney, a firearm-injury researcher and dean of the Yale School of Public Health, told The Washington Post. “We’ve got a lot of kids who are scared… maybe have lost parents from COVID, maybe have lost community connections because of shutdowns of community groups during COVID. And then add on to it increased access to firearms. A lot of guns brought over the last couple of years. It becomes a perfect storm.”
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Another troubling component of this epidemic is that it’s almost becoming the new norm, practically unworthy of news coverage. The Washington Post surveyed 51 of the country’s largest school systems and found that 58% of firearm seizures were never publicly reported by news organizations.
“Those same districts said the number of guns recovered on campus rose sharply in recent years, mirroring the growing prevalence of firearms in many other public places,” the authors wrote.
They note that school employees are uncovering these guns “practically everywhere,” including in students’ bookbags, cars, purses, pockets, lockers, trash cans, bathrooms, waistbands and even above bathroom ceiling tiles.
While the data suggests a rather bleak picture of the state of school safety in the U.S. today, The Washington Post highlights several methods that have proven instrumental in mitigating threats at K12 schools. Upon their analysis of tens of thousands of news stories from Aug. 1, 2022, through June 30, 2023, in addition to interviews with experts, the news organization discovered that school resource officers are often the first to discover and seize guns at schools.
“While often seen as a controversial presence on campus, such officers can be crucial in gaining the trust of students and staff, school-safety experts say, and in taking swift action to stop school shootings before they happen,” the authors wrote.
Anonymous tip systems have also proven to be helpful in these instances. For instance, the Say Something Anonymous Reporting System, launched in 2018, has helped avoid at least 15 planned school shootings, Sandy Hook Promise, the organization that runs the system, told The Washington Post.
But most of all, schools rely on one of the best countermeasures to school shootings: students’ trust.
The authors explain that while clear backpacks and metal detectors often help parents feel better about sending their children to school, they do very little to keep students from slipping guns through alternative rear entrances.
According to The Washington Post, “Overall, experts say, expensive weapons-detection technology is no substitute for a school community where children trust adults enough to tell them when something appears to be wrong.”
