The goal of this tracker is to continuously identify and contextualize shootings in all kinds of schools across the United States, from kindergarten to college.
The part of planned school shootings where an active shooter intentionally kills, maims, or injures at least one student or faculty member during class or at a school function is the focus of the tracker.See below for the FBI’s definition of an active shooter as well as the complete NBC News criteria for school shootings.
Why we are doing this
In the immediate aftermath of any significant school shooting in the United States, the national discourse recounts the number of similar instances that had occurred in the same year. Depending on the news outlet and how it defines a school shooting, the terrifying figures that are disseminated online, broadcast on television, and printed in newspapers differ.
The Washington Post school shooting database, Everytown for Gun Safety, and the U.S. Department of Education are just a few of the groups and databases that monitor gun violence in schools. Even though each publisher may present a different number of school shootings that have taken place during a certain time period, they all help the public realize the impact of gun violence.
Determining what constitutes a school shooting is one of the challenges in researching gun violence, according to Dr. Daniel Webster, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research.
Suppose, Webster suggested, if someone is shot on school property in the evening. Since the location is a school, you may recognize that in a database even though it has nothing to do with the school day and doesn’t include a kid. That adds ambiguity.
Confusion on the number of school shootings may result from the disparate totals. Everytown for Gun Safety, which keeps track of all gunfire on school property, tweeted in the hours following the February 14, 2018, mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, that it was the 18th such incident of the year. After the tweet was retweeted over 800 times, the Washington Post reported that just five of the 18 incidents that resulted in injuries happened during school hours.
“Broad definitions lead to inflated shooting totals, and inflated totals lead to public fear,” Dr. Lacey Wallace, assistant professor of criminal justice at Penn State University, told NBC News.
According to Wallace, the greater that figure, the more parents are hesitant to send their children to school.
“Our schools are actually pretty safe, and in a lot of cases they’re safer than the surrounding communities,” Wallace stated.
Teams at NBC News worked together, examined pre-existing school shooting databases and sources, and developed a set of standards for planned school shooting counts that could be applied throughout the organization’s newsrooms in an attempt to be more uniform and better match our numbers with our reporting.
How NBC News counts a school shooting
Following the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, the federal Safe School Initiative was established to help identify ways to stop similar incidents in the future. Its paper examines instances of targeted violence in schools where the school was specifically chosen.
The NBC News shooting tracker parameters concentrate on the kinds of instances detailed in the Safe School Initiative report in an attempt to reflect the fear of an active shooter entering a school.
Shootings that fit these criteria are included in the NBC News school shooting tracker:
At least one active shooter.According to the FBI, an active shooter is someone who is trying to murder people in a populous place or restricted space.
on school property while classes are in session, when students are coming or going, or during events that are approved or supported by the school. Nursery schools, colleges, universities, and technical institutions are all considered schools.
There is a deliberate attempt to use a gun to hurt teachers or students.
Other than the shooter, at least one person is hurt or killed.
Additionally, although all incidents of school gun violence are grave and have the potential to traumatize and distress the children and adults involved, our count does not include the following instances in order to represent the subset of gun violence detailed in the Safe School Initiative report:
Unintentional weapon discharge at school
School-related firearm suicide
Domestic conflicts, fights, or altercations that are isolated, including gang violence
* There might be instances where a home conflict escalates into a premeditated school shooting.
Methodology
The sources of our data include news stories, social media monitoring, the K-12 School Shooting Database, Everytown for Gun Safety, press conferences and reports from the government and law enforcement, court documents, our own reporting, and other publicly accessible data. When it is decided that an incidence satisfies the NBC News threshold for planned school shootings carried out by an active shooter, it is added to our published dataset. Shooting events are documented, assessed, and updated when new information becomes available.
Note: Every piece of content is rigorously reviewed by our team of experienced writers and editors to ensure its accuracy. Our writers use credible sources and adhere to strict fact-checking protocols to verify all claims and data before publication. If an error is identified, we promptly correct it and strive for transparency in all updates, feel free to reach out to us via email. We appreciate your trust and support!