tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/parkland-school-shooting-50173/articlesParkland school shooting – The Conversation2023-03-03T13:24:22Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1965482023-03-03T13:24:22Z2023-03-03T13:24:22Z3 ways to prevent school shootings, based on research<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/511775/original/file-20230222-26-1y6fow.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=38%2C38%2C8588%2C5703&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">School shootings are tragic, but parents, students and school staff can take steps to prevent them, researchers report.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SchoolShootingFlorida5Years/1c6ead3e31464104a9e81560e0d95de7/photo">AP Photo/Rebecca Blackwell</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the months leading up to his 2012 attack that killed 26 people in Newtown, Connecticut, a 20-year-old man exhibited a cascade of concerning behaviors. He experienced worsening anorexia, depression and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His relationships deteriorated, and he became fixated on mass murders.</p>
<p>In 2013, an 18-year-old had enraged outbursts at school and threatened to kill his debate coach. Concerned, the school’s threat assessment team interviewed him, rating him as a low-level risk for violence. But three months after the assessment, he shot and killed a classmate and himself on school grounds in Centennial, Colorado.</p>
<p>By 2018, a 19-year-old man had more than 40 documented encounters with law enforcement and a history of threatening others and weapons purchases. After his mother died in 2017, family friends contacted law enforcement and expressed concern about his behavior. In 2018, he perpetrated a shooting that killed 17 people in Parkland, Florida.</p>
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<p>All three perpetrators displayed disturbing behavior before their attacks – and the people around them missed the opportunities to intervene.</p>
<p><a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=list_works&hl=id&user=js32DFkAAAAJ">We</a> are <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=Zxp0eOIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociologists</a> at the <a href="https://cspv.colorado.edu/">Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence</a> at the University of Colorado Boulder. We study the circumstances that lead to violence in which an <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">attacker picks a target</a> – like a person, group, or school – in advance. </p>
<p>We find that the same patterns of concerning behavior emerge among the perpetrators, but that’s not all. We also find that there are often many opportunities to intervene with the perpetrator before the tragedy that peers, family members, school staff, law enforcement officials, and others miss.</p>
<p>Much of the public discussion on preventing school shootings focuses on whether and how to limit people’s access to firearms. While these efforts remain important, over the past 30 years, our work has identified other strategies that can reduce the risk for violence. Here are three evidence-based steps that schools and communities can take to prevent violence.</p>
<h2>1. Teach students and adults to report warning signs</h2>
<p>Most school shooters <a href="https://www2.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/preventingattacksreport.pdf">exhibited concerning behavior</a> and <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">communicated their plan</a> to cause harm before their deadly attack. </p>
<p>These troubling behaviors and communications provide <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2021-03/USSS%20Averting%20Targeted%20School%20Violence.2021.03.pdf">opportunities for adults to step in</a>, for students to speak up, and for people to help a student who may be in psychological or emotional distress.</p>
<p>But the warning signs for violence can be difficult to distinguish from other types of problem behavior, particularly among adolescents. </p>
<p>According to the U.S. Secret Service, the <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/2020-04/Protecting_Americas_Schools.pdf">10 most common concerning behaviors among school attackers</a> are:</p>
<ul>
<li>threats to the target or others, and an intent to attack, including on social media</li>
<li>intense or escalating anger</li>
<li>interest in weapons</li>
<li>sadness, depression or isolation</li>
<li>changes in behavior or appearance</li>
<li>suicide or self-harm</li>
<li>interest in weapons or violence</li>
<li>complaints of being bullied</li>
<li>worries over grades or attendance</li>
<li>harassing others</li>
</ul>
<p>Attackers typically exhibit five or more of these concerning behaviors. </p>
<p><a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2022.2105858">Educational programs and training</a> that encourage people to share their concerns about, and seek help for, those engaging in worrisome behavior may improve safety in schools and communities. </p>
<h2>2. Develop and publicize around-the-clock anonymous tip lines</h2>
<p>People need a way to safely report their concerns. <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/library/publications/tip-lines-school-safety-national-portrait-tip-line-use">Tip line</a> systems include websites, phone numbers to call or text, email addresses, and apps. They let students and others anonymously, or confidentially, share their concerns about another’s threatening behavior or communications.</p>
<p>These tip lines can make people less hesitant to report situations that worry them or that they think may not be their business, such as bullying, threats, drug use, or someone’s talk of suicide.</p>
<p>Several states have modeled their tip lines after <a href="https://safe2tell.org/">Colorado’s Safe2Tell</a>, which is a 24/7/365 live anonymous reporting system that was created in the wake of the 1999 Columbine High School mass shooting. Safe2Tell relays tips to local law enforcement officials and school leaders, who investigate and triage each tip. These law enforcement officials and school leaders determine the nature of the concern, along with the most appropriate response.</p>
<p>A 2011 study found the system had <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/yd.390">helped stop 28 potential school attacks</a>, but that research has not been updated in the years since. Recent Safe2Tell reports indicate that the system also helps students get help for significant mental health needs.</p>
<p>During the 2021-22 school year, for instance, Safe2Tell received 19,364 reports. Of those, 14% were related to suicide threats, 7% to bullying, and 7% to welfare checks. Of the 84 self-reports related to mental health that year, <a href="https://safe2tell.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/Safe2Tell-annual-report-2021-2022.pdf">32% received counseling services</a>, 32% had their parents notified, 22% had an official check on their well-being, 12% were hospitalized at least briefly, and 10% were given a suicide assessment; some received more than one of those responses. </p>
<p>These types of interventions are known to prevent school violence. The National Policing Institute is a nonprofit organization based in Arlington, Virginia, that maintains the <a href="https://www.avertedschoolviolence.org/">Averted School Violence Database</a>. As of 2021, the database contained case information on <a href="https://www.policinginstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/ASV2021AnalysisUpdate.pdf">171 averted attacks, 88 of which</a> were first discovered by a peer of the potential attacker.</p>
<h2>3. Conduct behavioral threat assessment and management</h2>
<p>Once people report their concerns, law enforcement officers, school staff and mental health professionals must evaluate the reports and determine how to handle the information, and the people implicated. </p>
<p>One method, called <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2023-01/usss-ntac-maps-2016-2020.pdf#page=10">behavioral threat assessment and management</a>, seeks to identify the cause of the concerning behavior – such as a grievance, psychological trauma, or mental health concern. In schools, this process encourages the threat assessment team to evaluate the risk for violence and <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/threat-assessment-at-school/protecting-students-rights-in-btam">build a plan for supporting and monitoring the student</a>, their behavior and their communications. </p>
<p>Schools that use this approach are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2019.1707682">less likely to simply suspend or expel</a> the students they evaluate. That means students can still receive services and support through their school, rather than being excluded from it.</p>
<p>This process also helps <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/threat-assessment-at-school/behavior-threat-assessment-and-management-(btam)-best-practice-considerations-for-k%E2%80%9312-schools">distinguish cases</a> in which a student made a threat but does not intend harm from those in which a student poses a real threat.</p>
<p>Once the team has assessed the threat, it can <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0192636517727347">share the results – and the plan of action – with other school staff members</a> to ensure everyone knows how to handle the student and their behavior. School staff members then also know how, and to whom, to report any subsequent observations of worrying actions or statements from the student. </p>
<p>It’s important for all school personnel to know that the federal student privacy law allows this type of information-sharing because it <a href="https://studentprivacy.ed.gov/faq/when-it-permissible-utilize-ferpa%E2%80%99s-health-or-safety-emergency-exception-disclosures">relates to school and personal safety</a>. Some school leaders hesitate to share the plan because they are confused about this provision of the law.</p>
<p>For that reason, and because resources may be constrained at school or may not extend to a student’s home life, the action plans that follow behavioral threat assessments <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/bsl.2399">aren’t always carried out</a> properly. So the team may have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/00380407221120431">completed the assessment paperwork</a>, but not the actual work of supporting, managing or monitoring the student’s needs.</p>
<p>Americans are not helpless in the face of school violence. Research has identified solutions. We believe it’s time to act to consistently and effectively implement these solutions.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/196548/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Beverly Kingston receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Botnar Foundation, City of Denver</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sarah Goodrum receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Bureau of Justice Assistance, and U.S. Department of Homeland Security.</span></em></p>Much of the public discussion on preventing school shootings is about whether and how to limit people’s access to firearms. But other strategies can reduce the risk for violence.Beverly Kingston, Director and Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado BoulderSarah Goodrum, Senior Research Associate, Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, University of Colorado BoulderLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1982242023-02-09T20:10:33Z2023-02-09T20:10:33ZFive years after Parkland, school shootings haven’t stopped, and kill more people<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508659/original/file-20230207-29-ygggac.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=25%2C12%2C4260%2C2821&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Two mourners embrace at a memorial for those killed in the Parkland, Florida, school shooting in 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SchoolShootingFlorida/19d9b3109dad473aa598fc9382c2c1ee/photo">AP Photo/Gerald Herbert</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the aftermath of the Parkland, Florida, high school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, many Americans hoped that, finally, something would be done to address the problem of gun violence in the nation’s schools.</p>
<p>Despite the outpouring of grief and calls for action that followed the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, school shootings continue to occur with <a href="https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings">alarming frequency</a>. While progress has been made in some areas, such as <a href="https://oese.ed.gov/bipartisan-safer-communities-act/">increased funding</a> for school security and mental health resources, there is still much work to be done to ensure the safety and well-being of students and educators in schools across the country. </p>
<p>On Jan. 6, 2023, in Newport News, Virginia, a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/06/us/newport-news-school-shooting-virginia.html">6-year-old student is alleged</a> to have intentionally shot his teacher. He is among the youngest school shooting perpetrators dating back to 1970.</p>
<p>And as criminologists who track any time <a href="https://k12ssdb.org/methodology-1">a gun is fired at a K-12 school</a>, including deliberate attacks, suicides, accidental shootings, gang-related violence and shootings at after-hours school events, we know this case is only the tip of the iceberg. </p>
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<h2>School shootings got more common, not rarer, after Parkland</h2>
<p>Since Parkland, there have been <a href="https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings">over 900 shootings</a> in K-12 school settings according to our data. Thirty-two were indiscriminate attacks apparently driven by the intent to kill as many people as possible, including mass casualty events at <a href="https://house.texas.gov/_media/pdf/committees/reports/87interim/Robb-Elementary-Investigative-Committee-Report.pdf">Robb Elementary School</a> in Uvalde, Texas, in May 2022 and at <a href="https://www.fox2detroit.com/tag/oxford-high-school-shooting">Oxford High School</a>, in Oxford, Michigan, in November 2021.</p>
<p>School gun violence takes many forms. In January 2023, five students were wounded during <a href="https://twitter.com/K12ssdb/status/1616798162747785216">shootings at high school basketball games</a> in five different states. These shootings at school games are a “<a href="https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/34685039/rise-gun-violence-school-sports">quiet phenomenon</a>” that gets little national attention. Based on our data on more than <a href="https://k12ssdb.org/all-shootings">260 shootings at sports events</a>, most schools do not have a plan for them, such as what an announcer should say or how people can evacuate.</p>
<p>Another emerging challenge for school leaders is the 264 fights in five years that escalated into shootings. Unlike any planned attacks, these cases were <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/10/08/school-shootings-are-increasing-changing-easily-accessible-guns-are-blame/">simple disputes that turned deadly</a> because students were armed at school.</p>
<p>There were a record 302 shootings on school property in 2022. In April, one month before Uvalde, a sniper fired hundreds of shots during dismissal at the <a href="https://wjla.com/news/local/dc-sniper-van-ness-shooting-edmund-burke-school-16-year-old-student-recalls-mass-shooting-helping-12-year-old-classmate-shot-injured-cleveland-park-victims-crime">Edmund Burke School</a> in Washington, D.C. Then, in October, at Central Visual Performing Arts High School in south St. Louis, a 19-year-old armed with a semi-automatic rifle and hundreds of rounds of ammunition shot and <a href="https://news.stlpublicradio.org/education/2022-10-25/photos-school-shooting-at-central-visual-performing-arts-high-school-in-st-louis">killed a teacher and a 15-year-old student, and injured seven other people</a>.</p>
<p>Among the 250 shootings at schools in 2021, a 12-year-old girl, who wrote plans to target scores of her <a href="https://localnews8.com/news/top-stories/2022/04/07/documents-shed-light-on-rigby-middle-school-shooting/">Rigby, Idaho</a>, middle school classmates, wounded three students before a heroic teacher disarmed her in the hallway.</p>
<p>Owing to the pandemic and widespread school closures, in 2020 there were no planned attacks at schools for the <a href="https://k12ssdb.org/active-shooter">first time since 1981</a>. But in 2019, a student shot five classmates, killing two, before dying by suicide between classes at <a href="https://abc7.com/nathaniel-tennosuke-berhow-nate-saugus-high-school-santa-clarita-shooting/5699170/">Saugus High</a> in Santa Clarita, California. And two students committed a coordinated attack that killed one student and injured eight others at the <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2021/09/17/devon-erickson-sentence-stem-school-shooting/">STEM School</a> in Highland Ranch, Colorado.</p>
<p>In total, since Parkland, 198 people have been killed, including 84 students, teachers and school staff, and another 637 people wounded in school shootings. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A man kneels in front of a brick wall saying 'Robb Elementary School,' with piles of flowers all around." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/508660/original/file-20230207-17-4spem1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">A man pays his respects to the victims of the June 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/MassShootingsStates/4e7195b1f0a44fd0b774a57ae09cbf42/photo">AP Photo/Eric Gay</a></span>
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<h2>Equipment is not prevention</h2>
<p>Since Parkland, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/12/us/school-shootings-security.html">school safety has been a priority</a> for parents and policymakers, but efforts to <a href="https://medium.com/homeland-security/what-is-school-security-c962263bef00">physically fortify schools</a> to keep intruders at bay often are detached from the reality that most school shooters are current or former students of the schools they target.</p>
<p>Having been trained in <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/jaba.369">lockdown procedures since kindergarten</a>, students know exactly how a school will respond to an active shooter and even plan for it; they navigate security daily. At Uvalde, the shooter was a former student who <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/uvalde-school-shooting-door-shut-didnt-lock-texas-police/">entered through a back door</a>. The shooter in St. Louis was a former student who broke a side window to open a locked door.</p>
<p>New equipment designed to protect students from shooters can create a false sense of security and make classrooms feel <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814748206/homeroom-security/">more like prisons</a> than places of learning. Following the attack in Uvalde, Texas legislators approved $110 million for school safety, but nearly half of the money went to <a href="https://www.khou.com/article/news/local/texas/50-million-grant-program-ballistic-shields-texas-schools/285-d372fc47-1559-462f-b04b-3858fa468f37">new ballistic shields</a> for school police officers. These shields do not prevent school shootings, or aid during one, because police are <a href="https://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/active_shooter_booklet.pdf">trained to immediately run to the shooter</a>, not to their office to get a shield. </p>
<p>Some technologies could even inadvertently endanger students. Most <a href="https://www.campussafetymagazine.com/safety/classroom-barricade-devices/">classroom barricades violate the Americans with Disabilities Act</a> and other federal codes designed to help people evacuate from fires and other dangerous situations. And much like <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/rise-of-body-armor-in-mass-shootings-like-buffalo-and-uvalde.html">body armor can make a mass shooter harder to stop</a>, so too, potentially, could a school’s new bulletproof furniture.</p>
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<h2>Preventing the next Parkland</h2>
<p>Just three weeks before Parkland, on Jan. 23, 2018, 20 students were shot, two fatally, in a planned attack at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/01/23/us/kentucky-high-school-shooting/index.html">Marshall County High</a> in Benton, Kentucky. Three months after Parkland, on May 18, 2018, 10 people were killed and 13 wounded at <a href="https://www.houstonpublicmedia.org/articles/news/2018/05/19/286500/official-says-explosives-found-at-santa-fe-high-school-couldnt-have-detonated/">Santa Fe High School</a> in Santa Fe, Texas. Despite <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-and-campus-safety-industry/">billions spent</a> on security upgrades, schools are stuck in a perpetual cycle of gun violence. If current trends hold, there will be another 1,000 school shootings over the next five years.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/violence-project_9781419752957/">research shows</a> that school shootings are not inevitable. They are preventable. </p>
<p>Nearly all school shooters exhibit <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2785799">warning signs</a> before pulling the trigger, from changes in their behavior to verbal or written threats. From <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/10887679211062518?journalCode=hsxa">Parkland</a> to <a href="https://house.texas.gov/_media/pdf/committees/reports/87interim/Robb-Elementary-Investigative-Committee-Report.pdf">Uvalde</a>, these warnings were not recognized or reported until it was too late. Schools must think beyond metal detectors, security cameras and other <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/26/business/school-safety-technology.html">high-tech gadgets and gizmos</a> to invest in multidisciplinary <a href="https://www.nabita.org">behavioral intervention and threat assessment</a> systems to respond to warning signs. There is federal money and resources available to do this thanks to the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act, passed in the wake of Uvalde in the summer of 2022.</p>
<p>Almost all shootings by children and teens can be prevented by safe storage of firearms and accountability for adult gun owners. When a weapon is stored separately from its ammunition, locked and unloaded, it is much more difficult for someone to quickly use it in a violent attack. While the family <a href="https://www.13newsnow.com/article/news/local/mycity/newport-news/gun-used-to-shoot-newport-news-teacher-secured-lawyer/291-a3744037-6746-43f9-ac5c-858f60526744">claims the gun was locked</a>, safe and separate storage could have prevented a <a href="https://theconversation.com/first-grader-who-shot-teacher-in-virginia-is-among-the-youngest-school-shooters-in-us-history-197392">6-year-old</a> from shooting his teacher. It also could have prevented thousands of guns from being stolen and <a href="https://www.atf.gov/firearms/national-firearms-commerce-and-trafficking-assessment-nfcta-crime-guns-volume-two">diverted into illegal markets</a>. </p>
<p>Five years after Parkland, school shootings have become more frequent and deadly. The status quo is not working. Instead of accepting that more young lives will be lost and that the best schools and police can do is lock down and rehearse emergency responses, we believe school safety must shift to focus on upstream prevention.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/198224/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Riedman receives funding from Everytown for Gun Safety.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice and the Joyce Foundation.</span></em></p>Some Americans hoped the Parkland shooting in 2018 would herald a turning point for gun violence in schools. Shootings, and deaths, have continued – and gotten more frequent.David Riedman, Ph.D. student in Criminal Justice and Creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, University of Central FloridaJames Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1839652022-06-02T12:16:00Z2022-06-02T12:16:00Z5 ways to reduce school shootings<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/466681/original/file-20220601-48537-yx23wp.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=3%2C12%2C2032%2C1345&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Restrictive gun laws bring down the murder rate.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-attend-a-candlelight-vigil-in-uvalde-texas-united-news-photo/1241011278?adppopup=true">Anadolu Agency / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>After the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, in 2018, psychology professor <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=70eLrWwAAAAJ">Paul Boxer</a> and his colleagues reviewed research to see what could be learned from what they refer to as the “<a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21766">science of violence prevention</a>.” In the wake of the May 24, 2022, massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, Boxer has revisited that research anew – and other research conducted since then – for insights on what can be done to reduce the risk of school shootings in the future. Here he offers five policy changes – based on his findings – that can be implemented to achieve that end.</em></p>
<h2>1. Dramatically limit access to guns</h2>
<p>Gun regulation matters.</p>
<p>When my colleagues and I looked at gun regulations on a state-by-state basis, we found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/pubmed/fdab047">more restrictive gun laws are associated with lower rates of homicides by guns</a>. </p>
<p>This relation held even after we took demographic, economic and educational factors into account. Others researchers have found that “permissive firearm laws and higher rates of gun ownership” were linked with <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2021.2018332">higher rates of school shootings</a>. </p>
<p>What these results essentially mean is that in states where it is more difficult to acquire a gun, fewer people are killed by guns. Examples of these restrictions are raising the age for legal purchase, imposing lengthy waiting periods before access, requiring meaningful background checks, and more. These and similar measures – for example, eliminating access for individuals at a high risk of committing violence, such as the perpetrators of domestic violence – all move toward making it significantly harder to access guns, which would reduce gun violence substantially.</p>
<p>Placing meaningful restrictions or outright bans on firearm equipment associated with greater lethality, such as assault-style rifles and high-capacity magazines, should also lower the number of people being killed by firearms. Research <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ypmed.2021.106599">already has shown</a> that greater access to guns is associated with higher numbers of gun deaths.</p>
<h2>2. Use more violence risk assessments in schools</h2>
<p>In the years since the Columbine shooting in 1999, researchers and federal law enforcement agencies have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/pits.1007">studied school shootings</a> and developed <a href="https://doi.apa.org/doiLanding?doi=10.1037%2Ftam0000038">risk assessments</a> to gauge the likelihood of actual violence by a young person identified as a possible risk.</p>
<p>These assessments are conducted by professionals that include police officers, school officials and teachers. They also involve mental health professionals, such as school counselors and psychologists. Together, these professionals all consult with one another to determine a young person’s risk for violence.</p>
<p>These teams may not be able to prevent every possible incident. Still, this sort of approach is critical to improving the process of identifying and stopping potential shooters overall. Guidance on how to use these assessments is <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/making-prevention-a-reality.pdf/view">freely available</a> and based in extensive applied research. For example, in <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000038">one 2015 study</a>, the <a href="https://dev.curry.virginia.edu/faculty-research/centers-labs-projects/research-labs/youth-violence-project/virginia-student-threat">Virginia Student Threat Assessment Guidelines</a> – a set of guidelines for the investigation of a reported threat, thorough assessment of the individual making the threat, and preventive or protective measures to be taken in response – were shown to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/tam0000038">reduce rates of student aggression</a>. They were also shown to lower out-of-school suspension rates while improving teacher and student perceptions of safety. </p>
<h2>3. Expand evidence-based strategies to reduce violent behavior</h2>
<p>To help reduce the number of youths who grow up to become violent, governmental agencies could increase the availability and use of evidence-based interventions in schools. </p>
<p>Aggressive and violent behavior has been shown by research to emerge from a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01233.x">mix of personal and environmental risk factors</a>. The factors include impulsivity, callousness, exposure to violence and victimization. </p>
<p>In light of this research, effective approaches were developed to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s10464-013-9576-4">prevent</a> aggression by teaching students to problem-solve for better responses to peer conflict. They also teach students to think carefully about others’ motivations when they feel provoked.</p>
<p>Programs shown to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.72.4.571">reduce</a> aggressive behavior typically train youths who already have exhibited some aggression on new and better coping skills for managing stress and anger. And for youths who have become seriously violent, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-006X.73.3.445">treatments</a> teach new, constructive behavioral and communication skills to youths and their caregivers. The treatments also help young people develop better relationships with family members and school personnel.</p>
<h2>4. Make school buildings safer</h2>
<p>The Robb Elementary School shooter entered the school building through a door that reportedly <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2022/05/31/uvalde-teacher-door-closed/">malfunctioned</a>. This highlights the absolute importance for schools to take and maintain physical security measures.</p>
<p>In the wake of school shootings, schools often turn to solutions such as <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/30/1102035766/u-s-schools-increase-security-after-uvalde-shooting-texas">upgraded camera surveillance or increased law enforcement</a>. </p>
<p>These measures can have <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jadohealth.2018.06.008">mixed effects</a> on students’ perceptions of safety and support – cameras posted outside appear to increase felt safety, whereas cameras posted inside seem to promote unease. </p>
<p>Increased law enforcement presence might make <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2020.1844547">teachers feel safer</a> in school. But it also might <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12512">criminalize student misbehavior</a> without <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/2372966X.2020.1846458">actually making schools safer</a>.</p>
<p>Still, there are number of ways for schools to <a href="https://doi.org/10.14738/assrj.88.10614">improve physical security</a> without increasing student anxiety or needlessly deploying law enforcement. For example, in one large study, students were less likely to skip school because of safety concerns when metal detectors were <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0895904816673735">used at school entry points</a>. In that study, those metal detectors also reduced the likelihood of weapons being brought into schools.</p>
<h2>5. Reduce exposure to violence through media and social media</h2>
<p>Entertainment media and social media are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190228613.013.1">saturated with violent images</a> of physical assaults, gun violence and gore. Exposure to and participation in virtual violence might not lead to aggressive behavior for all children and adolescents. But watching violent programs and playing violent video games can lead to increased <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21655">hostility</a>, <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21427">aggressive feelings</a>, emotional <a href="https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021711">desensitization to violence</a> and ultimately <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.160.4.348">aggressive behavior</a>. These effects can potentially be lessened by reducing the amount of screen violence to which children and adolescents are exposed over time, particularly early in development.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183965/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Boxer receives funding from the Centers for Disease Control. </span></em></p>Risk assessments and rigid gun laws are among the tools that can help prevent school massacres, a specialist in youth aggression says.Paul Boxer, Professor of Psychology, Rutgers University - NewarkLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1840452022-05-30T20:32:39Z2022-05-30T20:32:39ZAmerican exceptionalism: the poison that cannot protect its children from violent death<p>I had always been afraid of America. Once, in Alaska, we had dinner with a man my father was working with, and he had actually uttered the line – that iconic American saying, so ridiculous as to be almost unbelievable. <em>Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.</em> I thought he was joking, attempting some kind of irony. He wasn’t.</p>
<p>When I got a fellowship at Yale a decade later, a big part of me did not want to go, and especially did not want to take my husband and our almost-two-year-old daughter with me.</p>
<p>Going on to a school or college campus in the United States is demonstrably risky.</p>
<p>The Wikipedia category page <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_school_shootings_in_the_United_States">listing school shootings in the United States</a> already has 22 entries for 2022 alone.</p>
<p>Still, I wasn’t afraid enough not to go. Or perhaps I was just more afraid of what people would say if I said I wasn’t going to Yale because of guns. The pull of America is strong, even to those who know.</p>
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<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/will-the-latest-shooting-of-us-children-finally-lead-to-gun-reform-sadly-thats-unlikely-183829">Will the latest shooting of US children finally lead to gun reform? Sadly, that's unlikely</a>
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<p>On Tuesday last week, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/29/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-sunday/index.html">it happened again</a>. </p>
<p>An 18-year-old gunman entered an elementary school in Ulvade, Texas, and shot and killed 19 children and two teachers. The children were all nine and ten years old. The police didn’t help them. </p>
<p>Over the weekend, an 11-year-old girl <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/robb-shooting-survivor-miah-cerrillo/index.html">explained</a> to the media that she had survived by smearing the blood of her dead friend over herself and pretending that she was dead, too. </p>
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<span class="caption">A US flag decorates the perimeter of a memorial site in the town square of Uvalde, Texas, set up for those killed in the fatal mass shooting at Robb Elementary School.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wong Mayee/AP</span></span>
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<p>The conversation is the same. The National Rifle Association held its convention a few days after the shooting, in Houston. Texas Senator Ted Cruz <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-school-shooting-nra-convention-212dfd1b57474f1ab208d4a72521a010">said,</a> “We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the Constitution or infringing on the rights of our law-abiding citizens.”</p>
<p>The beacon of democracy and freedom, the shining light on the hill, the force for good in the world, can not, will not, protect its own children.</p>
<h2>Child’s play in gun country</h2>
<p>On one of our last days in New Haven, in the northern summer of 2018, I took my daughter to the Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History. Like everything at Yale, the museum is extraordinarily well funded. It’s free for Yale students, and is always hosting community events, mostly for local school children. </p>
<p>On that particular day, one of the first real days of New England summer, when the green had exploded and the air was thick with humidity, the museum was quiet.
We spent what felt like hours in the children’s discovery room, listening to the elderly volunteers worry about the black mould in the leafeater ant colony and marvelling at the poison dart frogs. </p>
<p>I held my daughter’s hand as we walked down the grand stone staircase, under the watchful glass eyes of the pink giant squid, to see the fossils. I chuckled, again, at the glorious 1940s mural that spanned the length of the Great Hall and its red-eyed, cartoonishly angry Tyrannosaurus Rex. Clara ran around and around the main display, insisting on touching the fake rocks even though she knew she shouldn’t, yelling at the top of her lungs. “Rrrrraaaa Mummy, I’m a dinosaur, rrrraaaa!”</p>
<p>For some reason, as Clara did her little dino routine, I looked up, and noticed two boys watching from the discovery room above. They were both white: nine, maybe ten. As I watched, one of the boys, standing right in the middle of the window, pretended to cock a shot gun. He lowered it slowly, while his little friend laughed, and proceeded to shoot everyone in the hall below. Shoot, reload, shoot, reload. He shot my daughter as she ran laps around the brontosaurus. </p>
<p>It was pretend. I knew it was pretend. But I could barely stand. I was frightened, of course. But it was the vicious rage that nearly knocked me down. Rage at the kid standing in the window, at his friend, at their parents, their grandparents. All of them.</p>
<p>This fucking country.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/6-charts-show-key-role-firearms-makers-play-in-americas-gun-culture-183900">6 charts show key role firearms makers play in America’s gun culture</a>
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<h2>Parkland and a student revolution</h2>
<p>On campus, there were regular reminders of the danger: bag searches before lectures, or complete bag bans in the case of particularly important speakers like Henry Kissinger or Al Gore. Yale was relatively safe, of course, insulated by privilege. But everyone operated under the assumption that it was only a matter of time until the next one, even if it was more likely to be somewhere else. </p>
<p>We arrived in New Haven in August of 2017. The <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/teacher-coach14-year-freshman-florida-high-school-massacre/story?id=53092879">next mass school shooting</a> happened on February 14, 2018. If anything, we waited longer than we had anticipated. </p>
<p>On that winter day, a 19-year-old man walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, and shot and killed 17 people with a semi-automatic weapon. 14 of those victims were aged between 14 and 17 years old. 17 others were seriously injured. The gunman had purchased the AR-15 he used legally. It was the worst school shooting in American history.</p>
<p>In the US, Parkland, and the extraordinary young survivors who became the face of <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-parklands-experience-tells-us-about-the-limits-of-a-security-response-to-christchurch-113912">a movement</a>, dominated the news for weeks. Through their activism, those students, along with organisations like <a href="https://momsdemandaction.org/">Moms Demand Action</a>, have seized the narrative, and are doing everything they can to create change.</p>
<p>In the month after the Parkland murders there were huge protests all over the country. In the <a href="https://theconversation.com/march-for-our-lives-awakens-the-spirit-of-student-and-media-activism-of-the-1960s-93713">“March for Our Lives”</a>, half a million kids descended on Washington, DC, with Parkland survivors at the forefront. Children all over the US walked out of school, supported by organised events in basically every city in the country. </p>
<p>Parkland has largely fallen off the mainstream radar, now. It reappears periodically, more often than not because one of the young survivors, traumatised by this hideous act of cruelty, <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/parkland-suicides-sandy-hook-gun-violence-812885/">has decided</a> they cannot take it anymore. Other survivors are forced to publicly relive their trauma, again, whenever there is another one. Because despite the appalling public suffering of those children and their extraordinary organising, the shootings have not stopped.</p>
<p>Since Parkland, there have been many more mass shootings in the US, in schools and elsewhere. By one count, <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/mass-shootings-2019-more-than-days-365/">there were</a> 417 mass shootings (defined as an incident in which four or more people are killed) in 2019 alone. In the following year – in fact, before 2020 was even over – Americans had purchased <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-10-30/gun-sales-are-soaring-and-its-not-just-conservatives-stocking-up">more guns</a> than in any of the years before: 17 million. 17 dead teenagers. 17 injured. 17 million more guns.</p>
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<p>Toxic American gun culture is a hideous outgrowth of American exceptionalism, and just like that exceptionalism, there is nothing else like it in the world. In any other Western country, when white kids die, something happens. </p>
<p>But at Parkland, at Sandy Hook, at Virginia Tech, at Columbine, the kids who died were mostly white. They were seemingly middle class. The fact that white, privileged children are being killed and nothing is being done about it is extraordinary, in the truest sense of the word. The American political system – built on, and sustained by, white supremacy – is willing to sacrifice its children to keep its guns. </p>
<p>Those guns have become symbols of that white supremacy, as conservative forces in the American media encourage and spread the same hateful, violent ideologies that meet their logical endpoints in <a href="https://theconversation.com/more-mass-shootings-are-happening-at-grocery-stores-13-of-shooters-are-motivated-by-racial-hatred-criminologists-find-183098">supermarkets in Buffalo</a>, as they have since even before the nation was founded. The suffering Americans willingly inflict on each other, on their own children, is as horrifying as it is mundane. </p>
<p>But it wasn’t always this way. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465916/original/file-20220530-24-6ljsg1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Enrique Owens, a cousin of Roberta Drury, wears a t-shirt with her photograph on it before her funeral service, Saturday, May 21, 2022, in Syracuse, N.Y. Drury was one of 10 killed during a mass shooting at a supermarket in Buffalo.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Lauren Petracca/AP</span></span>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-nra-evolved-from-backing-a-1934-ban-on-machine-guns-to-blocking-nearly-all-firearm-restrictions-today-183880">How the NRA evolved from backing a 1934 ban on machine guns to blocking nearly all firearm restrictions today</a>
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<h2>The Second Amendment, Reagan and racist politics</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://www.senate.gov/civics/constitution_item/constitution.htm">Second Amendment</a> to the US Constitution forms the centrepiece of American gun culture and conversations about how to dismantle it. It is one of the ten amendments to the Constitution which form the Bill of Rights, ratified in 1791. Its words are no doubt familiar, but they are worth repeating: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.</p>
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<p>The amount of ink spilt in legal, philosophical, historical and political debates about the true meaning of those 27 words defies assimilation. What is inarguable is that those words were composed by white men worried not so much about an individual’s right to buy and use the kind of weaponry their 18th-century minds could scarcely imagine, but about protecting the political revolution they had led and institutionalised. </p>
<p>The Second Amendment reflected <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/made-by-history/wp/2018/02/22/what-the-second-amendment-really-meant-to-the-founders/">contemporary fears</a> that a standing army, in service to the state, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/second-amendment-text-context/555101/">would present</a> an unacceptable threat to true freedom. (A freedom that, it must always be pointed out, was reserved only for white people.) </p>
<p>It did not anticipate that the standing army of the new nation would go on to become, two centuries later, the biggest and most dangerous in the world, or that it would feed into the vicious circle of American militarism. </p>
<p>The men who wrote it did not anticipate that it would be used to excuse the murder of American children. Their indifference to the murder of children they would not have considered American – Black Americans, Native Americans – must sit at the heart of any attempt to historicise the Second Amendment and its consequences.</p>
<p>But that amendment’s morph into a unique political monster was not inevitable, and is in fact fairly recent. Until the 1980s, interpretations of the Second Amendment tended not towards permissiveness, but to control. In the 1930s – a century and a half after the ratification of the Bill of Rights – both the federal government under President Franklin Roosevelt and the Supreme Court actually curtailed gun rights. </p>
<p>In the late 1960s, in the aftermath of the successive assassinations of President John F. Kennedy, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr and Senator Robert F. Kennedy – and, critically, the rise of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/chicago-1969-when-black-panthers-aligned-with-confederate-flag-wielding-working-class-whites-68961">Black Panther movement</a> – the Johnson administration oversaw the passage of the <a href="https://time.com/5429002/gun-control-act-history-1968/">1968 Gun Control Act</a>. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465911/original/file-20220530-12-gfk7tu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President John F. Kennedy waves from his car in a motorcade in Dallas, on November 22, 1963. In the aftermath of his assassination, and others, the Gun Control Act was passed in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Altgens/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For decades, gun control measures were successful at least in part because they were aimed at <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2021/08/28/us/race-politics-gun-control-the-price-of-freedom/index.html">curtailing the ability</a> of Black people to own guns. Not uncoincidentally, from its founding in 1871 until the mid-1970s, the National Rifle Association offered mostly bipartisan support to gun control measures.</p>
<p>It was not until the mid-1970s that gun culture and the role firearms play in American politics began to resemble what we are familiar with today. As the NRA radicalised, it built enormous political force. In 1980 the NRA endorsed a presidential candidate for the very first time – Ronald Reagan. Reagan had largely been <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/582926/how-ronald-reagan-learned-love-gun-control">in favour of gun control</a> measures precisely because they were aimed at disarming African Americans. But by the 1980s, that had changed.</p>
<p>During Reagan’s second term, Congress passed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/99th-congress/senate-bill/49">1986 Firearm Owners Protection Act</a>, which did exactly as its name suggests. Even an assassination attempt on that most beloved of NRA Presidents five years before did not shake what was quickly becoming an entrenched politics of gun rights, particularly on the right. Four decades ago, the Republican Party became the party of the NRA, and it remains so today.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465903/original/file-20220530-16-1cisb.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President elect Ronald Reagan introducing James Brady, who would survive a devastating head wound in the 1981 assassination attempt on Reagan, as his press secretary in Washington. Brady later undertook a personal crusade for gun control.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Walt Zebowski/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Clinton’s assault weapons ban</h2>
<p>But at the end of the Reagan era, as a triumphant US emerged victorious from the Cold War and the 1990s promised a new era of American ascendancy, things looked like they might change. A new president sought to emulate his Democratic forebears in successfully enacting significant gun control measures. </p>
<p>In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the <a href="https://www.congress.gov/bill/103rd-congress/house-bill/1025">Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act</a>, which created a national register of background checks. The following year, the Public Safety and Recreational Firearms Use Protection Act – more commonly known as the assault weapons ban – was passed as part of the infamous omnibus <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Crime_Control_and_Law_Enforcement_Act">Crime Bill of 1994</a>. The Act specifically banned military-style semiautomatic weapons. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465901/original/file-20220530-18-74rsgk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=661&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Clinton signs the Brady Bill in the East Room of the White House in this Nov file photo as James Brady, who it was named for, looks on (seated at left).</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Marcy Nighswander/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The NRA – which had spent an eye-watering (at the time, anyway) $1.7 million trying to get gun-friendly congresspeople elected – vowed electoral revenge. </p>
<p>But in this new era, coverage mused that maybe the NRA’s electoral influence was, at long last, <a href="https://www.baltimoresun.com/news/bs-xpm-1994-05-08-1994128021-story.html">waning</a>, and in the new political culture of the 1990s, technocratic bipartisanship seemed to be winning out. Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan had <a href="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-05-05-mn-54185-story.html">written to Congress</a> in support of the ban. It passed the House and the Senate easily. </p>
<p>But the promise of the 1990s was always an illusion. Clinton’s assault weapons ban <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/understanding-1994-assault-weapons-ban-ended/story?id=65546858">did not signal</a> a systemic change in American gun culture so much as a brief interregnum. The ban was full of loopholes and included what would turn out to be a catastrophic sunset clause. The Act came into force in September 1994 and lasted for a decade. It was not renewed. </p>
<p>Attempts to revive it have repeatedly failed. And even before it had expired, it was clear that it had not worked to prevent mass shootings.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/why-gun-control-laws-dont-pass-congress-despite-majority-public-support-and-repeated-outrage-over-mass-shootings-183896">Why gun control laws don't pass Congress, despite majority public support and repeated outrage over mass shootings</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>Columbine: the first televised mass shooting</h2>
<p>On April 22, 1999 – over four years before the assault weapons ban expired – two teenaged gunmen shot and killed 12 students and two teachers at Columbine High School in Colorado. Inspired by Timothy McVeigh and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/apr/13/oklahoma-city-bombing-20-years-later-key-questions-remain-unanswered">Oklahoma bombing</a>, they had planned the attack for a year. </p>
<p>McVeigh and his apprentice were both white supremacists, motivated by extreme right-wing views – including a hatred for federal government – that took on a new virulence during the Clinton presidency. That connection is largely forgotten, now. </p>
<p>Columbine – in fact deeply connected to the racist history of both the gun rights movement and the US political system – was far from the first mass shooting, and far from the last. But it was the first to be televised. Columbine became the first in a long line of what has become an all-too-familiar international spectacle of unfathomable grief and astounding political failure.</p>
<p>Columbine did not shake American gun culture. The reluctance to really reckon with Columbine – to recognise and address the systemic failures that allowed it to happen – has meant that <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-columbine-became-a-blueprint-for-school-shooters-115115">the pattern continues</a>. Though at the time it seemed such a cataclysmic event that the idea it would <em>not</em> lead to some kind of reform was unfathomable to those of us watching from afar, Columbine was very quickly attributed not to structural failures, but to errant individuals, high-school bullying, and video games. Just as Ted Cruz scrambled to blame Uvalde not on gun laws, but on <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/ted-cruz-uvalde-shootings.html">insecure schools</a>, calling for them to “harden” up and have just one door (with armed guards) accessible to the outside.</p>
<p>Since Columbine, aside from Michael Moore’s <a href="https://www.facebook.com/mmflint/posts/yesterday-walmart-finally-announced-theyd-stop-selling-ammo-for-assault-weapons-/10156212258796857/">successful effort</a> to get Walmart to stop selling ammunition, nothing much changed – and even that small victory didn’t last. </p>
<p>Since Columbine, the failures have piled up, like the dead bodies at Virginia Tech (2007), Fort Hood (2009), Aurora (2012), Charleston and San Bernadino (2015), Orlando (2016), Las Vegas (2017), Parkland (2018), and now Ulvade (2022). </p>
<h2>Defying logic and compassion</h2>
<p>There is no clearer example of the failure of American democracy than this incomplete list of massacres. Over 60 per cent of Americans are in favour of some kind of gun control measures, such as background checks or a ban on military-grade assault weapons. The failure of Congress, the presidency, and the courts to prevent these ongoing tragedies – and at times their efforts to make it easier for them to occur – defies all logic and compassion. </p>
<p>In recurring debates over gun control, Americans and international observers alike turn their eyes beyond American shores – more often than not, across the Pacific to Australia, and more recently, New Zealand. </p>
<p>Not long after President Clinton oversaw the passage of the temporary assault weapons ban in the US, a lone gunman massacred 35 people in <a href="https://theconversation.com/forgetting-martin-bryant-what-to-remember-when-we-talk-about-port-arthur-58139">Port Arthur</a>, Australia. As the American version of the story goes, the public outpouring of grief and anger after that already rare event created what <em>The New York Times</em> <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/05/world/australia/australia-gun-ban-shooting.html">has described</a> as a “national consensus” that gun control was the answer. </p>
<p>The subsequent reforms – enacted by a conservative government – are described in alternatively incredulous and envious terms. But even the <em>Times</em> can’t resist importing American debates into its coverage of Australia, mischaracterising a national “debate” about gun reform around the nature of the controls and their legacy. </p>
<p>But the implied logic, the rationality, of <a href="https://theconversation.com/no-massacres-and-an-accelerating-decline-in-overall-gun-deaths-the-impact-of-australias-major-1996-gun-law-reforms-61212">Australian reforms</a>, and later, Jacinda Ardern’s in New Zealand, is unmistakable. So too is the deep sense of resignation that such reform is not possible in a country so burdened by the unique nature of its foundation and politics. Ardern got a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2022/may/27/jacinda-ardern-receives-standing-ovation-for-harvard-speech-on-gun-control-and-democracy-video">standing ovation</a> at Harvard last week, after giving a speech about gun control. It won’t change a thing.</p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YlMnx-cp7rY" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>What Australians and New Zealanders fail to understand when we ask ourselves why Americans can’t just do what we did is the nature of American exceptionalism, its depth, and how it defies rationality. </p>
<p>We can recite our own national statistics all we like – Americans do the same. Scots, New Zealanders and Australians, with their hearts in the right places, do it after every massacre, and we will do it after the next one, and the one after that. </p>
<p>American parents will be forced, again and again, to share their grief with millions of viewers on cable television. Even before Ulvade, it was easy to imagine the new president, so <a href="https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2020/01/16/joe-biden-designated-mourner/">accomplished at mourning</a>, shedding his own entirely genuine tears at the first school shooting that occurred under his administration. It is also easy to imagine that, just like his predecessors, he won’t change a thing.</p>
<p>Australians should never pretend that we have the answers to the failures of American gun control. It isn’t helpful, or kind, when smug Australians look condescendingly at the US and its failures to rationally address its own deeply embedded and violent culture. </p>
<p>We tend to underestimate the power of the NRA, which has the entire Republican Party and too many Democrats on its payroll. A lot of us underestimate the power of American white supremacy. We also underestimate American reverence for the Bill of Rights and the Constitution, from those opposed to gun control and those in favour.</p>
<p>Americans, meanwhile, tend to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2018/05/07/americans-vastly-overestimate-the-number-of-gun-owners-thats-a-problem/">overestimate</a> the power of the NRA, and have allowed that power to become self-perpetuating. The NRA is powerful because it has created a narrative which sees that power as permanent and unshakeable. Combined with the force of American exceptionalism, that power – real and imagined – leads not to action, but to resignation and acceptance among the very people who are in a position to change things.</p>
<p>American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any cost or sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world. Even the potential massacre of their own children. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/us-shootings-norway-and-finland-have-similar-levels-of-gun-ownership-but-far-less-gun-crime-183933">US shootings: Norway and Finland have similar levels of gun ownership, but far less gun crime</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<h2>An elite inured to violent death</h2>
<p>Yale University is full of immensely powerful and influential people, and people who will go on to hold positions of immense power and influence. Four out of the nine Supreme Court Justices — including Trump appointee <a href="https://theconversation.com/who-is-us-supreme-court-nominee-brett-kavanaugh-and-where-does-he-stand-on-abortion-99670">Brett Kavanaugh</a> — are graduates of Yale Law School (the other four went to Harvard; Trump’s final appointment, <a href="https://supremecourthistory.org/supreme-court-justices/associate-justice-amy-coney-barrett/">Amy Coney Barrett</a>, went to Notre Dame). Five Yale alumni have gone on to become president (Bill Clinton, George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush, Gerald Ford, and William Taft).</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=413&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465912/original/file-20220530-22-7fh3ev.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=519&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Harkness Tower on the campus of Yale University, a a place of elite power.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Beth Harpaz/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Yale graduates are everywhere that matters in American politics. They are journalists, foreign policy types, Wall Street brokers, and congresspeople. They’ve served at every level of almost every presidential administration, in every agency, every department, every lobby group, and every think tank.</p>
<p>They also went to school just under 25 miles from Newtown, Connecticut – the home of <a href="https://theconversation.com/connecticut-shootings-guns-dont-kill-people-lack-of-gun-control-kills-people-11362">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a>. I didn’t know that, when I arrived. It wasn’t until Parkland prompted discussions about school shootings with my colleagues that I realised just how close it was. </p>
<p>On December 14, 2012 – exactly five years and two months before Parkland – a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary and murdered 20 children aged between six and seven years old, along with six adult staff members. He shot himself when police arrived.</p>
<p>Many Yale Faculty, especially those with families, don’t live in the college town of New Haven. They live instead in the leafy outer suburbs, in big New England weatherboard houses with rolling lawns and trees that turn red and gold in autumn and where everything sparkles under a blanket of pristine white snow in winter. </p>
<p>On that day, December 14, 2012, their children’s schools went into lockdown. Before it became clear what was happening, those parents didn’t even know which school was under attack. They thought their children might be dead.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the existential horror of this was just new to me, an outsider, but by the time I was there, five years after Sandy Hook, what struck me most was the sad resignation of every single person I spoke to at Yale about Sandy Hook and Parkland. </p>
<p>By that time — more than halfway through my fellowship – I had grown accustomed to the ritual of the very powerful and influential people I met asking me what I might do next, after Yale. When everyone is connected to someone, your answer to that question might make or break the rest of your life. </p>
<p>In the five months prior to February 2018, I had answered it very carefully, probably with visible desperation. But after Parkland, I got braver. I changed my answer. </p>
<p>We were going home, I started to say – we were going home because we could not send our child to school here. We could not live with the unadulterated existential horror of our three-year-old doing lockdown drills less than 25 miles from the site of the mass shooting of 20 other babies. We couldn’t do it. </p>
<p>The response I got never, ever varied. Sure, they would reply – that’s a reasonable position. But a ripple across the forehead, a tiny frown, almost always gave them away. I could see a switch flicking. I was either written off as lacking ambition or encouraged to reconsider – to look at this or that program, or university.</p>
<p>In all honesty, it was only then – despite over a decade of study, despite multiple visits – that I really understood the poison of American exceptionalism. These powerful, rich people were utterly convinced that the US, and the small corner of it that they occupied, was the best possible place in which to be, and <em>it was worth it to be there</em>. It was worth the risk of Sandy Hook. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465914/original/file-20220530-26-e2ovuu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">White roses with the faces of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting are attached to a telephone pole near the school in Newtown, Connecticut.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jessica Hill/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>They were, of course, partly insulated from that risk. Their kids went to schools with better security than most; they had money and health insurance. But it was still a risk. They had been exposed to that risk directly. </p>
<p>The pervasiveness of the threat means that gun massacres can and do happen to people who are otherwise protected from the most excessive cruelties of American society. To take just one example: in 2017, a gunman <a href="https://theconversation.com/las-vegas-the-us-is-racked-with-impossible-divisions-over-rights-and-freedoms-85121">opened fire</a> on a mostly white crowd at a country music festival in Las Vegas. It was the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-attack-deadliest-us-mass-shooting-trnd/index.html">deadliest</a> mass shooting in American history.</p>
<p>They were all horrified by gun violence, of course. They were sad, and frightened. But they weren’t angry. They were resigned to the continuing occurrence of mass shootings of children: just another thing that happens in America. </p>
<p>Powerful Americans would see this as unfair, of course. But after nearly four years of reflection, I do not know what else to take from it. These enormously powerful and influential people had decided that not only was the risk worth it, but that they could do nothing about it. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465921/original/file-20220530-18-r2pjb3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Angelica Cervantes kneels at her son Erick Silva’s grave in Las Vegas in 2018. Silva was working as a security guard at the Route 91 Harvest Festival and was shot while helping people climb over a barricade to escape the gunfire on October 1, 2017.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">John Locher/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The result of that failure – of Yale, of the other Ivy Leagues, of the institutions of American political power – is a country awash with fear and violence. In the US there are more guns than people. Americans purchased 17 million guns in 2020, after Parkland; they already had 400 million. Put another way, five per cent of the world’s population <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/10/2/16399418/fedex-indianapolis-mass-shooting-gun-violence-statistics-charts">owns</a> 45 per cent of the world’s guns. </p>
<p>That population suffers from <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081">the highest</a> rate of gun-related deaths in the developed world. Gun violence kills roughly 40,000 people <a href="https://www.americanprogress.org/article/gun-industry-america/">every year</a>. Gun violence is now the <a href="https://www.axios.com/2022/05/26/gun-deaths-children-america">leading cause of death</a> for American children. The guns that kill those children are manufactured by American companies deeply ingrained in the American military industrial complex. American capitalism is geared towards war.</p>
<p>The result of all this is also a powerful elite, riding the conduit from the Ivy Leagues to government and Wall Street, inured to violent death and absolved of personal responsibility.</p>
<h2>‘The blob’ and institutionalised violence</h2>
<p>That group of powerful people make up the courts, the government, and the “blob” — the foreign policy establishment made up of academics, think tanks, and government. The blob is what takes Americans to war, where they use weapons similar to, and worse than, the AR-15 that killed children at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High and at Sandy Hook Elementary. </p>
<p>The blob sends American men to fight unwinnable wars, where they shoot people with guns, and then some of them come back and threaten the very fabric of the democracy powerful Americans so revere and that they had promised to protect. One investigation <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/01/21/958915267/nearly-one-in-five-defendants-in-capitol-riot-cases-served-in-the-military">found</a> that nearly one in five of the assailants on the Capitol had a military history. Some of them were former or current law enforcement officers. Many of them <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2022/05/rise-of-body-armor-in-mass-shootings-like-buffalo-and-uvalde.html">were wearing</a> military-grade body armour, just like the man in Ulvade.</p>
<p>Joe Biden’s “blob” might look and sound different to Donald Trump’s, but it won’t do anything to really address this violence. Biden’s blob is made up of the same kind of people who have failed to act before. </p>
<p>The <a href="https://democrats.org/where-we-stand/party-platform/">2020 Democratic Party Platform</a> said all the right things about ending gun violence – about universal background checks and banning the manufacture of assault weapons. They invited X González, a Parkland survivor, to narrate <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-TisrsVkUk">a stirring video</a> about gun violence at the 2020 Democratic National Convention. But even in that video, you could almost hear the resignation in González’s voice. </p>
<iframe width="100%" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/F-TisrsVkUk" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<p>The President and First Lady visited Ulvade on Sunday. President Biden said all the right things; his grief was visceral, and genuine. But it all came, <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2022/05/29/politics/joe-biden-uvalde-texas-visit/index.html">as CNN reported</a>, “without promise of major legislative action to prevent further carnage”. </p>
<p>And Biden’s <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2022/05/29/biden-texas-uvalde-00035867">promise</a> that he “will”, as one mourner begged him, “do something”, doesn’t factor in the prospect of the Democrats losing their tiny congressional majority in November. Lawmakers are in talks now, but even if they do keep their majority, holding a coalition of Democrats together to pass even the most basic of gun control measures would be incredibly difficult. </p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/465922/original/file-20220530-12-ktw8io.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">President Joe Biden and first lady Jill Biden pay their respects to the victims.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Evan Vucci/AP</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>More broadly, none of this addresses the institutional failures that have let the gun lobby torpedo gun control efforts for decades. And it doesn’t reflect on the nature of American exceptionalism – on why 27 words written over 200 years ago hold American society hostage, and why powerful Americans allow that to continue. </p>
<p>It doesn’t address why those words are held up as uniquely good in the world, despite the way they are weaponised against Americans themselves. It doesn’t ask why it is that so many powerful Americans who know better – who know that most of the rest of the world doesn’t have to live with the very real threat of their children dying at school at the hands of their peers – have decided that that risk is worth it, for them and their fellow citizens. </p>
<p>That exceptionalism has allowed every generation of American children since Columbine in 1999 to face an existential threat in their own schools, in the full knowledge that the people who hold power and influence in their exceptional country are unable and unwilling to protect them. </p>
<p>This is Joe Biden’s “beacon”, Ronald Reagan’s “force for good in the world”. This is what American exceptionalism does, at home and abroad: it puts Americans on a permanent war footing, against each other – against their own children – and against outsiders. This is the true face of the country that rules our world.</p>
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<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-u-s-capitol-raid-exposes-the-myth-and-pathology-of-american-exceptionalism-152668">The U.S. Capitol raid exposes the myth and pathology of American exceptionalism</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>In mid-2018, we drove out of New Haven for a weekend away in upstate New York. Summer had finally arrived, and everything was green and full of life. The drive was beautiful, not at all like the ten-lane American highways we had grown accustomed to, but tree-lined and skirting around rivers and lakes. Clara was asleep in the backseat as it dawned on the both of us where we were. As we followed the curves of Berkshire Road, we saw the signs for Newtown, and, a little later, Sandy Hook. </p>
<p>Nothing is worth that. Nothing.</p>
<p><em>An earlier version of this essay was shortlisted for the 2022 <a href="https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/prizes-programs/calibre-prize">Calibre Essay Prize</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/184045/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Shortis does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>American institutions are seemingly powerless to enact gun reform because so many Americans believe – consciously or not – that any sacrifice is worth it to live in the best country in the world.Emma Shortis, Lecturer, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1839092022-05-27T22:00:45Z2022-05-27T22:00:45ZArming teachers – an effective security measure or a false sense of security?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465810/original/file-20220527-23-pqd7cs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=33%2C109%2C5573%2C3598&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even trained police officers often miss their target during gunfights.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/photo/firearm-instructor-and-student-royalty-free-image/157616700?adppopup=true">RichLegg / Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>In the wake of the <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/nation/2022/05/24/texas-school-district-locked-down-active-shooter/9910214002/">mass shooting at Robb Elementary School</a> in Uvalde, Texas, some elected officials are <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/25/harden-schools-arm-teachers-uvalde/">making calls anew</a> for
<a href="https://twitter.com/acyn/status/1529224340071297025">teachers to be armed and trained to use firearms</a> to protect the nation’s schools. To shine light on the matter, The Conversation reached out to <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=RrYCnwIAAAAJ&hl=en">Aimee Huff</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.ca/citations?user=6gjKzYoAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">Michelle Barnhart</a>, two Oregon State University scholars who have studied the ins and outs of putting guns in the hands of the nation’s teachers as a way to protect students.</em></p>
<h2>1. What does the public think about arming teachers?</h2>
<p>According to a 2021 poll, <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2021/08/04/wide-differences-on-most-gun-policies-between-gun-owners-and-non-owners-but-also-some-agreement/">43% of Americans</a> supported policies that allow school personnel to carry guns in schools.</p>
<p>But if you take a closer look, you see that most of that support comes from Republicans and gun-owners. For instance, 66% of Republican respondents expressed support for such policies, versus just 24% of Democratic respondents. And 63% of gun owners supported allowing school personnel to carry guns, versus just 33% of non-gun owners. </p>
<p>The majority of <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/231224/teachers-prioritize-gun-control-prevent-shootings.aspx">teachers</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/survey-finds-wide-opposition-among-parents-to-arming-teachers/2018/07/16/03674e34-8927-11e8-8aea-86e88ae760d8_story.html">parents</a> and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2020.1858424">students</a> oppose allowing teachers to carry guns.</p>
<p>The largest teachers unions, including the National Education Association, also oppose arming teachers, arguing that bringing more guns into schools “<a href="https://www.nea.org/about-nea/media-center/press-releases/nea-rejects-call-arm-teachers-wake-school-massacre-uvalde-texas">makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to shield our students and educators from gun violence</a>.”</p>
<p>These teachers unions <a href="https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/imo/media/doc/American%20Federation%20of%20Teachers%20(AFT)%20statement.pdf">advocate</a> a preventive approach that includes more gun regulations.</p>
<p>While the public is justifiably concerned with eliminating school shootings, there is <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/texas-conservatives-armed-teachers-are-solution-school-shootings-2022-05-25/">disagreement</a> over the policies and actions that would be most effective. A 2021 study found that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">70% of Americans</a> supported the idea of <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">armed school resource officers</a> and law enforcement in schools, but only <a href="https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/npr-ipsos-poll-majority-americans-support-policies-aimed-keep-guns-out-hands-dangerous-individuals">41%</a> supported the idea of training teachers to carry guns in schools.</p>
<p>In our research on <a href="https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2552033/volumes/v47/NA-47">how Americans think about the rights and responsibilities related to armed self-defense</a>, we even find disagreement among conservative gun owners over how to best protect schoolchildren. Some advocate arming teachers, while other gun owners believe guns in schools ultimately make children less safe. These conservative opponents of arming teachers instead support fortifying the building’s design and features.</p>
<p>After the massacre in Uvalde, we are seeing renewed calls from politicians to <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2022/05/25/harden-schools-arm-teachers-uvalde/">arm teachers</a> and provide them with <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article261779287.html">specialized training</a>.</p>
<p>However, amid <a href="https://apnews.com/article/uvalde-texas-school-shooting-44a7cfb990feaa6ffe482483df6e4683">conflicting reports</a> about whether police officers engaged the Robb Elementary School shooter, there are renewed questions about whether armed teachers would make a difference. Police have <a href="https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2022/05/27/police-mistakenly-blocked-classroom-during-texas-school-shooting-dps-says/9959949002/">acknowledged they didn’t enter the school</a> even as kids frantically dialed 911.</p>
<p>Given that there were also armed officers present at the <a href="https://extras.denverpost.com/news/col1123b.htm">Columbine</a> and <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/04/us/parkland-scot-peterson.html">Parkland</a> school massacres in 1999 and 2018, respectively, the public is understandably right to wonder whether armed teachers can effectively neutralize a shooter. Amid reports that trained and experienced police officers may have been unable or unwilling to intervene against the Uvalde shooter, it’s not clear whether teachers would be, either.</p>
<h2>2. What are the potential drawbacks of arming teachers?</h2>
<p>Arming teachers <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-trumps-idea-to-arm-teachers-may-miss-the-mark-92335">introduces risks to students and staff</a>, as well as school districts themselves. These include the risk of teachers accidentally shooting themselves or students and fellow staff. There are also moral and legal risks associated with improper or inaccurate defensive use of a firearm - even for teachers who have undertaken specialized firearms training.</p>
<p>One <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/RAND_FirearmEvaluation.pdf">study</a> found that highly trained police in gunfights <a href="http://www.nyc.gov/html/nypd/downloads/pdf/public_information/RAND_FirearmEvaluation.pdf">hit their target only 18% of the time</a>. Even if teachers, who would likely have less <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jul/19/teachers-utah-guns-school-shootings">training</a>, achieve the same accuracy, four or five of every six bullets fired by a teacher would hit something or someone other than the shooter. Further, a teacher responding with force to a shooter may be mistaken for the perpetrator by law enforcement or by armed colleagues. </p>
<p>Introducing guns to the school environment also poses <a href="https://doi.org/10.1086/695762">everyday risks</a>. Armed teachers may unintentionally discharge their firearm. For instance, an armed police officer accidentally discharged his weapon in his office at a school in <a href="https://bit.ly/2BnC8zT">Alexandria, Virginia</a> in 2018. Guns can also fall into the wrong hands. <a href="https://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644(12)01408-4/fulltext">Research</a> on shootings that took place in hospital emergency rooms found that in 23% of the cases, the weapon used was a gun the perpetrator took from a hospital security guard.</p>
<p>Students could also access firearms that are improperly stored or mishandled. <a href="https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2017.304262">Improper storage</a> is a common problem among American gun owners. In a school setting, this has resulted in students finding a <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/report/arming-teachers-introduces-new-risks-into-schools/">teacher’s misplaced firearm</a>, sometimes taking it or reporting it to another school official. News reports show that guns carried into schools have <a href="https://www.baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2018/10/24/student-substitute-teacher-back-flip-gun-falls-out">fallen out</a> of teachers’ clothing, and have been left in <a href="https://bit.ly/2G9jlfF">bathrooms</a> and <a href="https://bit.ly/2GtNfeb">locker rooms</a>. There have also been reports of students <a href="https://bit.ly/2V3psWX">stealing</a> guns from teachers.</p>
<p>Insurance companies also see concealed guns on school grounds as creating a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-hiltzik-arming-teachers-20180226-story.html">heightened liability risk</a>.</p>
<p>Other <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/90024239">drawbacks</a> to arming teachers involve the learning environment. In particular, owing to structural racism and discriminatory school security policies, Black high school students are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0044118X211046637">less supportive</a> than white students of arming teachers – 16% versus 26% – and report feeling less safe if teachers are carrying firearms. </p>
<h2>3. What are the arguments for arming teachers?</h2>
<p>Proponents emphasize that teachers, as Americans, have a right to use firearms to defend themselves against violent crime, including a school shooter. Our <a href="https://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/2552033/volumes/v47/NA-47">research</a> shows that some people interpret their right to armed self-defense as a moral obligation, and argue that teachers have both a right and a responsibility to use firearms to protect themselves and their students. </p>
<p>Parents who regularly carry handguns to protect themselves and their children may take comfort knowing that their child’s teacher could perform the role of protector at school. </p>
<p>In a school shooting, where lives can be saved or ended in a matter of seconds, some people may <a href="https://whyy.org/articles/shooting-people-is-deescalation-three-days-with-teachers-training-to-use-guns-in-schools/">feel more secure</a> believing a shooter would immediately meet armed resistance from a teacher without needing to wait for an armed school officer to respond. </p>
<h2>4. Have any school districts allowed teachers to arm themselves?</h2>
<p>Yes. Teachers may <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12538">carry guns at school</a> in districts in at least 19 states. The idea surfaced as a viable policy after the 1999 Columbine shooting, and gained momentum after the 2018 Parkland shooting. </p>
<p>The number of school districts that permit teachers to be armed is <a href="https://www.vice.com/en/article/439z7q/exclusive-how-parkland-created-a-rush-to-arm-teachers-and-school-staff-across-the-country">difficult</a> to ascertain. Policies <a href="https://gunsandamerica.org/story/19/03/22/with-no-national-standards-policies-for-arming-teachers-are-often-left-to-local-school-districts/">vary</a> across states. <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/31/nyregion/guns-schools-ban-teachers-ny.html">New York</a> bars school districts from allowing teachers to carry guns, while <a href="https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/laws-allowing-armed-staff-in-K12-schools.html">Missouri and Montana</a> authorize teachers to carry firearms.</p>
<h2>5. What were the results?</h2>
<p>There are documented <a href="https://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/great-mills-high-shooter-shot-by-school-officer-killed-self-police/44326/">incidents</a> of school staff using their firearm to neutralize a shooter. However, researchers <a href="https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/laws-allowing-armed-staff-in-K12-schools.html">have not found evidence</a> that arming teachers increases school safety. Rather, arming teachers may contribute to a <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/vio.2018.0044">false sense of security</a> for teachers, students and the community.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183909/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Putting guns in the hands of schoolteachers is a popular idea among gun-owners and conservatives, but research suggests it may pose more problems than it solves.Aimee Dinnín Huff, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State UniversityMichelle Barnhart, Associate Professor, Marketing, Oregon State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1838122022-05-25T12:52:35Z2022-05-25T12:52:35ZWhat we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the gunmen who carry them out<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/465309/original/file-20220525-24-m0gxi3.jpeg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C25%2C5708%2C3802&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The archbishop of San Antonio, Gustavo Garcia-Siller, comforts families following a deadly school shooting at a school in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24, 2022. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/CORRECTIONTexasSchoolShooting/5a865a4af618489aaefdaac9d0fee3b3/photo?Query=uvalde&mediaType=photo&sortBy=arrivaldatetime:desc&dateRange=Anytime&totalCount=92&currentItemNo=3">AP Photo/Dario Lopez-Mills</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings">Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999</a> it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history.</p>
<p>Now, it ranks fourth. The three school shootings to surpass its death toll of 13 – 12 students, one teacher – have all taken place within the last decade: 2012’s <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2012/12/us/sandy-hook-timeline/index.html">Sandy Hook Elementary attack</a>, in which a gunman killed 26 children and school staff; the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which <a href="https://theconversation.com/parkland-shooting-one-year-later-congress-still-avoids-action-on-gun-control-111796">claimed the lives of 17 people</a>; and now the <a href="https://theconversation.com/19-children-2-adults-killed-in-texas-elementary-school-shooting-3-essential-reads-on-americas-relentless-gun-violence-183811">Robb Elementary School assault in Uvalde, Texas</a>, where on May 24, 2022, at least 19 children and two adults were murdered.</p>
<p>We <a href="https://www.metrostate.edu/about/directory/james-densley">are criminologists</a> <a href="https://www.hamline.edu/faculty-staff/jillian-peterson/">who study</a> <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/">the life histories</a> of public mass shooters in the U.S. As part of that research, we built <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">a comprehensive database</a> of mass public shootings using public data, with the shooters coded on over 200 different variables, including location and racial profile. For the purposes of our database, mass public shootings are defined as incidents in which four or more victims are murdered with at least one of those homicides taking place in a public location and with no connection to underlying criminal activity, such as gangs or drugs.</p>
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<p>Our database shows that since 1966, when our database timeline begins, there have been 13 such shootings at schools across the U.S – the first in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/18/us/five-children-killed-as-gunman-attacks-a-california-school.html">Stockton, California</a>, in 1989.</p>
<p>Four of those shootings – including the one at Robb Elementary School – involved a killing at another location, always a family member at a residence. The most recent perpetrator <a href="https://www.npr.org/live-updates/texas-school-shooting-2022-05-24">shot his grandmother</a> prior to going to the school in Uvalde.</p>
<p>The majority of mass school shootings were carried out by a lone gunman, with just two – Columbine and the <a href="https://www.kait8.com/2022/03/24/24-years-later-remembering-westside-school-shooting-victims/">1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro</a>, Arkansas – carried out by two gunmen. In all, some 129 people were killed in the attacks and at least 166 victims injured.</p>
<p>The choice of “gunmen” to describe the perpetrators is accurate – all of the mass school shootings in our database were <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">carried out by men or boys</a>. And the average age of those involved in carrying out the attacks was 18. </p>
<p>This fits with the picture that has emerged of the <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/robb-elementary-school-gunman-salvador-ramos-bought-two-rifles-on-his-18th-birthday-texas-officials-say">shooter in the Robb Elementary School attack</a>. He turned 18 just days ago and reportedly <a href="https://www.star-telegram.com/news/state/texas/article261766762.html">purchased two military-style weapons</a>. It is believed that the shooter used one miltary-style weapon in the attack, authorities said May 25, 2022.</p>
<p>Police have <a href="https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-05-24/texas-elementary-school-shooting">yet to release key information</a> on the shooter, including what motivated him to kill the children and adults at Robb Elementary School. The picture of the shooter that has emerged conforms to the profile we have built up from past perpetrators in some ways, but diverges in others.</p>
<p>We know that most school shooters have a connection to the school they target. Twelve of the 14 school shooters in our database prior to the most recent attack in Texas were either current or former students of the school. Any prior connection between the latest shooter and Robb Elementary School has not been released to the public.</p>
<p>Our research and <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/about-us/our-book/">dozens of interviews with incarcerated perpetrators of mass shootings</a> suggests that for most perpetrators, the mass shooting event is intended to be a final act. The majority of school mass shooters die in the attack. Of the 15 mass school shooters in our database, just seven were apprehended. The rest died on the scene, nearly all by suicide – the lone exception being the Robb Elementary shooter, who was shot dead by police.</p>
<p>And school shooters tend to preempt their attacks by leaving posts, messages or videos warning of their intent. </p>
<p>Inspired by past school shooters, some perpetrators are <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-quest-for-significance-gone-horribly-wrong-how-mass-shooters-pervert-a-universal-desire-to-make-a-difference-in-the-world-183199">seeking fame and notoriety</a>. However, most school shooters are motivated by a generalized anger. Their path to violence involves self-hate and despair turned outward at the world, and our research finds they often communicate their intent to do harm in advance as a final, desperate <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2785799">cry for help</a>. The key to stopping these tragedies is for society to be <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">alert to these warning signs</a> and act on them immediately. </p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct the year of the 1998 shooting at Westside School in Jonesboro, Arkansas and amend the total number of those killed and injured in the school shootings.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/183812/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice</span></em></p>Of the 13 mass school shootings that have taken place in the US, the three most deadly occurred in the last decade. Data from these attacks helped criminologists build a profile of the gunmen.James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1589162021-04-14T12:36:08Z2021-04-14T12:36:08ZKnoxville school shooting serves as stark reminder of a familiar – but preventable – threat<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/394890/original/file-20210413-15-whzt1h.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=43%2C0%2C4872%2C3209&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">People hold a vigil for the victims of the Saugus High School shooting in Santa Clarita, California, in 2019. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/people-effected-by-the-saugus-high-school-shoot-hold-a-news-photo/1187735941?adppopup=true"> Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With <a href="https://www.chalkbeat.org/2020/10/8/21508138/parents-schools-covid-online-poll">most U.S. students having learned virtually in 2020</a> because of the pandemic, the nation logged a record low for school shootings. There were just <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2020/01">three deaths</a> in a total of 10 school shootings in all of 2020.</p>
<p>This compares with <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-in-2019-how-many-and-where/2019/02">eight deaths</a> in 25 school shootings in 2019.</p>
<p>Now, as students return to schools for in-person instruction, the specter of school shootings is back. This was evidenced in the <a href="https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/crime/2021/04/12/police-respond-reports-shooting-near-austin-east-high-school/7194244002/">April 12 school shooting at the Austin-East Magnet High School in Knoxville, Tennessee</a>. The shooting left one student dead and a school resource officer injured. </p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">A school shooting in Knoxville, Tennessee, has left one person dead.</span></figcaption>
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<p>As <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ">criminologists</a> and authors of a new book, “<a href="https://www.abramsbooks.com/product/violence-project_9781419752957/">The Violence Project: How to Stop A Mass Shooting Epidemic</a>,” we worry that gun violence at America’s schools may be even more likely in 2021 than before the pandemic because of a number of exacerbated risk factors for violence.</p>
<p>Young people’s <a href="https://namica.org/blog/impact-on-the-mental-health-of-students-during-covid-19/">mental health suffered</a> during the pandemic. And some youths were trapped in <a href="http://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2020.104709">homes where they endured abuse</a>. As we point out in “Trauma,” a chapter in our book, children who experience abuse in childhood are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1001/archpedi.1996.02170290056009">more likely to commit violence</a> later in life.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, there was a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2021/02/10/this-is-how-many-guns-were-sold-in-all-50-states/43371461/">record number of gun sales in 2020</a>, driven in part by the pandemic and civil unrest after the killing of George Floyd last summer. As a result, students may now have more access than ever to firearms.</p>
<h2>Ominous statistics</h2>
<p>The Knoxville school shooting on April 12 was the 37th school shooting of 2021, according to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security’s <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/">K-12 School Shooting Database</a>. The database includes information on “each and every instance a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time of day, or day of week.” Year-to-date comparisons are complicated, because not all school districts went to remote or hybrid learning at the same time or to the same degree.</p>
<p>Taking a narrower view of shootings with injuries or deaths that occurred while school was in session, it was the fourth school shooting of 2021 and second <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/school-shootings-this-year-how-many-and-where/2021/03">fatal shooting</a> of the year.</p>
<p>The phrase “school shooting” typically is reserved for mass casualty events like the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Columbine-High-School-shootings">1999 Columbine High School shooting</a>, the 2012 <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Newtown-shootings-of-2012">Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting</a> and the 2018 <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/years-parkland-school-shooting-trial-limbo-75827501">Parkland high school shooting</a>. But talking about school shootings only when multiple people die in them minimizes <a href="https://www.harpercollins.com/products/children-under-fire-john-woodrow-cox?variant=32126593138722">the great harm</a> guns cause in schools and to children all the time.</p>
<h2>Response in the UK</h2>
<p>Twenty-five years ago, in March 1996, a gunman walked into Scotland’s Dunblane Primary School and opened fire, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Dunblane-school-massacre">killing 16 children and a teacher</a>. A successful campaign for gun regulation followed, laws were changed, <a href="https://www.theweek.co.uk/100333/uk-gun-laws-who-can-own-a-firearm">handguns were banned</a> and the United Kingdom <a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-1996-dunblane-massacre-pushed-uk-enact-stricter-gun-laws-180977221/">hasn’t had a school shooting since</a>. </p>
<p>Yet in America, a gun is brandished on one K-12 school campus or another every two to three days. From <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/are-school-shootings-becoming-more-frequent-we-ran-the-numbers/">2015 to 2018</a>, there was an “<a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources">active shooter</a>” – someone actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area – on U.S. school property <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/are-school-shootings-becoming-more-frequent-we-ran-the-numbers/">every 77 days</a>. Since 1970, over <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/data-map/">1,600 school shootings have claimed the lives of 599 people</a> as of April 13, 2021.</p>
<p>Before the pandemic, many parents had become resigned to sending their children to schools that have <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/03/us/school-shooting-lockdown-drills/">active shooter drills</a> to rehearse for a real shooting incident. Some even bought <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/business/consumer/bulletproof-backpacks-wouldn-t-have-saved-anyone-recent-shootings-n1042801">bulletproof backpacks</a> for their children.</p>
<h2>Searching for solutions</h2>
<p>Our research on <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shooters-usually-show-these-signs-of-distress-long-before-they-open-fire-our-database-shows-111242">school shootings</a>, consistent with <a href="https://www.secretservice.gov/sites/default/files/reports/2021-03/USSS%20Averting%20Targeted%20School%20Violence.2021.03.pdf">research from the U.S. Secret Service</a>, shows that schools can do more than just accept an America where “back to school” means back to school shootings, even without an act of Congress to potentially stop gun violence. We’ve spent the last four years examining the lives of school shooters, searching for solutions. Our findings are freely available in a <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooter-database/">database we created</a> with a grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.</p>
<p>The data shows, importantly, that school shooters tend to be current or former students of the school. They are almost always in crisis of some sort before their attack, indicated by a noticeable change in behavior from usual. Often this manifests in suicidal thoughts. School shooters also tend to leak their plans for violence in advance, mostly to their peers, often via social media.</p>
<p>And school shooters usually get their guns from family and friends who failed to store them safely and securely. It’s unclear at this point how well the Knoxville shooter fits this profile, but these findings point to important avenues for school shooting prevention.</p>
<h2>Beyond school police</h2>
<p>First, if school shooters are nearly always students of the school, then educators and others who work with them may need to work harder to find ways to identify and counsel them long before they ever pick up a gun. The existing US$3 billion “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814748206/homeroom-security/">homeroom security</a>” industry is predicated on <a href="https://www.freep.com/story/news/education/2019/09/06/fruitport-high-school-michigan-active-shooters/2213687001/">putting up walls</a> to keep active shooters out, rather than building bridges to keep actual students connected. Some school districts rely on school resource officers, or SROs, to police student problems to such an extent that the <a href="https://www.aclu.org/issues/juvenile-justice/school-prison-pipeline/cops-and-no-counselors">ACLU</a> estimates that millions of students are in schools with police but no counselors, school psychologists or social workers.</p>
<p>SROs have intervened in school shootings in the past, including the one in Knoxville on April 12, but we believe they are yet another example of society’s <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2426-the-end-of-policing">overreliance</a> on police to solve systemic social problems, from mental illness to homelessness to drug abuse. Research shows the presence of police officers in schools <a href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12103-017-9412-8">feeds a larger social problem</a> known as the “school-to-prison pipeline,” in which even minor infractions at school are <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/1745-9133.12512">handled by the criminal justice system</a>.</p>
<p>In a <a href="http://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37394">February 2021 study</a>,
we examined 133 attempted and completed mass school shootings from 1980 to 2019 and, controlling for other factors like the school size, the number of shooters, and the number and type of firearms, we found that the death rate for victims – that is, the perpetrator being excluded – was three times greater in school shootings with armed guards on the scene.</p>
<p>Research has shown that the presence of officers’ weapons increases aggression – it is known as the “<a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/get-psyched/201301/the-weapons-effect">weapons effect</a>.” This effect may be further exacerbated by the fact that many <a href="http://jaapl.org/content/jaapl/36/4/544.full.pdf">school shooters are suicidal</a> and may intend to provoke law enforcement into shooting them. This occurrence is known as “suicide by cop.”</p>
<h2>Toward a future without school shootings</h2>
<p>Even if many lawmakers would like to see more guns in schools <a href="https://apnews.com/article/2cfba6696074f0913e09e2ed5adcc593">through the arming of teachers</a>, we feel it is not a solution. This logic runs counter to our research, which shows that warm and welcoming <a href="https://www.naesp.org/sites/default/files/Framework%20for%20Safe%20and%20Successful%20School%20Environments_FINAL_0.pdf">school environments</a> where all students feel safe and supported are the foundation upon which good school security is built. </p>
<p>In our view, counselors, social workers, peer support networks and small class sizes are what schools need most right now to <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/about-school-psychology/media-room/press-releases/preventing-mass-violence-requires-access-to-mental-health-services-and-reduced-inappropriate-access-to-firearms">prevent violence after a pandemic</a>. They can emphasize strong and trusting <a href="https://safesupportivelearning.ed.gov/topic-research/engagement/relationships">relationships</a> between students and adults and teach students empathy and alternatives to violence as a means of dispute resolution.</p>
<p>School personnel and students need training to identify a student in crisis and describe how <a href="https://www.edweek.org/leadership/more-schools-are-using-anonymous-tip-lines-to-thwart-violence-do-they-work/2018/08">to report</a> something they see or hear indicative of violent intent. Educators need new tools to help identify students before they become a threat. This means not unduly punishing students in crisis with expulsion or <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article217015060.html">criminal charges</a> – things that could escalate the crisis or any grievance with the institution.</p>
<p>[<em>Over 100,000 readers rely on The Conversation’s newsletter to understand the world.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/the-daily-3?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=100Ksignup">Sign up today</a>.]</p>
<p>And as students go back to school, <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/how-moms-are-quietly-passing-gun-safety-policy-through-school-n1132891">safe gun storage at home</a> is a paramount.</p>
<p>School shootings are not inevitable. They’re preventable. We believe the steps outlined above help promote school security while safeguarding student well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/158916/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley has received funding from the National Institute of Justice. He is affiliated with The Violence Project.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. She is affiliated with The Violence Project. </span></em></p>The pandemic largely gave America a reprieve from school shootings. Two criminologists say gun violence could return to America’s schools worse than before as in-person classes resume.James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1550172021-02-19T13:18:51Z2021-02-19T13:18:51ZWhy do mass shootings spawn conspiracy theories?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384816/original/file-20210217-21-h7039n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=9%2C6%2C2160%2C1376&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A woman places painted rocks at a memorial to those killed in the 2018 Parkland, Florida, school shooting.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/SchoolShootingFloridaCourtCase/ca30e57e32f3432991036e173ea67108/photo">AP Photo/Wilfredo Lee</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>While conspiracy theories are not limited to any topic, there is one type of event that seems particularly likely to spark them: mass shootings, typically defined as attacks in which a <a href="https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/advancing-mass-shooting-research-inform-practice">shooter kills at least four other people</a>.</p>
<p>When one person kills many others in a single incident, particularly when it seems random, people naturally seek out answers for why the tragedy happened. After all, if a mass shooting is random, anyone can be a target. </p>
<p>Pointing to some nefarious plan by a powerful group – such as the government – can be more comforting than the idea that the attack was the result of a <a href="https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-duwe-rocque-mass-shootings-mental-illness-20180223-story.html">disturbed or mentally ill individual</a> who <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/07418825.2020.1818805">obtained a firearm legally</a>.</p>
<p>In the United States, where <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/01/08/why-so-many-americans-think-the-government-wants-their-guns/">some significant portion of the public believes</a> that the government is out to take their guns, the idea that a mass shooting was orchestrated by the government in an attempt to make guns look bad may be appealing both psychologically and ideologically.</p>
<p>Our studies of <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=4hU2OG8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">mass shootings</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=y0qgh3oAAAAJ">conspiracy theories</a> help to shed some light on why these events seem particularly prone to the development of such theories and what the media can do to limit the ideas’ spread.</p>
<h2>Back to the 1990s</h2>
<p>Mass shootings and conspiracy theories have a long history. As far back as the mid-1990s, amid a spate of school shootings, <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210125012828/https://www.cuttingedge.org/index.html">Cutting Edge Ministries</a>, a Christian fundamentalist website, found a supposed connection between the attacks and then-President Bill Clinton.</p>
<p>The group’s website claimed that when lines were drawn between groups of school-shooting locations across the U.S., <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20210209204532/https://www.cuttingedge.org/news/n1350.cfm">they crossed in Hope, Arkansas</a>, Clinton’s hometown. The Cutting Edge Ministries concluded from this map that the “shootings were planned events, with the purpose of convincing enough Americans that guns are an evil that needs to be dealt with severely, thus allowing the Federal Government to achieve its Illuminist goal of seizing all weapons.”</p>
<p>Beliefs persist today that mass shootings are staged events, complete with “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/feb/21/crisis-actors-deep-state-false-flag-the-rise-of-conspiracy-theory-code-words">crisis actors</a>,” people who are paid to pretend to be victims of a crime or disaster, all as part of a conspiracy by the government to take away people’s guns. The idea has been linked to such tragedies as the 2018 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida, and the Sandy Hook Elementary attack that resulted in the deaths of 20 children in Newtown, Connecticut, in 2012.</p>
<p>These beliefs can become widespread when peddled by prominent people. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has been in the news because of her belief that the Parkland shooting was a “<a href="https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-did-marjorie-taylor-greene-perpetuate-parkland-shooting-conspiracy-theory-1564992">false flag</a>,” an event that was disguised to look like another group was responsible. It’s not clear, though, in this instance who Rep. Greene felt was really to blame. </p>
<p>Conservative personality Alex Jones has <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/535447-texas-supreme-court-rejects-alex-jones-request-to-toss-lawsuits-from">failed to persuade the Texas Supreme Court</a> to dismiss defamation and injury lawsuits against him by parents of children who were killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting. Jones has, for years, <a href="https://theconversation.com/falsehoods-sandy-hook-and-suing-alex-jones-97056">claimed that the Sandy Hook massacre didn’t happen</a>, saying “<a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-texas-lawsuit-alex-jones/infowars-founder-who-claimed-sandy-hook-shooting-was-a-hoax-ordered-to-pay-100000-idUSKBN1YZ1BB">the whole thing was fake</a>,” and alleging it happened at the behest of gun-control groups and complicit media outlets.</p>
<p>After the country’s deadliest mass shooting to date, with <a href="https://time.com/4964666/mandalay-bay-las-vegas-shooting/">59 dead and hundreds injured</a> in Las Vegas in 2017, the pattern continued: A conspiracy theory arose that there were <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-conspiracy-theory-las-vegas-st-1011-20171010-story.html">multiple shooters</a>, and the notion that the shooting was really done for some other purpose than mass murder.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="A parent with a child walks near police officers with rifles." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=396&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/384818/original/file-20210217-15-113z68r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=498&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A parent is reunited with a child in Newtown, Connecticut, after the 2012 school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/NewtownShootingInfowars/5ee1267706534b66867439dcb9e0a784/photo">AP Photo/Jessica Hill</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Making sense of the senseless</h2>
<p>These conspiracy theories are all attempts to make sense of incomprehensibly terrifying events. If a lone shooter, with <a href="https://www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-davich-conspiracy-theory-las-vegas-st-1011-20171010-story.html">no clear motive</a>, can singlehandedly take the lives of 60 individuals, while injuring hundreds more, then is anyone really safe? </p>
<p>Conspiracy theories are a way of understanding information. Historian <a href="https://harpers.org/archive/1964/11/the-paranoid-style-in-american-politics/">Richard Hofstadter</a> has indicated they can provide motives for events that defy explanation. Mass shootings, then, create an opportunity for people to believe there are larger forces at play, or an ultimate cause that explains the event. </p>
<p>For instance, an idea that a shooter was driven mad by <a href="https://www.cchrint.org/2013/04/17/are-psychotropic-drugs-actually-linked-to-mass-shootings/">antipsychotic</a> <a href="https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/verify/verify-in-the-past-20-years-did-the-majority-of-mass-shooters-take-psychotropic-drugs-before-committing-a-crime/65-60d0c48d-9dab-4129-9176-47d58e4a283a">drugs</a>, distributed by the <a href="https://journal.emwa.org/good-pharma/the-big-pharma-conspiracy-theory/">pharmaceutical industry</a>, can provide comfort as opposed to the thought that anyone can be a victim or perpetrator.</p>
<p>Polls have shown that <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/04/18/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-fear-a-shooting-could-happen-at-their-school-and-most-parents-share-their-concern/">people worry a lot</a> about mass shootings, and more than 30% of Americans said in 2019 that they refused to go particular places such as public events or the mall <a href="https://www.apa.org/news/press/releases/2019/08/fear-mass-shooting">for fear of being shot</a>. </p>
<p>If the shootings are staged, or the results of an enormous, unknowable or mysterious effort, then they at least becomes somewhat comprehensible. That thought process satisfies the search for a reason that can help people feel more comfort and security in a complex and uncertain world – especially when the reason found either removes the threat or makes it somehow less random. </p>
<p>Some people blame mass shootings on other factors like mental illness that make gun violence an individual issue, not a societal one, or say these events are somehow explained by outside forces. These ideas may seem implausible to most, but they do what conspiracy theories are intended to do: provide people with a sense of knowing and control.</p>
<h2>Conspiracy theories have consequences</h2>
<p>Conspiracy theories can spark real-world threats – including the <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/06/22/533941689/pizzagate-gunman-sentenced-to-4-years-in-prison">QAnon-inspired attack on a pizza restaurant</a> in 2016 and the <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/qanon-emerges-recurring-theme-criminal-cases-tied-us/story?id=75347445">Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection</a>.</p>
<p>They also misdirect blame and distract from efforts to better understand tragedies such as mass shootings. High-quality scholarship could investigate how to better protect public places. But robust debates about how to reduce events such as mass shootings will be less effective if some significant portion of the public believes they are manufactured.</p>
<p>Some journalists and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/archive/2020/05/shadowland-on-the-power-and-danger-of-conspiracy/611641/">news organizations</a> have already started taking steps to <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-to-spot-a-conspiracy-theory-when-you-see-one-133574">identify and warn audiences against</a> conspiracy theories. Open access to reputable news sources on COVID-19, for example, has helped manage the <a href="https://misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/the-different-forms-of-covid-19-misinformation-and-their-consequences/">misinformation of coronavirus</a> conspiracies. </p>
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<p>Explicit and clear <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jb-IoKjzjDUCA1lB9AImOJAcTPqjf-1S/view">evaluation of evidence and sources</a> – in headlines and <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/lifestyle/style/how-cable-news-chyrons-have-adapted-to-the-trump-era/">TV subtitles</a> – have helped keep news consumers alert. And <a href="https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/twitter-adds-new-warning-pop-ups-when-users-attempt-to-like-tweets-which-in/589617/">pop-up prompts</a> from Twitter and Facebook encourage users to read articles before reposting.</p>
<p>These steps can work, as shown by the <a href="https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/misinformation-dropped-dramatically-the-week-after-twitter-banned-trump/">substantial drop in misinformation</a> on Twitter following former President Donald Trump’s removal from the platform.</p>
<p>Mass shootings may be good fodder for conspiracy theories, but that does not mean people should actually consume such ideas without necessary context or disclaimers.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/155017/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Rocque receives funding from the National Institute of Justice (2018-75-CX-0025). He is affiliated with the Scholars Strategy Network. </span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stephanie Kelley-Romano does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>When many people believe the government is trying to take away their guns, events that make guns look bad can be misinterpreted as part of that nonexistent plan.Michael Rocque, Associate Professor of Sociology, Bates CollegeStephanie Kelley-Romano, Associate Professor of Rhetoric, Film, and Screen Studies, Bates CollegeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1316052020-02-12T13:15:55Z2020-02-12T13:15:55ZSchools should heed calls to do lockdown drills without traumatizing kids instead of abolishing them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/314816/original/file-20200211-146674-1ghrxxh.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Do kids need to practice how to do this?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/kindergarten-teacher-closes-the-windows-as-her-students-news-photo/1802127?adppopup=true">Phil Mislinski/Getty Images</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, an advocacy group, has joined with the American Federation of Teachers and the National Educators Association, the nation’s two biggest teachers unions, to produce a report on <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/school-safety-drills/">lockdown drills</a> in schools. The report calls for drastic changes in how these drills are conducted today. They say that drills <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/02/11/804468827/2-big-teachers-unions-call-for-rethinking-student-involvement-in-lockdown-drills">shouldn’t be a surprise, involve realistic details or include kids</a>.</p>
<p>These concerns reflect questions I consider in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=NPCGC0YAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">my research about the impact of lockdown drills</a>: Is it possible to be prepared without being scared? And do kids need this training or just teachers and other school staff?</p>
<p>I agree with some of the teachers’ and Everytown’s concerns, but I don’t agree that kids shouldn’t participate in drills.</p>
<h2>Lockdown drill excesses</h2>
<p>There’s been no shortage of troubling headlines about lockdown drills and similar practices in recent years.</p>
<p>Teachers in <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/21/active-shooter-training-for-schools-teachers-shot-with-plastic-pellets/3231103002/">Monticello, Indiana</a>, in March 2019, were hurt when they got shot in the back with plastic pellets.</p>
<p>Students in <a href="https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/shotgun-blanks-shot-inside-school-today-part-drill/YzcCV3bXeJA3tM35oZyIHL/">Franklin, Ohio</a>, were exposed to sounds of simulated gunfire.</p>
<p>Sometimes, role-playing kids and teens, covered in <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-47711020">fake blood</a>, are scattered throughout their schools – screaming.</p>
<p><iframe id="DDwRu" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/DDwRu/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Holding emergency drills</h2>
<p>Today, more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019047">95% of public schools</a> conduct lockdown drills. They became considerably more commonplace and focused on active attacker situations after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, in which 12 students and a teacher were murdered. </p>
<p>But U.S. schools have held emergency preparedness drills for decades.</p>
<p>In the 1950s, students <a href="https://www.history.com/news/duck-cover-drills-cold-war-arms-race">practiced duck-and-cover drills</a> to prepare for the atomic attacks Americans feared would occur during the Cold War.</p>
<p>Fire drills became <a href="https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Publications-and-media/NFPA-Journal/2008/July-August-2008/Features/When-the-Angels-Came-Calling">commonplace in schools after 1958</a> – when a student at a Chicago parochial school started a fire in the building’s boiler room. The conflagration killed 93 students and two teachers.</p>
<p>Across the nation, students, faculty and staff participate in drills to prepare for <a href="https://www.shakeout.org/dropcoverholdon/">earthquakes</a> and <a href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/school.html">tornadoes</a> without hesitation or second thoughts. These practices have become routine.</p>
<p>So why is resistance to lockdown drills rising to the point where teachers and activists are <a href="https://www.yang2020.com/policies/end-active-shooter-drills/">calling for their abolition</a>?</p>
<h2>The importance of practicing</h2>
<p>There are two key reasons why there is such an aversion to lockdown drills. </p>
<p>The first comes from a muddling of two things that are related but not the same: <a href="https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-362.a">exercises and drills</a>. Exercises incorporate realistic sights and sounds, such as the simulated screaming and bleeding that might occur during a mass shooting.</p>
<p>Drills, on the other hand, only require practice, such as evacuating a building or locking doors and getting as many people as possible out of sight.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20190816/school-shootings-and-lockdowns-how-do-kids-cope">Nobody sets schools on fire</a> during fire drills to make them seem realistic. Instead, everyone practices how to respond so that it’s easier to do the right thing in frightening situations.</p>
<p>Exercises and drills are often talked about as if they are the same. But they are different, a point that often is lost in the call to end the practices associated with them because both are often perceived as traumatic. </p>
<h2>Three studies</h2>
<p>A second reason that lockdown drills are misunderstood is the lack of available research.</p>
<p>Anecdotes about the impact of lockdown drills are everywhere. Evidence, however, is scarce. To date, just three studies published in academic journals have examined the effects of a lockdown drill on students.</p>
<p>In 2007, psychologists <a href="https://www.moravianacademy.org/academics/upper-school/faculty--staff">Elizabeth Zhe</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=16nAfxIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Amanda Nickerson</a> found that when conducted in accordance with <a href="https://www.dcjs.virginia.gov/sites/dcjs.virginia.gov/files/publications/law-enforcement/virginia-educators-drill-guide.pdf">best practices</a>, drills can increase awareness of how to respond to a situation without increasing anxiety or making people feel less safe. </p>
<p>Ten years later, researchers at Sam Houston State University, Misty Jo Dickson and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=BScl0TUAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">Kristina Vargo</a>, found similar results: With continued practice, kindergarten students were able to <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/jaba.369">master most of the steps</a> required during lockdown drills.</p>
<p>Most recently, Nickerson, Syracuse school safety leader <a href="http://www.syracusecityschools.com/districtpage.cfm?pageid=510">Thomas Ristoff</a> and I found that participation in training and accompanying lockdown drills <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15388220.2019.1703720">makes students feel more prepared</a>. Building confidence enhances the ability to do what’s needed during an emergency, our research indicates.</p>
<p>Consistent with the calls made in the report by Everytown and the teachers unions, I believe <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-climate-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/best-practice-considerations-for-schools-in-active-shooter-and-other-armed-assailant-drills">schools should use best practices</a> when conducting lockdown drills. According to the National Association of School Psychologists and others, this doesn’t include simulation exercises that involve fake blood and screams. </p>
<p>Experts agree that participants should know that they’re experiencing a drill, rather than a real situation, to minimize the <a href="https://www.nbc12.com/story/38326397/parents-outraged-over-unannounced-active-shooter-drill/">possibility of trauma</a>. School administrators can schedule these drills in advance so they aren’t completely unexpected. Mental health professionals should help with planning. And these drills should be appropriate both for the ages involved and for special needs such as prior traumatic experiences.</p>
<p>Also, teachers and staff should always talk with students afterward to answer any questions they may have.</p>
<p>Although lockdown exercises have become more elaborate since 2007, lockdown drills have remained largely the same. </p>
<h2>Defining objectives</h2>
<p>Lockdown drills, like fire drills, should help people respond correctly in emergency situations by making them practice. Along with training, having <a href="https://emergencypreparednesspartnerships.com/emergency-drills-exercises-utilities/">clearly defined objectives</a> is critical. Students must learn what to do and why. </p>
<p>Schools typically have <a href="https://iloveuguys.org/srp.html">three clearly defined goals</a> during lockdown drills: lock doors, turn off lights and remain silent and out of view of anyone in the hallway.</p>
<p>In real life, situations that would result in a lockdown being called – such as an armed attacker on school grounds – usually <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2018-041019.pdf/view">end within minutes</a>. Locking doors slows down assailants, giving first responders more time to stop them.</p>
<p>Turning lights off makes it harder for an attacker to find their targets, as does remaining out of sight and staying quiet.</p>
<p>Each emergency situation is different. Each has unique circumstances dictating the right response. This is why I believe that training is so important: It empowers students, teachers and others to make critical decisions in a crisis.</p>
<p>The nature of an active shooting means that adults can’t always make all of the decisions. In both the <a href="https://www.newstimes.com/local/article/Sandy-Hook-children-ran-to-neighbor-s-4136455.php">Sandy Hook</a> and <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-ne-full-commission-report-20181212-story.html">Parkland</a> shootings, teachers were killed, leaving rooms full of students vulnerable. Students must have the necessary skills to respond on their own. That’s why I consider calls to only train teachers and staff shortsighted.</p>
<h2>Being prepared</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students and parents gathered a year after the Parkland mass shooting at a memorial event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Parkland-Victims-Memorial-Service/234506c717ad4b60be40583796b2330c/63/">mpi04/MediaPunch /IPX via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Although <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/6-7-of-students-skip-school-out-of-fear-worry-over-school-shootings-is-up-yet-school-violence-is-down-what-does-this-mean">school shootings have become a matter of grave public concern</a>, public schools remain <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/">among the safest places</a> for children to be. <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-we-become-too-paranoid-about-mass-shootings-125364">Mass shootings at schools are rare</a>. Yet they do occur.</p>
<p>I believe kids should be prepared, but also that drills don’t have to be scary to be effective. Schools can take steps to <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-climate-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/mitigating-psychological-effects-of-lockdowns">minimize the anxiety and trauma</a> surrounding lockdown drills and still help students, rather than just their teachers, know how to respond.</p>
<p>While I don’t recommend exercises featuring plastic pellets and fake blood, the evidence available indicates that practicing what to do when an emergency arises is worthwhile.</p>
<p><em>This article incorporates material from an article published <a href="https://theconversation.com/do-lockdown-drills-do-any-good-126913">Nov. 22, 2019</a>.</em></p>
<p>[ <em>Deep knowledge, daily.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=deepknowledge">Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter</a>. ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/131605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaclyn Schildkraut receives grant funding from The Syracuse City School District to support her research on lockdown drills. </span></em></p>Teachers unions and gun-control advocates who decry the use of fake blood and simulated shootings have cause for concern. But getting students ready does take training and practice.Jaclyn Schildkraut, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, State University of New York OswegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1269132019-11-22T13:41:15Z2019-11-22T13:41:15ZDo lockdown drills do any good?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302529/original/file-20191119-111686-8hv7q3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C94%2C1915%2C1118&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Drills can help people learn how to respond when an active shooter situation arises, as recently occurred in Santa Clarita, Calif.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/APTOPIX-California-High-School-Shooting/7134b4882b93422cba856da3461a7352/6/0">AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>School lockdown drills and exercises are controversial today, due in large part to some troubling examples making headlines.</p>
<p>Teachers in <a href="https://www.indystar.com/story/news/politics/2019/03/21/active-shooter-training-for-schools-teachers-shot-with-plastic-pellets/3231103002/">Monticello, Indiana</a>, for example, were hurt when they got shot in the back with plastic pellets.</p>
<p>Students in <a href="https://www.daytondailynews.com/news/shotgun-blanks-shot-inside-school-today-part-drill/YzcCV3bXeJA3tM35oZyIHL/">Franklin, Ohio</a>, were exposed to sounds of simulated gunfire.</p>
<p>Sometimes, role-playing kids and teens, covered in <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/fake-blood-blanks-schools-stage-active-shooter-drills-n28481">fake blood</a>, are scattered throughout their schools – screaming.</p>
<p>Parents who fear that these experiences could be traumatizing their children are <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/andrew-yang-end-active-school-shooter-drills-proposal-gun-safety-mass-shooting-education-1469673">objecting and calling for schools to stop holding them</a>. Rather than reduce the harm caused during mass shootings, they say, dramatic approaches cause harm by amplifying students’ fears about the danger of being shot at school.</p>
<p>This raises a good question I seek to answer through <a href="http://www.jaclynschildkraut.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/SCSD-SRP-Final-Project-Report.pdf">my research</a>: Is it possible to be prepared without being scared?</p>
<p><iframe id="DDwRu" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/DDwRu/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>Holding emergency drills</h2>
<p>Today, more than <a href="https://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2019047">95% of public schools</a> conduct lockdown drills. They became considerably more commonplace and focused on active attacker situations after the 1999 shooting at Columbine High School, in which 12 students and a teacher were murdered. </p>
<p>But U.S. schools have held emergency preparedness drills for decades.</p>
<p>In the 1950s, they <a href="https://www.history.com/news/duck-cover-drills-cold-war-arms-race">practiced duck-and-cover drills</a> in preparedness for the atomic attacks Americans feared would occur during the Cold War.</p>
<p>Fire drills became <a href="https://www.nfpa.org/News-and-Research/Publications-and-media/NFPA-Journal/2008/July-August-2008/Features/When-the-Angels-Came-Calling">commonplace in schools after 1958</a>. A student in a Chicago parochial school in that year started a fire in the building’s boiler room, killing 93 students and two teachers.</p>
<p>Across the nation, students, faculty and staff participate in drills to prepare for <a href="https://www.shakeout.org/dropcoverholdon/">earthquakes</a> and <a href="https://www.spc.noaa.gov/faq/tornado/school.html">tornadoes</a> without hesitation or second thoughts. They have become routine.</p>
<p>So why is resistance to lockdown drills apparently on the rise?</p>
<h2>Doing research</h2>
<p>There are two key reasons why there is such an aversion to lockdown drills. The first comes from a muddling of two things that are related but not the same: <a href="https://training.fema.gov/is/courseoverview.aspx?code=IS-362.a">exercises and drills</a>. </p>
<p>Exercises incorporate realistic sights and sounds, such as the simulated screaming and bleeding that might occur during a mass shooting.</p>
<p>Drills, on the other hand, only require practice, such as evacuating a building or locking doors and getting as many people as possible out of sight.</p>
<p>During fire drills, for example, <a href="https://www.webmd.com/parenting/news/20190816/school-shootings-and-lockdowns-how-do-kids-cope">nobody sets schools on fire</a> to make them seem more realistic. Instead, everyone practices how to respond so that it’s easier to do the right thing in a frightening situation.</p>
<p>Exercises and drills are often talked about as if they are the same. But they are different, a point that often is lost in the call to end the practices associated with both of them that are often perceived as traumatic.</p>
<p>A second reason that lockdown drills are misunderstood is the lack of available research.</p>
<p>Anecdotes about the impact of lockdown drills are everywhere. Evidence, however, is scarce. In fact, to date, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289071568">just one study</a> published in an academic journal has examined the effects of a lockdown drill on students.</p>
<p>In 2007, psychologists <a href="https://www.moravianacademy.org/academics/upper-school/faculty--staff">Elizabeth Zhe</a> and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=16nAfxIAAAAJ&view_op=list_works&sortby=pubdate">Amanda Nickerson</a> found that when conducted in accordance with <a href="https://www.dcjs.virginia.gov/sites/dcjs.virginia.gov/files/publications/law-enforcement/virginia-educators-drill-guide.pdf">best practices</a>, drills can increase awareness of how to respond to a situation without increasing anxiety or making people feel less safe. </p>
<p>These <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-climate-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/best-practice-considerations-for-schools-in-active-shooter-and-other-armed-assailant-drills">best practices for lockdown drills</a>, according to the National Association of School Psychologists and others, do not include simulation exercises that involve fake blood and screams.</p>
<p>Participants should know that they’re experiencing a drill, rather than a real situation, to minimize the possibility of trauma. Mental health professionals should be involved in the planning and carrying out of drills. And these exercises should be appropriate both for the ages involved and for special needs such as prior traumatic experiences.</p>
<p>Also, teachers and staff should always talk with students afterward to answer any questions they may have.</p>
<p>Lockdown exercises have become more elaborate since the 2007 study was conducted. Drills have remained largely the same. </p>
<h2>Defining objectives</h2>
<p>Lockdown drills, like fire drills, are intended to help people respond correctly in emergency situations by making them practice.</p>
<p>Along with training, having <a href="https://emergencypreparednesspartnerships.com/emergency-drills-exercises-utilities/">clearly defined objectives</a> is critical to success. Students must be taught what they are expected to do and why they are expected to do it. </p>
<p>The team I head has found that <a href="https://www.npr.org/2019/04/19/715193493/how-effective-are-school-lockdown-drills">training helps make everyone feel better prepared</a>. Building confidence enhances the ability to do what’s needed during an emergency, our research indicates.</p>
<p>Schools typically have <a href="https://iloveuguys.org/srp.html">three clearly defined goals</a> during lockdown drills: lock the doors, turn off the lights and remain silent and out of view of anyone in the hallway.</p>
<p>In real life, situations that would result in a lockdown being called — such as an armed attacker on school grounds — usually <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-incidents-in-the-us-2018-041019.pdf/view">end within minutes</a>. Locking doors slows down assailants, giving first responders more time to stop them.</p>
<p>Turning lights off makes it harder for an attacker to find their targets, as does remaining out of sight and staying quiet.</p>
<p>Another commonly taught strategy is “<a href="https://www.ready.gov/active-shooter">Run, Hide, Fight</a>,” introduced as a collaboration between the Houston Police Department and the Department of Homeland Security several years after the Columbine shooting. That plan instructs kids to run and escape the building, hide if that is not an option, and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/safe-place-colorado-school-training-kindergartners-high-schoolers/story?id=65123554">fight back</a> as a last resort.</p>
<p>But <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-act-violence/201408/the-truth-behind-the-run-hide-fight-debate">critics argue</a> that Run, Hide, Fight is not necessarily the best practice <a href="https://apnews.com/d178ff553b20418e93f299dd52e56291">for schools</a>. They say that running makes sense only when locking down isn’t an option, such as when someone gets stranded in a common area or hallway. And most school security experts discourage <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/students-who-tackle-shooters-die-heroes-some-experts-worry-we-n1003951">fighting attackers</a>, as most people aren’t trained in self-defense, especially against armed assailants.</p>
<p>Each emergency situation is different. Each has unique circumstances that dictate the right response. This is why training is so important: It empowers students, teachers and others to make critical decisions in a crisis.</p>
<h2>Being prepared</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=750&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/302536/original/file-20191119-111655-b30v9g.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=943&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students and parents gathered a year after the Parkland mass shooting at a memorial event.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Parkland-Victims-Memorial-Service/234506c717ad4b60be40583796b2330c/63/">mpi04/MediaPunch /IPX via AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>I can speak about this issue not just from my professional observations but based on my own perspective. I grew up in the Parkland, Florida, area where an armed former student entered Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day in 2018, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/broward/article221646125.html">lack of training for how to respond during active-shooter situations</a> left everyone in the <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/parkland/florida-school-shooting/fl-ne-full-commission-report-20181212-story.html">building vulnerable</a>, according to an official investigation.</p>
<p>Despite the fact that <a href="https://www.the74million.org/article/6-7-of-students-skip-school-out-of-fear-worry-over-school-shootings-is-up-yet-school-violence-is-down-what-does-this-mean">school shootings have become a matter of grave public concern</a> over the past two decades, public schools remain <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/">among the safest places</a> for children to be and <a href="https://theconversation.com/have-we-become-too-paranoid-about-mass-shootings-125364">mass shootings at schools are rare</a>. Yet they do occur.</p>
<p>I believe that kids should be prepared, but also that drills do not have to be scary to be effective. Schools can take steps to <a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources-and-podcasts/school-climate-safety-and-crisis/systems-level-prevention/mitigating-psychological-effects-of-lockdowns">minimize the anxiety and trauma</a> surrounding lockdown drills. </p>
<p>While I don’t recommend exercises featuring plastic pellets and fake blood, the evidence available indicates that practicing what to do when an emergency arises is worthwhile.</p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/126913/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jaclyn Schildkraut does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Being ready takes training and practice. But it might not require fake blood and simulated shootings.Jaclyn Schildkraut, Associate Professor of Criminal Justice, State University of New York OswegoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1242532019-10-07T21:20:51Z2019-10-07T21:20:51ZMore mental health care won’t stop the gun epidemic, new study suggests<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295867/original/file-20191007-121071-157ordo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Marjory Stoneman Douglas students gather in the Florida state Capitol in Tallahassee Feb. 21, 2018 to confront legislators about stricter gun laws.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/School-Shooting-Florida/ae4285a2389a49a784410ccf18e17f8f/26/0">Gerald Herbert/AP Photo</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Guns exact a heavy toll on the American public every day. On the average day, <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/gun-violence-america/">around 100 people</a> die from a gun death. Because of the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/gun-deaths.html">rise in gun deaths in recent years</a>, the nation now faces a serious man-made epidemic. </p>
<p>When people think of firearm death, they tend to focus on mass shootings such as the massacre at <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2013/06/07/us/connecticut-shootings-fast-facts/index.html">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> in Newtown, Connecticut; the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida; and the very recent mass shootings in El Paso, Texas. and Dayton, Ohio. Although mass shootings happen frequently, research suggests that they account for <a href="https://www.thenationalcouncil.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/Mass-Violence-in-America_8-6-19.pdf">less than 0.2%</a> of all homicides in the U.S.</p>
<p>Suicide by guns accounts for a much greater loss of life than murder. In 2017, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/injury.htm">39,773 people died</a> from firearms. Murder <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/08/16/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/">accounted for 37%</a> of these deaths. Law enforcement and accidental shootings accounted for about for 3% of the deaths. The remaining 60% of firearm deaths resulted from suicide. </p>
<p>Suicide is the 10th leading cause of death among U.S. adults and the <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/LeadingCauses.html">second leading cause of death</a> among teens. The <a href="https://everytownresearch.org/firearm-suicide/">majority of suicides</a> are completed using a firearm. </p>
<p>There’s been a lot discussion recently about the role that mental illness plays in shooting deaths, especially firearm suicide. As health services researchers from The Ohio State University College of Public Health, we analyzed firearm suicide and the capacity of states to provide behavioral health care services: that is, mental health services and substance disorder services. We wanted to know if suicide deaths by guns were lower in states that offered more expansive behavioral health care.</p>
<h2>Deaths by suicide on the rise</h2>
<p>Since 2005, the firearm suicide rate has <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html">increased by 22.6%</a>, compared to a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/injury/wisqars/fatal.html">10.3% rise</a> in the firearm homicide rate. Without question, the U.S. has the most firearm deaths and firearm suicides compared to all other high-income, developed countries. The U.S. firearm homicide rate is more than <a href="https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/fulltext">25 times higher</a> than other high-income developed countries, while the firearm suicide rate is <a href="https://www.amjmed.com/article/S0002-9343(15)01030-X/fulltext">eight times higher</a>.</p>
<p>A number of factors contribute to America’s high firearm death rate, but one factor unique to America stands out – the widespread availability of guns.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.press.umich.edu/9725179/private_guns_public_health_new_ed">high prevalence of gun ownership</a> in the U.S. contributes to the burden of firearm-related injury. Estimates indicate <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">over 390 million guns</a> are owned in the U.S. by approximately one-third of the nation’s population, which amounts to <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">120.5 guns owned for every 100 persons</a> in the country. In contrast, there are <a href="http://www.smallarmssurvey.org/fileadmin/docs/T-Briefing-Papers/SAS-BP-Civilian-Firearms-Numbers.pdf">34.7 guns owned per 100 persons</a> in Canada. There are comparatively <a href="https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510007201">far fewer firearm homicides</a> in Canada than in the U.S.</p>
<h2>Firearm suicide and behavioral health care</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295874/original/file-20191007-52202-7x4v8o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Having a mental health professional involved with a person who is experiencing suicidal thoughts may help prevent suicide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/support-worker-visits-senior-woman-suffering-755561188?src=IfgQVM0Wum1u0iz3DZnQWg-1-9">Monkey Business Images/Shutterstock.com</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Using data provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government agencies, we performed a detailed statistical analysis to examine firearm suicide rates from 2005 to 2015 in each state in relation to the size of behavioral health care workforce and the number of substance disorder treatment facilities.</p>
<p>In a <a href="https://doi.org/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00753">study </a>published in Health Affairs Oct. 7, we found a statistically significant 10% increase in the behavioral health care workforce was associated with a 1.2% decrease in the firearm suicide rate. We controlled for variables such as the unemployment rate, race, gender and population size, among others. Increasing the workforce by 40%, a change that could potentially take significant time and resources, would perhaps lead to a reduction in the firearm suicide rate of only 4.8%.</p>
<p>Increasing the capacity to provide needed behavioral health care could be a costly approach to reducing firearm suicides. </p>
<p>Based on our statistical analysis, and taking account of the salaries for mental health professionals, it could cost as much as US$15 million to increase the size of Ohio’s behavioral health care workforce enough to prevent one firearm suicide.</p>
<h2>Policy implications and a path forward</h2>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/295875/original/file-20191007-121056-xsqkxs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Mourners gather at the funeral for Margie Reckard, 63, on Aug. 16, 2019, who was killed in the El Paso, Texas shooting rampage.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Mass-Shooting-Texas-Funeral/9d9abd85070e4c8f9e266a22374f7578/70/0">Russell Contreras/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our study reinforces what many in public health recognize: There is no single solution to the complex problems of firearm death and firearm suicide.
If expanding the mental health workforce and identifying people at risk are not sufficient solutions, then broader action is required.</p>
<p>Based on our research, we believe that several concrete steps could be taken to foster preventive measures. </p>
<p>First, although increasing access to mental health care is necessary for a variety of compelling reasons, our findings suggest that strengthening mental health services won’t reduce firearm violence. Rather, action may be needed at the federal, state and local levels to strengthen laws and regulations shown to promote gun safety and prevent firearm deaths. Other countries, in particular <a href="https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2530362">Australia</a> and <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41489552">New Zealand</a>, responded forcefully to mass shooting events when they occurred and adopted regulatory measures to protect their citizens against gun violence. </p>
<p>Second, the medical and public health communities do more to prevent firearm suicide and deaths. Individual physicians working in their clinical roles could perform screenings to identify persons with mood disorders who are at risk for suicide. The medical community and public health community, acting through their professional associations, could advocate firearm safety. </p>
<p>Third, the <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5993413/">Dickey Amendment</a>, which was passed in 1996, and related policies have stifled federal funding for gun violence research. We believe that Congress should repeal the law and related policies. There is a critical need to conduct research to improve understanding about the risk factors for firearm suicide and gun violence and about the measures that could be taken to combat the firearm death epidemic afflicting our communities.</p>
<p>The substantial majority of the public, both gun owners and non-gun owners, <a href="https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2019.00576">favor stronger regulation</a> for the purchase of guns and for their use and storage. <a href="https://annals.org/aim/fullarticle/1814426/accessibility-firearms-risk-suicide-homicide-victimization-among-household-members-systematic">Research shows</a> having firearms available and keeping them in the home are strong risk factors for completed suicide, especially among adolescents. </p>
<p>So far the country has made little meaningful progress in combating the epidemic of firearm suicide and firearm deaths. </p>
<p>Data show the problem is getting worse, not better. Finding effective approaches to reducing the problem of firearm suicide and gun violence will require that the country become more politically unified in its willingness to recognize the scope and nature of the problem. There seems little excuse for continued inaction. </p>
<p>[ <em><a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=expertise">Expertise in your inbox. Sign up for The Conversation’s newsletter and get a digest of academic takes on today’s news, every day.</a></em> ]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/124253/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new study looks at whether deaths by suicide could be lowered with mental health care. To a small degree, yes. But a look at the costs suggests there may be better ways to prevent shooting deaths.Tom Wickizer, Chair and Professor, Public Health, The Ohio State UniversityEvan V. Goldstein, Doctoral candidate, The Ohio State UniversityLaura Prater, Postdoctoral Fellow, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1151152019-04-17T15:56:11Z2019-04-17T15:56:11ZHow Columbine became a blueprint for school shooters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/269825/original/file-20190417-139104-10ey627.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Students leave Columbine High School late April 16, 2019, in Littleton, Colo., following a lockdown at the school and other Denver area schools.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Columbine-Lockdown/ba5b3e213ebf435681a0da19752181e3/12/0">David Zalubowski/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When 12 students and one teacher were killed in Littleton, Colorado 20 years ago, it not only became what at the time was the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings">worst high school shooting</a> in U.S. history. It also marked when American society was first handed a script for a new form of violence in schools.</p>
<p>We make that observation as researchers – a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">psychologist</a> and a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">sociologist</a> – who have been studying mass public shootings as <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooters">part of a grant</a> from the U.S. Department of Justice. </p>
<p>Since the 1999 tragedy at Columbine High School, we identified six mass shootings and 40 <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/file-repository/active-shooter-study-2000-2013-1.pdf/view">active shooter</a> incidents at elementary, middle or high schools in the United States. Mass shootings are <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">defined by the FBI</a> as an event in which four or more victims died by gunfire.</p>
<p>In 20 – or nearly half – of those 46 school shootings, the perpetrator purposely used Columbine as a model.</p>
<p>Columbine’s influence continues until this day. On April 17 – just three days ahead of the 20th anniversary of the Columbine shooting – authorities <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/columbine-related-threat-by-armed-woman-shuts-denver-area-schools-11555501233">closed schools across Colorado</a> due to a credible threat of a woman armed with a shotgun and who was “<a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2019/04/16/jefferson-county-schools-lockout/">infatuated with Columbine</a>.” The 18-year-old Florida woman was reportedly <a href="https://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/nationworld/fl-ne-columbine-lockdown-20190416-story.html">found dead in Colorado</a> later in the day from an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.</p>
<h2>The ties that bind to Columbine</h2>
<p>In our study of school shootings, we only looked at cases where a gun was fired on campus, following the practice of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.c542ac9200c5">The Washington Post’s</a> database on school shootings. Had we included <a href="https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2015/10/columbine-effect-mass-shootings-copycat-data/">foiled plots</a>, the number would be <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/columbine-shootings-grim-legacy-50-school-attacks-plots/story?id=26007119">significantly higher</a>.</p>
<p>Several school shooters in our study were <a href="https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/a-dark-day-for-fort-gibson-school-shooting-now-years/article_0f51d05b-999c-575f-bff6-6465404a9d24.html">fascinated with Columbine</a> and <a href="https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2013/10/21/at-least-2-dead-in-nevada-school-shooting">researched</a> the massacre before their own. This includes the <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/cruz-researched-columbine-massacre-parkland-shooting-article-1.3953545">Parkland shooter</a>, a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/jesse-osborne-pleads-guilty-south-carolina-school-shooting/2297747002/">14-year-old</a> who aspired to be “<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/12/jesse-osborne-pleads-guilty-south-carolina-school-shooting/2297747002/">the youngest mass murderer</a>,” and a <a href="https://www.pantagraph.com/news/th-grader-detailed-shooting-in-deadly-diary/article_02d99158-90ac-55b5-9ec4-b56fab93b49f.html">15-year-old</a> who shot at his teacher after she <a href="https://www.pantagraph.com/news/th-grader-detailed-shooting-in-deadly-diary/article_02d99158-90ac-55b5-9ec4-b56fab93b49f.html">refused to praise Marilyn Manson</a>, the rock singer who was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/music/2017/sep/21/columbine-destroyed-my-entire-career-marilyn-manson-on-the-perils-of-being-the-lord-of-darkness">erroneously blamed</a> for inspiring the Columbine killers.</p>
<p>The timing of the April 17 threat to Colorado schools is no coincidence. Prior perpetrators chose the anniversary of Columbine to commit their shootings, including <a href="https://www.rockdalenewtoncitizen.com/news/local/tj-solomon-heritage-high-school-shooter-released-after-years/article_66508783-e652-5f3c-94c3-acaa6164f3ee.html">one month</a> and <a href="https://www.apnews.com/3df17eb2c8aef3e916a6a866ce97013c">two years</a> after. A different shooter talked of how he was going to “<a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,102077,00.html">pull a Columbine</a>.” Others discussed Columbine with <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/was-columbine-the-trigger/">classmates</a>, even <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/william-atchison-led-double-life-online-749363">joked about it</a>.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/adam-lanzas-terrifying-online-life-revealed-mass-shooting-spreadsheets-columbine-collages-and-murder-tumblrs">Sandy Hook Elementary School</a> shooter idolized the Columbine killers and curated a Tumblr account paying homage, alongside a graphic collage of Columbine victims. A North Carolina shooter was so <a href="http://www.nbcnews.com/id/14591327/ns/us_news-crime_and_courts/t/cops-nc-suspect-e-mailed-columbine-official/#.XKzqaZhKjD5">obsessed with Columbine</a> that he <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/21/north.carolina.castillo.trial/index.html">took a vacation</a> there with his mother and fantasized about <a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/crime/article10353572.html">“finishing off”</a> any wounded survivors.</p>
<p>Multiple shooters, including one <a href="https://katu.com/news/local/school-shooting-suspect-claims-columbine-influence">15-year-old in Oregon</a> and another in <a href="https://komonews.com/news/local/teen-charged-in-freeman-high-shooting-in-court">Washington state</a>, were inspired by a <a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0754392/">documentary</a> about Columbine that included detailed recreations of what happened. One <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/wisconsin-hostage-standoff-gunman-shoots/story?id=12272586">Wisconsin teenager</a> held his classroom hostage after <a href="https://www.theawl.com/2010/12/two-hours-in-marinette-lessons-from-a-school-shooting/">reading a book</a> about Columbine.</p>
<p>Perpetrators also <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/story/student-charged-in-missouri-middle-school-shooting">dressed in trench coats</a> like the Columbine shooters, including those responsible for the <a href="https://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Teen-suspect-in-Santa-Fe-shooting-promoted-12926019.php">2018 Santa Fe shooting</a>, where 10 people died, and a 2004 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/19/nyregion/student-agrees-to-20year-term-after-nonfatal-shooting-spree-in.html">nonfatal shooting</a> in New York. Indeed, the <a href="https://www.gq.com/story/santa-fe-shooting-trench-coat-ban">trench coat</a> has appeared in subsequent school shootings because Columbine gave it meaning beyond any intrinsic use.</p>
<h2>Why Columbine?</h2>
<p>Columbine has spawned an entire <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002764218755835">subculture of “Columbiners” and copycats</a>. A March 2019 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-violence-school/inspired-by-columbine-brazil-pair-kill-eight-and-themselves-in-school-shooting-idUSKBN1QU1TT">shooting in Brazil that killed eight</a> shows that Columbine’s influence is global. But Columbine was not the <a href="https://www.k12academics.com/school-shootings/history-school-shootings-united-states">first school shooting</a>, not even that year. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/05/22/612465197/20-years-ago-oregon-school-shooting-ended-a-bloody-season">Eleven months</a> before the horror in Littleton unfolded, an expelled 15-year-old – also wearing a trench coat – killed two and injured 25 at a school in Springfield, Oregon. Why do we not now talk about the “Springfield effect”?</p>
<p>Partly because the perpetrator in Springfield was <a href="https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/kinkel/trial/sack.html">professionally diagnosed as psychotic</a>, meaning his attack could be more easily explained away. He also acted alone, whereas having two shooters immediately intensified the intrigue around Columbine. But the main reason for Columbine’s longevity was that its perpetrators created <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/07/us/07columbine.html">manifestos</a> and <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,992873,00.html">home movies</a> of their preparations in hopes that their story would outlive them. Unfortunately, it has.</p>
<p>Before Columbine, there was no script for how school shooters should behave, dress and speak. Columbine created “<a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9998.html">common knowledge</a>,” the foundation of coordination in the absence of a standardized playbook. Timing was everything. The massacre was one of the first to take place after <a href="https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-shooting-media-20160618-snap-story.html">the advent of 24-hour cable news</a> and during the “<a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/574132.stm">the year of the net</a>.” This was the dawn of the digital age of <a href="https://press.princeton.edu/titles/9436.html">perfect remembering</a>, where words and deeds live online forever. Columbine became the pilot for future episodes of <a href="http://www.startribune.com/terrorism-is-a-performance-don-t-watch/507322442/">fame-seeking violence</a>.</p>
<h2>Separating myth from reality</h2>
<p>Our research has found that school shootings have nothing to do with <a href="http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19990613&slug=2966238">jock envy</a>, <a href="https://www.bethwinegarner.com/the-columbine-effect">satanism</a>, <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2007/07/04/study-links-computer-denial-to-columbine/">video games</a>, or <a href="https://www.westword.com/news/keanu-reeves-blamed-for-parkland-and-columbine-10010081">Keanu Reeves</a>, and school shooters are not <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2004/04/at-last-we-know-why-the-columbine-killers-did-it.html">psychopathic masterminds</a>. In fact, these soundbite explanations for aberrant behavior only blind us to the reality of school violence.</p>
<p>School shooters are almost always <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shooters-usually-show-these-signs-of-distress-long-before-they-open-fire-our-database-shows-111242">current students</a> of their schools. They are students who are in crisis, students who have experienced trauma, and students who are <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2019/03/27/school-safety-security-policy-minn-researchers-question">actively suicidal</a> prior to the shooting and expect to die in the act. Such children have always existed. But for 20 years they’ve had a new script to follow.</p>
<p>And we, the public, have contributed to the production and direction of this script. Again and again and again. Through our obsession with <a href="https://theweek.com/articles/736073/why-true-crime-obsession-bad-society">true crime</a> and films, <a href="https://www.columbine-guide.com/">books</a>, memes and entire websites devoted to Columbine. By releasing CCTV footage of the shooting to the public. By running our children through regular lockdowns and <a href="https://theconversation.com/active-shooter-drills-may-reshape-how-a-generation-of-students-views-school-93709">active shooter drills</a> starting in preschool through 12th grade. By sending them to school through secure entrances with <a href="https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/more-school-choice-means-more-school-safety">clear backpacks</a> and <a href="https://www.wfsb.com/news/bulletproof-school-supplies-put-to-the-test/article_29b34fdf-1bf3-5154-9536-b87f41521cb6.html">bulletproof binders</a>. Society and culture have reared a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/02/22/generation-columbine-has-never-known-world-without-school-shootings/361656002/">Columbine generation</a>, modeling that this is just part of childhood in America.</p>
<h2>Flipping the script</h2>
<p>After serial killing peaked in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/15/are-american-serial-killers-a-dying-breed">late 1980s</a>, it’s hard to know which <a href="https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2011/01/the-decline-of-the-serial-killer.html">faded first</a> – the serial killers themselves or the public obsession with them. The same fear and fascination that created the <a href="https://www.routledge.com/Using-Murder-The-Social-Construction-of-Serial-Homicide/Jenkins/p/book/9781351328449">serial killer panic</a> is what drives the <a href="http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,35098,00.html">Columbine effect</a>. After 20 years, it’s time to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/16/opinions/florida-shooting-drills-not-enough-peterson-densley-opinion/index.html">rewrite the script</a> being rehearsed with young people.</p>
<p>It starts with no names, no photos and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0002764217730854">no notoriety</a> for mass shooters in media coverage – which is why we don’t indulge here. The next step is a paradigm shift from <a href="https://nyupress.org/9780814748206/homeroom-security/">homeroom security</a> to holistic violence prevention in schools – mental health, supportive environments, strong relationships and crisis intervention and deescalation. Teachers should feel as comfortable asking a student about suicide as they feel going into lockdown; empowered to spend as much time teaching empathy and resilience as they do now training to <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources/responding-to-an-active-shooter-crisis-situation">run, hide, fight</a>.</p>
<p>The victims and survivors of school violence must not be forgotten, but to prevent another two decades of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/280030460_Contagion_in_Mass_Killings_and_School_Shootings">contagion</a> and <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0002764217739663">copycats</a>, it requires a recognition that it is time to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2017/08/23/opinions/social-media-fuels-right-wing-extremism-opinion-peterson-densley/index.html">close the curtain</a> on the spectacle of Columbine.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/115115/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p>Media coverage of the Columbine school shooting that took place in 1999 has ended up becoming a playbook for school shooters in the United States and beyond, an analysis of school shootings reveals.Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1139122019-03-21T18:53:46Z2019-03-21T18:53:46ZWhat Parkland’s experience tells us about the limits of a ‘security’ response to Christchurch<p>In the days before the <a href="https://theconversation.com/au/topics/christchurch-mosque-shootings-67899">mass shootings in Christchurch</a> I was visiting Parkland, Florida, where 17 people were killed in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/school-shootings-prompted-protests-debates-about-best-ways-to-keep-students-safe-5-essential-reads-108976">school shooting</a> on Valentine’s Day 2018. I was recording a story about how those survivors and their allies <a href="https://theconversation.com/march-for-our-lives-was-about-far-more-than-students-and-gun-control-93893">built a global movement against gun violence</a>. I met students, teachers and supporters.</p>
<p>These American students knew all about Australia’s gun laws. “How did you get such strong laws?” they would ask. And I would tell them about the Port Arthur massacre and <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-arguments-that-carried-australias-1996-gun-law-reforms-58431">how our conservative prime minister acted</a>. “We haven’t had a gun massacre since,” I proclaimed. Days later, I felt shame at my hubris – an <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-16/christchurch-shootings-brendon-tarrant-court-murder-charge/10907946">Australian has been charged</a> with the shootings at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand.</p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/parkland-shooting-one-year-later-congress-still-avoids-action-on-gun-control-111796">Parkland shooting: One year later, Congress still avoids action on gun control</a>
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<h2>Lessons from a ‘high-security’ suburb</h2>
<p>We have so much to learn from Parkland. And it’s not simply how they <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-not-punish-content-creators-in-our-rush-to-regulate-social-platforms-96270">built a remarkable social movement</a>. Some lessons become visible only when you actually see the place.</p>
<p>Parkland is a suburb close to the Everglades, 30 minutes from the beach and an hour north of Miami. It is a wealthy, majority-white neighbourhood. But the thing that overwhelmed me when I was driving around is that it is a gated community. </p>
<p>The entire suburb is broken up into large blocks, and at the centre of each block is a single entrance for cars. The road has a security hut, large barriers stretching across and there is a large gate. You need a PIN code to go inside. </p>
<p>When you go through, the homes and streets are beautiful. Green grass, and every home has one of those white mailboxes with a red flag that turns up when the mail arrives. </p>
<p>These gated communities tell you something. Parents choose to live behind walls to create a nice way to live and keep their family safe.</p>
<p>But in Parkland all that security didn’t keep them safe. Darkness found a new way in – and everyone is still feeling the murderous pain.</p>
<p>The limits of security and walls offer a profound lesson for us in Australia as we work out how to respond to the terrorism in Christchurch. Prime Minister Scott Morrison wants to lock up our places of worship – particularly mosques. He wants police with guns and security checks. It’s like he wants to build religious gated communities. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/morrison-announces-55-million-for-security-at-religious-premises-and-warns-against-tribalism-113746">Morrison announces $55 million for security at religious premises and warns against “tribalism”</a>
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<p>This approach is consistent with his other policies – <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-the-next-australian-government-can-balance-security-and-compassion-for-asylum-seekers-110713">use the navy to stop boats, use cages to stop refugees</a>. Our prime minister has only one register – security.</p>
<p>But if Parkland showed anything, it’s that gated communities don’t stop violence. The violence just moves and shifts. An aggressive security response might make you “feel” safer, but it doesn’t make you safe. </p>
<p>At the same time, security heightens the tension. And it does nothing to deal with the causes of the violence.</p>
<p>So how do we respond to the causes of the violence? In Parkland, the main issue was access to guns. The <a href="https://marchforourlives.com/">March for Our Lives</a> students called this out quickly. They gained traction because they bravely and forcefully condemned the National Rifle Association for creating the context for mass shootings – easy access to guns. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-must-not-punish-content-creators-in-our-rush-to-regulate-social-platforms-96270">We must not punish content creators in our rush to regulate social platforms</a>
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<h2>It started with the demonisation of others</h2>
<p>Our context is different. The issue in Christchurch <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-overhauling-nzs-gun-and-terrorism-laws-alone-cant-stop-terrorist-attacks-113706">was about guns, yes, but equally it was about motive</a>. As Australians, one of our citizens “radicalised” themselves to such a point that they massacred other people. How did this happen?</p>
<p>White supremacy. OK, but how do we unpack white supremacy? Who emboldened this? Who made it OK to demonise Muslims – to say they don’t belong?</p>
<p>First, people looked to <a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/demonised-constantly-australian-muslims-slam-politicians-media-in-wake-of-nz-attacks">Pauline Hanson and Fraser Anning</a>. The social movement around <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-03-19/teen-who-egged-fraser-anning-wont-be-making-police-complaints/10916722">#EggBoy</a> shows people’s anger at extremism. </p>
<p>But it’s more than that. Murdoch news media have been running a crusade against Muslims for years. The Coalition has brutalised Muslims and refugees for votes since September 11 2001. And the Labor Party has given bipartisan support to the offshore detention of predominantly Muslim refugees.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/christchurch-attacks-are-a-stark-warning-of-toxic-political-environment-that-allows-hate-to-flourish-113662">Christchurch attacks are a stark warning of toxic political environment that allows hate to flourish</a>
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<h2>Come together in love to overcome hate</h2>
<p>But knowing who prosecutes hate is not enough. Hate can’t drive out hate. As Martin Luther King junior said, only love can do that. </p>
<p>How do we bring love into our work to stop race being used as a divisive power? I wish I had the answer. But I do know that building love is something that can happen everywhere all the time – not just at vigils or special services. </p>
<p>Can we build a movement that would <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/AmplifyLove?src=hash">amplify love</a> at work, in our community, in our schools, where we have intentional conversations to talk about what Christchurch meant and why the Muslim community was targeted?</p>
<p>The Muslim community are in pain. We – especially white people like me and some of you – have to do the heavy lifting on this one. We can take the lead on doing something about white supremacy and dividing people by race and religion.</p>
<p>Imagine if we could take the pain of this moment and turn it into a real reckoning for our country. For as long as white people have stood in Australia we have caused harm to others. But too often we shrug off responsibility through phrases like “<a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/why-morrison-s-preferred-m-word-is-migrant-rather-than-multicultural-20190118-p50s6j.html">the most successful multicultural country in the world</a>”. Or we get scared off the conversation by phrases like the “<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-history-wars-reignite-57065">history wars</a>”. </p>
<p>Yes, the shock jocks will berate and the trolls will yell. But let’s have them yell at white people taking on white supremacy instead of Muslim and other leaders of colour.</p>
<p>It’s time to act. The election is one place – we need to vote for leaders who stand with Muslims because “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/mar/15/one-of-new-zealands-darkest-days-jacinda-ardern-responds-to-christchurch-shooting">they are us</a>”. </p>
<p>But this is more than just electoral politics. It’s about a movement committed to connection, understanding, listening, respect and love. And that’s love as a verb, love as action.</p>
<p>A year after the mass shooting, Parkland is still a torn community. Many are still deeply active in social movements pushing for gun law reform. And <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-15/parkland-victims-remembered-in-silence-one-year-on-from-shooting/10814754">many others are still healing</a>. </p>
<p>In Parkland the lesson is that they were forever changed, not because of the hate that was inflicted, but because of the love they cultivated in response.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/113912/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Amanda Tattersall is the host of the ChangeMakers podcast, which tells stories about people trying to change the world. She is also a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the University of Sydney as part of the Organising the 21st Century City Project funded by the Halloran Trust. Previously she co-founded GetUp! and founded the Sydney Alliance.</span></em></p>Parkland, Florida, where 17 people died in a school shooting on Valentine’s Day 2018, was already a place of highly secure, gated communities, so the survivors instead united against guns and hate.Amanda Tattersall, Postdoc in urban geography and Research Lead at Sydney Policy Lab. Host of ChangeMakers Podcast., University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1125022019-03-08T11:42:25Z2019-03-08T11:42:25Z3 ways activist kids these days resemble their predecessors<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262758/original/file-20190307-82684-1a0ps8s.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Yolanda Renee King, the grandchild of Martin Luther King Jr., alongside Jaclyn Corin, a Parkland survivor and activist</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Student-Gun-Protests/9dc51ee8e578446c978cb9fdba55f217/35/0">AP Photo/Andrew Harnik</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>A gaggle of young activists recently paid Dianne Feinstein a visit at the senator’s San Francisco office, imploring her to support the <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/431238-kids-confront-feinstein-over-green-new-deal">Green New Deal</a> framework for confronting climate change. She responded by explaining the complicated legislative process, emphasizing her decades of experience and promising to pursue a considerably more modest approach to confronting climate change with a better shot at passage in the Senate.</p>
<p>The lawmaker tried to come across as sympathetic, yet sounded condescending in a short video clip that <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/22/politics/feinstein-video-sunrise-movement-kids/index.html">quickly went viral</a>, eliciting a <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2019/02/22/dianne-feinstein-criticized-arguing-kids-over-green-new-deal/2956607002/">stream of criticism</a>. A <a href="https://youtu.be/cd3H1boPIIE">longer version</a> told a more nuanced story, including why she believes her own “<a href="https://www.eenews.net/assets/2019/02/26/document_pm_01.pdf">responsible resolution</a>” has a better chance of passage.</p>
<p>It’s easy to understand why Feinstein’s confrontation went viral. Saying “no” to earnest children who see their futures in jeopardy makes politicians look callous. </p>
<p>Although the advent of social media has made it easier for millions to witness these awkward encounters, there is nothing new about kids engaging in grassroots activism. And based on <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=EzRzZwgAAAAJ&hl=en">my research about social movements</a>, I find that today’s young activists have a lot in common with the leaders of earlier youth movements.</p>
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<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/eIebWywFfNw?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">This clip of Sen. Dianne Feinstein arguing with a group of students about climate policy went viral.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Young people often appear at the front lines of social change for three main reasons.</p>
<h2>1. Passionate about causes</h2>
<p>First, young people may refuse to ignore injustices or wait patiently when they feel <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/soc4.12465">passionately about a cause</a>. That means they’re <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0891241606293608">more apt to take risks</a>.</p>
<p>During the civil rights era, Ernest Green, Thelma Mothershed and seven other children known as the “<a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/central-high-school-integration">Little Rock Nine</a>” followed federal troops past jeering crowds of white teens to integrate Central High School in Arkansas in 1957. </p>
<p>More than 60 years later, the dean of students at a public high school less than an hour from Little Rock <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2018/03/19/students-paddled-public-school-staff-after-participating-walkout-arkansas/439141002/">paddled three high school students</a> for walking out of school to protest gun violence. </p>
<p>In both instances, young activists took risks that would scare off most adults.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=478&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262792/original/file-20190307-82684-12zx1z3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=601&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The nine African-American students who entered segregated Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas in 1957 were escorted by troops.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Arkansas-United-/7ce4d39339e5da11af9f0014c2589dfb/2/1">AP Photo</a></span>
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</figure>
<h2>2. Dramatic images</h2>
<p>Second, politically engaged young people can create dramatic and appealing images to dramatize their cause. That’s what happened when <a href="https://www.biography.com/news/black-history-birmingham-childrens-crusade-1963-video">Martin Luther King Jr.</a> put schoolchildren at the front of a march for civil rights through Birmingham, Alabama. He surely knew they were likely to face <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/birmingham-campaign">police willing to use firehoses</a> and dogs to disperse the crowds.</p>
<p>The visuals horrified the nation and inspired more action not only in the streets but in Congress – which passed the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-act">Civil Rights Act of 1964</a> soon after that showdown.</p>
<p>Similarly, Jefferson County, Colorado high school students <a href="https://www.denverpost.com/2014/09/24/hundreds-of-jeffco-students-walk-out-in-largest-school-board-protest/">walked out of school</a> in 2014 to campaign against their new school board’s promise to stop offering an advanced placement course in American history because these officials said its curriculum undermined patriotism. Some of the students must have read ahead in the text, for they carried placards with slogans like “<a href="https://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/09/23/jeffco-students-plan-to-protest-history-proposal/">There is nothing more patriotic than protest</a>.”</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=438&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262812/original/file-20190307-82661-zuenk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=550&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Students walked out of school when the Jefferson County School Board in Colorado sought to change the AP US history curriculum in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Student-Protest-US-History/dcd29b434b7a44c9bec8025612682718/50/0">AP Photo/Brennan Linsley</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>3. Dilemmas for authorities</h2>
<p>Third, dismissing or attacking young activists who appear earnest and sincere can prove perilous.</p>
<p>When Birmingham’s children’s march was met with police violence, national attention forced civil rights to the top of the White House’s agenda. It also cost <a href="https://www.biography.com/people/eugene-bull-connor-21402055">Bull Connor</a>, Birmingham’s public safety commissioner, his job.</p>
<p>Before Feinstein’s awkward encounter went viral, <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/laura-ingraham-david-hogg-colleges-ucla-uc-santa-barbara-twitter-parkland-864992">Fox News host Laura Ingraham</a> experienced a similar snafu when she ridiculed gun-control activist <a href="https://www.tmz.com/2018/03/27/parkland-leader-david-hogg-rejected-colleges-emma-gonzalez/">David Hogg</a>. The pundit teased the Parkland shooting survivor after he didn’t get into any of the four California universities at the top of his list, a move widely perceived as bullying.</p>
<p>Hogg’s youth made it tough for Ingraham to attack him. His political savvy made it even tougher when he tweeted the names of Ingraham’s sponsors, and suggested his supporters boycott her show. Ingraham <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/laura-ingraham-apologizes-upset-hurt-caused-comments-parkland/story?id=54102676">eventually apologized</a>, but only after losing some sponsors.</p>
<p>Hogg won this political standoff and even more. He <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2018/12/22/parkland-survivor-david-hogg-harvard-mocked-fox-host/2396762002/">will enroll at Harvard University</a> in the fall of 2019 – along with Jaclyn Corin, a fellow Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School graduate and <a href="https://marchforourlives.com/mission-statement">March for Our Lives</a> co-founder. </p>
<p><div data-react-class="Tweet" data-react-props="{"tweetId":"1076466561630785537"}"></div></p>
<h2>Sunrise movement</h2>
<p>The young activists who caught Feinstein off-guard, and another group that got arrested for trying to discuss climate policy with <a href="https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/431430-dozens-of-climate-protesters-storm-mcconnells-office-over-green">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell</a>, belong to the <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/dianne-feinstein-video-climate-change-sunrise-movement/583501/">Sunrise Movement</a>. The relatively new group describes itself as an “army of young people.” </p>
<p>Like other youngsters before them, its members claim to have greater stake in forceful environmental action than their elders. Unlike many of the adults who call the shots on policy, they expect to be around to face the consequences should their leaders keep failing to take <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-the-next-two-years-are-critical-for-the-paris-climate-deals-survival-107931">forceful action on climate change</a>. </p>
<p>American kids and young adults are making these claims not only in the halls of Congress but also in court. More than 20 young people are plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit, <a href="https://theconversation.com/these-kids-and-young-adults-want-their-day-in-court-on-climate-change-105277">Juliana v. U.S.</a>, that aims to force the government to slash the emissions that cause climate change.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=377&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/262250/original/file-20190305-48450-1uflb1m.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=473&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://twitter.com/anderspangpang/status/1102990877306355725">Effekt/Anders Hellberg</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Young people around the world, led by Swedish teen <a href="https://twitter.com/GretaThunberg">Greta Thunberg</a>, are also organizing “climate strikes,” where young people will skip school to discuss the urgency of doing more about climate change and protest how little progress the authorities have made.</p>
<p>On March 15, tens of thousands of U.S. children plan to take part in a global action by <a href="https://www.vox.com/2019/2/21/18233206/greta-thunberg-student-school-strike-climate-change">walking out of schools</a>. Large numbers of <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/davekeating/2019/02/07/in-belgium-students-are-striking-for-the-climate-and-theyve-forced-a-minister-to-resign/#61c7afb43fc7">European students are already staging similar events</a>.</p>
<p>Some critics are arguing that these young activists are serving as pawns of manipulative adults who are eager to use fresh faces to tout their own cause. The writer <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/dianne-feinstein-video-climate-change-sunrise-movement/583501/">Caitlin Flanagan</a> dismissed them as “jackbooted tots and aggrieved teenagers” and Feinstein referred to “<a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/feinstein-green-new-deal-activists-799240/">whoever sent you here</a>” during her brush with the Sunrise Movement.</p>
<p>But as sociologist Rebecca Klatch has found, teen activists have historically tended to echo their parents’ views authentically, just with <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520217140/a-generation-divided">more energy and enthusiasm</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/112502/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David S. Meyer does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>These youngsters have ample fervor, and they are dramatically photogenic. Dismissing them as being fake or lightweight can spell trouble for members of the establishment.David S. Meyer, Professor of Sociology, University of California, IrvineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1112422019-02-08T11:31:34Z2019-02-08T11:31:34ZSchool shooters usually show these signs of distress long before they open fire, our database shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257664/original/file-20190207-174887-19v0q1q.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">School shooters tend to have a death wish, new research shows.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/student-hides-gun-bag-crime-170274626">Constantine Pankin from www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>An updated version of this article was published on May 20, 2022. <a href="https://theconversation.com/accused-buffalo-mass-shooter-had-threatened-a-shooting-while-in-high-school-could-more-have-been-done-to-avert-the-tragedy-183455">Read it here</a>.</em></p>
<p>Two years before he lined his schoolmates up against a classroom wall and executed them one by one, the student, who would become the gunman, tried to show his English teacher something important.</p>
<p>He had quietly slid up his sleeves to reveal the cut marks running down his arms. The teacher panicked. A novice educator at the time, she had never been coached or trained in what to do in these situations, what to say or how to help. So she passed the student off to another teacher, who then filed a form with the principal’s office. She felt fairly certain nothing else came of it. </p>
<p>“He was asking for help,” the teacher said in reflecting on the encounter during a recent interview. “If I’d had some training to help him, a five-step sheet to follow, say this, say that, maybe I could have made a difference?”</p>
<p>The story is one of dozens that we have collected over the past two years in our effort toward studying the life histories of mass shooters. It typifies what we believe is one of the biggest challenges that schools face when it comes to averting school shootings – and that is recognizing and acting upon warning signs that school shooters almost always give well before they open fire. </p>
<p>We are both criminologists who study <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=VT4lDwAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PP1&dq=James+Densley&ots=_iQaGZBDa2&sig=EMCdH4dnx41MLu69jf_dwIZ3HWA#v=onepage&q=James%20Densley&f=false">aggression and violence</a>. One of us <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=hoHQX8MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">focuses on mental illness</a> among offenders. The other has an extensive background in <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=iS4HAEMAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">group violence</a>.</p>
<p>Together, we have <a href="https://www.theviolenceproject.org/mass-shooters">built a database</a> of the 160 mass public shootings that have taken place in the United States since 1966 for a <a href="https://nij.gov/funding/awards/pages/award-detail.aspx?award=2018-75-CX-0023">project</a> funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. For mass public shootings, we use the <a href="https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44126.pdf">common definition</a> of an event in which four or more victims are killed with a gun in a public place.</p>
<h2>Protective measures fall short</h2>
<p>The goal of our project is to use data to look for patterns in the lives of mass shooters. The purpose is to develop a better understanding of mass shooters and why they did what they did, in order to prevent future tragedies.</p>
<p>Valentine’s Day marks one year since the mass shooting at <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101">Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School</a>, in Parkland, Florida, where 14 students and three staff members lost their lives. This year is also the 20th anniversary of the <a href="https://www.history.com/topics/1990s/columbine-high-school-shootings">Columbine High School massacre</a> in Littleton, Colorado.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257835/original/file-20190207-174870-1v89iq4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Thirteen people lay down to symbolize those killed in the Columbine school shooting on the 10th anniversary of the Columbine attack, at the Capitol in Denver, Colorado in 2009.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Columbine-Anniversary/cd709df325b2456dbc863db1669346f3/247/0">Chris Schneider/AP</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>For two decades, therefore, school leaders, law enforcement officials and policymakers have experimented with ways to stop mass shootings. They have run <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/2/16/17016382/school-shooting-drills-training">lockdown drills</a>, produced <a href="https://www.policeone.com/active-shooter/articles/5882617-Run-Hide-Fight-Video-shows-how-to-survive-a-shooting-attack/">training videos</a>, <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46473321">armed teachers</a>, hired <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/03/08/591753884/do-police-officers-in-schools-really-make-them-safer">school resource officers</a> and spent <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-and-campus-safety-industry/?utm_term=.262ace7231d7">billions of dollars</a> on more secure buildings.</p>
<p>Although gun violence in schools has decreased <a href="https://news.northeastern.edu/2018/02/26/schools-are-still-one-of-the-safest-places-for-children-researcher-says/">since the 1990s</a>, our research found that <em>mass</em> school shootings have not decreased over time. There have been six in the last 20 years – Columbine, <a href="https://www.topic.com/memories-of-a-school-shooting-revisiting-red-lake">Red Lake</a>, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/us/03amish.html">West Nickel Mines</a>, <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Newtown-shootings-of-2012">Sandy Hook</a>, <a href="http://time.com/5158678/what-to-know-about-the-active-shooter-situation-at-florida-high-school/">Parkland</a>, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2018/05/19/ten-killed-in-texas-high-school-shooting-were-mostly-students-police-say-suspect-confessed/?utm_term=.fa29bd0c4f1e">Santa Fe</a> – plus 39 attempts in which a shooter came to school heavily armed and fired indiscriminately at numerous people, according to our reanalysis of <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/local/school-shootings-database/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.6772be9d4c90">The Washington Post’s</a> school shooting database. That’s a steady average rate of about 2.4 mass school shootings per year. </p>
<p>2018 was the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/12/10/18134232/gun-violence-schools-mass-shootings">worst year</a> on record for gun violence in U.S. schools, with <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/incidents-by-year/">97 incidents</a> and <a href="https://www.chds.us/ssdb/number-killed-by-year/">56 deaths</a>, compared to previous highs of 40 in 1993 and 38 in 2012, the year of the <a href="https://www.britannica.com/event/Newtown-shootings-of-2012">Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre</a> in Newtown, Connecticut.</p>
<h2>Patterns emerge among shooters</h2>
<p>Our initial analysis of the school shooting data found some noteworthy patterns. All of the K-12 school shooters or would-be school shooters were male, between the ages of 12 and 17. The majority were white and nearly all – 91 percent – were students or former students at the targeted school.</p>
<p>While each story was different, all mass school shooters since 1966 had a large number of risk factors for violence. Forty-five percent had witnessed or experienced <a href="https://www.samhsa.gov/capt/practicing-effective-prevention/prevention-behavioral-health/adverse-childhood-experiences">childhood trauma</a>, 77 percent had mental health concerns, as evidenced in a prior diagnosis, previous counseling or hospitalization, or medication use, and 75 percent had an interest in past shootings, as evidenced in their writing, social media posts or <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/US/santa-fe-high-school-shooter-studied-previous-mass/story?id=55311862">other activities</a>.</p>
<p>The majority of mass school shooters – 87 percent – showed signs of a crisis, as exhibited in their behavior, before the shooting. Seventy-eight percent revealed their plans ahead of time, often on social media. As juveniles, they also used guns that they stole from parents, caregivers and other significant adults in their lives.</p>
<p>Our analysis found that about 80 percent of mass school shooters were suicidal, based on records we have gathered thus far. This includes the <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/parkland-shooting-suspect-nikolas-cruz-spoke-voices-says-he-attempted-n898151">Parkland shooter</a>. Almost all of them die at the scene of the shooting, often by their own hand. Our analysis shows that 52 percent of mass school shooters killed themselves, while 15 percent were killed by police and 30 percent were apprehended. It’s unclear how the remaining 3 percent were killed, our analysis shows.</p>
<h2>Towards prevention</h2>
<p>These findings make it clearer why current strategies are inadequate. If the shooter is most likely a student in the school, lockdown drills only show potential perpetrators the school’s planned response, which can be used to <a href="https://nypost.com/2018/02/14/suspect-in-florida-school-shooting-pulled-fire-alarm-to-create-panic/">increase casualties</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=186&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257831/original/file-20190207-174890-16yauxg.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=234&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Police officers lead students from Clinton High School in Clinton, Miss., during an active shooter drill in 2014.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Active-Shooter-Drill/2052ce3fda2b4901ad328fb4e5f3a54c/13/0">Rogelio V. Solis/AP</a></span>
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</figure>
<p><a href="https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article217015060.html">Punishing explicit threats</a> of violence with suspension, expulsion or criminal charges is ineffective with a suicidal student. These methods only <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-suspending-or-expelling-students-often-does-more-harm-than-good-93279">increase the risk for violence</a> and worsen grievances with the school. Likewise, when a would-be shooter already desires to die, the death penalty – President Trump’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/10/28/18032438/trump-death-penalty-pittsburgh-shooting">proposed response</a> to mass shootings – is no deterrent.</p>
<p>These findings suggest the need for a new approach to mass violence prevention in schools – one that goes beyond <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/about/partnerships/office-of-partner-engagement/active-shooter-resources/responding-to-an-active-shooter-crisis-situation">running, hiding and fighting</a>, and that does not <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/classic-apps/numerous-school-lockdowns-are-traumatizing-kids/2018/12/26/db3fe398-ff1a-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.ff00ca4af17d">traumatize students</a> with routine lockdown drills that <a href="https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2015-58633-005">cause anxiety</a> or <a href="https://theconversation.com/active-shooter-drills-may-reshape-how-a-generation-of-students-views-school-93709">hand young people a script</a> for this form of violence.</p>
<p>Instead, our data show that threats of school violence should be seen as a plea for help. These threats are a critical moment for a student to be connected with long-term, high-quality resources, such as mental health treatment, social services or substance use treatment. The Parkland’s shooter involvement with services was <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2018/national/timeline-parkland-shooter-nikolas-cruz/?utm_term=.728769dfd96a">sporadic</a> before he was <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/14/us/nikolas-cruz-florida-shooting.html">expelled from school</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/257824/original/file-20190207-174867-1uwn637.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Accused Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz sits during a court proceeding in January 2019.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/School-Shooting-Florida-Status/b8570cca428047dca556944d3fb140fd/6/0">John McCall/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP</a></span>
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<p>These threats of school violence are also an occasion to remind parents to <a href="https://jech.bmj.com/content/jech/58/10/841.full.pdf">keep guns secure</a> to lessen the chances that they will be able to carry out their attacks.</p>
<p>Further, all school personnel – teachers, administrators and staff members – should be able to recognize signs of a student in crisis. They also need to be trained in crisis intervention, de-escalation, suicide prevention, and be educated on how to connect students to needed help. </p>
<p>School shootings are rare events that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230557455_Focusing_Events_Mobilization_and_Agenda_Setting">mobilize</a> people to take action. In our view, our research suggests it is time to shift the focus from protection to prevention and from physical security to mental well-being.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/111242/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jillian Peterson receives funding from the National Institute of Justice.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Densley receives funding from the National Institute of Justice. </span></em></p>School shooters typically show warning signs long before they become killers, but educators are sometimes ill-equipped to act on what they see, two researchers who are analyzing mass shooters say.Jillian Peterson, Professor of Criminal Justice, Hamline University James Densley, Professor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1089762018-12-20T20:49:50Z2018-12-20T20:49:50ZSchool shootings prompted protests, debates about best ways to keep students safe: 5 essential reads<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/251159/original/file-20181218-27761-1ux746o.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Demonstrators in front of the White House call for greater gun control following the Feb. 14, 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/washington-dc-feb-19-2018-demonstrators-1028581054?src=EogsCt0H29cx3sCsRMC8pg-1-0">bakdc/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>Editor’s note: As we come to the end of the year, Conversation editors take a look back at the stories that – for them – exemplified 2018.</em></p>
<p>If you look at the time stamp on the article, <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-security-measures-wont-stop-school-shootings-90738">“Why security measures won’t stop school shootings,”</a> you will see that it was originally published early in the morning on Feb. 14.</p>
<p>Several hours after the story appeared, I found myself working with the author to update it to include the <a href="http://time.com/5158678/what-to-know-about-the-active-shooter-situation-at-florida-high-school/">shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School</a> in Parkland, Florida that took place that afternoon.</p>
<p>The shooting touched off <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/education/wp/2018/03/14/students-have-just-had-enough-walkouts-planned-across-the-nation-one-month-after-florida-shooting/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.933533dcadb5">unprecedented</a> nationwide protests by students who called for <a href="http://time.com/longform/never-again-movement/">greater gun control</a> and worried aloud: <a href="https://www.thedailybeast.com/school-walkout-to-be-biggest-anti-gun-protest-since-parkland-scooting">“Am I next?”</a> </p>
<p>For scholars writing for The Conversation, the school shooting spurred some debate into what it takes to make a school safe. Not all of the scholars saw eye to eye.</p>
<h2>1. Kinder and gentler</h2>
<p>Bryan Warnick, a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ia61cf8AAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">professor of the philosophy of education</a> at The Ohio State University, authored <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-security-measures-wont-stop-school-shootings-90738">the piece</a> we posted on the day of the Parkland shooting. Warnick argued against “target hardening” American schools, saying it might actually make things worse by changing students’ experience in ways that suggest violence rather than prevent it.</p>
<p>“Filling schools with metal detectors, surveillance cameras, police officers and gun-wielding teachers tells students that schools are scary, dangerous and violent places – places where violence is expected to occur,” Warnick wrote.</p>
<h2>2. Threat assessments</h2>
<p>In contrast to Warnick’s suggested “education approach,” University of Virginia school safety expert <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=ovQmizAAAAAJ&hl=en">Dewey Cornell</a> told Congress that <a href="https://theconversation.com/threat-assessments-crucial-to-prevent-school-shootings-93636">“threat assessments were crucial to prevent school shootings</a>.” Such assessments, originally designed to protect public figures like foreign dignitaries and movie stars, could also help protect schools, Cornell argued in a piece adapted from his congressional testimony.</p>
<h2>3. More officers?</h2>
<p>Will securing the nation’s schools require <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-school-resource-officer-in-every-school-94721">a school resource officer in every school</a>? F. Chris Curran, a <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=MTcxlxMAAAAJ&hl=en">school safety expert</a> at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, shared research that found that often the training that school resource officers get is very limited.</p>
<p>“For many, the training amounted to little more than shadowing other SROs for a couple weeks,” Curran writes.</p>
<h2>4. School culture is crucial</h2>
<p>Other scholars say a <a href="https://theconversation.com/culture-of-trust-is-key-for-school-safety-92731">culture of trust is key for school safety</a>. </p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/calvin-morrill-448317">Calvin Morrill</a>, a law and sociology professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/michael-musheno-448546">Michael Musheno</a>, a University of Oregon law professor, reached that conclusion after a long-term observation of a school they had been visiting since 1995. What they found is that increased security measures – such as metal detectors and security gates – actually led to an increase in student violence. They also found that such security measures eroded the ethos of trust they say is vital to having a safe school.</p>
<h2>5. Don’t wait for trouble</h2>
<p>Other scholars, such as <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=N7saxgwAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">psychology professor</a> Nathaniel von der Embse of the University of South Florida, warned that <a href="https://theconversation.com/schools-shouldnt-wait-for-red-flags-to-address-student-mental-health-needs-92247">schools shouldn’t wait for red flags to address student mental health</a>. Rather, he suggests, schools should use a screening tool to figure out which students are experiencing anxiety or depression that could cause problems later on.</p>
<p>“Research shows that screening tools can help educators identify students with mental health needs with far greater accuracy and speed, rather than waiting for a severe problem behavior, such as a school fight,” von der Embse writes.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/108976/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Parkland school shooting not only spurred unprecedented national protests for gun control – it also prompted debates about the best ways to keep students safe.Jamaal Abdul-Alim, Education Editor, The ConversationLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1073992018-11-28T11:42:19Z2018-11-28T11:42:19ZForget lanes – we all need to head together toward preventing firearm injury<p>Many of us working in the “<a href="https://gunsensevoter.org/about/">Gun Sense</a>” field – that is, finding a middle ground position to advance firearm safety and reduce preventable injury in our patients – had an “a-ha” moment that led us to toil in these fields. </p>
<p>Mine was on Nov. 2, 1981, when my friend and co-resident <a href="https://www.woodfdn.org">Dr. John C. Wood II</a> was shot right in front of our hospital emergency room at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in Washington Heights, New York City.</p>
<p>I have taken care of many gunshot wound victims since then, but none so difficult emotionally as this one. I participated in cracking my friend’s chest to start open cardiac massage and saw his heart devoid of blood from a through-and-through gunshot wound into his heart with a Saturday night special. </p>
<p>The survivability of a cardiac gunshot wound like this is close to zero, even though he was minutes away from the ER. He was in the OR and placed on cardiac bypass within 10 minutes of arrival. But his pupils were fixed and dilated and he had exsanguinated, or bled out, into his chest cavity. He did not survive despite our best efforts. It was an event that rocked Columbia and all who knew John, a fully boarded pediatrics-turned-surgical resident, a world-class Juilliard-trained French horn player and former Columbia rugby team captain. </p>
<p>The urgency of the firearm violence issue facing our country was heightened this past week when nine people were killed in three separate mass shootings over an 18-hour period in the U.S. In the past month, there have been attacks at places of worship, yoga studios and hospitals. Add these to the shootings in schools and in movie theaters and the <a href="https://www.apa.org/helpcenter/mass-shooting.aspx">tremendous sense of unease</a> our citizenry is experiencing is completely understandable. </p>
<p>As physicians and surgeons on the front lines, many of my colleagues and I feel that it is no longer acceptable to treat this problem like our trauma team is a MASH unit. We have an obligation and an opportunity to reach out and speak out, and my hope is the country is listening. Because this is indeed our lane.</p>
<h2>Watching the violence grow</h2>
<p>My training took me to other cities, and everywhere the tragedy of firearm injury seemed to follow. I knew after that night in November ‘81 I could no longer practice in New York City, but I could not escape the parade of firearm tragedies. Children shot accidentally. Teens shot in gang wars. Teens and elders shooting themselves in impulsive moments of despair, yielding nearly 100 percent completion of their suicide task. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=409&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246745/original/file-20181121-161618-1dw1igf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=513&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Jim Brady, Ronald Reagan’s press secretary, was paralyzed after being shot in the March 1981 assassination attempt against the president. Brady died Aug. 4, 2014, and his death was ruled a homicide.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/YE-Deaths/d0f8c9f81e8b434cbb5bfaa036837917/19/0">Evan Vucci/AP Photo</a></span>
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<p>Gun violence increasingly became my focus when I heard Sarah Brady explain the concept of limiting access to lethal means. Sarah is the wife of <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news/reagan-press-secretary-jim-bradys-death-ruled-homicide-n176521">Jim Brady</a>, Ronald Reagan’s press secretary shot in the 1981 presidential assassination attempt. Brady spent the rest of his life partially paralyzed. He died in 2014, and the medical examiner ruled his death a homicide. </p>
<p>The Brady approach to gun control is limiting access. It is based on the premise that we might not be able to deal with the root causes of the violence – racism, poverty, mental illness – but that we could perhaps deal with the vector of violence that elevates all these factors into lethality – access to firearms. This is the philosophy behind the <a href="http://www.bradycampaign.org">Brady Campaign</a>, which aims to limit gun violence in the U.S. I began to wonder what I as an individual trauma surgeon could do to make a difference. </p>
<h2>Looking for answers</h2>
<p>In the 1990s, I was working in Pittsburgh as a pediatric trauma surgeon. A gang turf war over control of the crack cocaine trade broke out between the Bloods and the Crips. Both sides were heavily armed. As the body count rose on the north side of Pittsburgh where I was working, legislators tried to help by establishing a mandatory sentence for anyone in possession of a firearm when arrested for drug trafficking. </p>
<p>This caused the dealers to push the age of the drug runners to preteens and young teens, and they were equally armed. Our pediatric gunshot-wound patient victim numbers soared. When an 11-year-old was shot with an AK-47 in front of the mayor’s house, suddenly the city responded. Pittsburgh held community meetings. As director of a Robert Wood Johnson Injury Prevention Program, I was selected to represent the Allegheny General Hospital. The community disparaged our hospital as being insensitive and uncaring. Many believed we were “profiting” from the carnage and just sending the patients back out into the street to face more mayhem even if they had survived. </p>
<p>Our hospital encouraged my practice partner, Dr. Matt Masiello, and me to do something. We were both transplanted New Yorkers in the ‘Burgh, and we had heard about a new kind of gun buyback program in Washington Heights where a carpet store owner, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1993/12/30/nyregion/carpet-man-fulfills-promise-with-guns-for-toys-program-fernando-mateo-succeeds.html">Fernando Mateo</a>, had emptied his inventory in exchange for locals bringing in their firearms. Previously, gun buybacks had only offered cash for the weapons. We decided to build a version of the program exchanging the guns for gift certificates to local merchants rather than actual merchandise. We collected 1,400 weapons that first year in 1994 and about 10,000 since then. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=393&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/246746/original/file-20181121-161609-6zaw0x.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=494&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">A Miami detective registers a Magnum .357 in a gun buyback event in March 2016.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Daily-Life-Florida/53f5a92e08514c16babcbdf6d086d900/10/0">Lynne Sladky/AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The buyback program has become much more than just a way to give the patrons the ability to rid their homes of unwanted or unsecured weapons. We built a public information blitz about the <a href="https://journals.lww.com/jtrauma/Abstract/2011/11002/Goods_for_Guns_The_Use_of_a_Gun_Buyback_as_an.10.aspx">responsibility that goes along with the right</a> to own a firearm, and we built awareness of the increased risk of suicide, homicide, femicide, accidental shooting, or breaking and entering for the purpose of stealing a firearm. </p>
<p>We have now reproduced the program in a number of cities across the U.S. In my hometown of Worcester, Massachusetts, working out of the UMass Memorial Medical Center, our multi-pronged approach to gun safety education coupled with the gun buyback has given us the distinction of having the lowest-penetrating trauma rate in New England.</p>
<p>In calendar year 2017, we had zero firearm fatalities, down from five the year before. </p>
<p>This was an astounding number, in view of national stats showing a rise from 33,000 deaths in 2010 to 38,000 in 2018. We faculty at the University of Massachusetts have built a curriculum for students at our medical school to empower doctors to ask the right questions in the proper way. </p>
<p>I am truly excited about the response my fellow physicians have demonstrated in their reaction to the National Rifle Association’s “<a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/health/nra-stay-in-your-lane-physicians-study/index.html">stay in your lane</a>” comments.</p>
<p>The NRA has already tried and failed to gag doctors in Florida from talking with their patients about gun safety.</p>
<p>In 2011, it backed a bill ultimately passed by the Florida legislature that would have forbidden doctors from asking patients about gun ownership or gun storage unless the doctor had a specific reason to do so. Doctors in violation <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/17/515764335/court-strikes-down-florida-law-barring-doctors-from-discussing-guns-with-patient">could have been punished</a> by loss of license and up to a US$10,000 fine. </p>
<p>“Physicians interrogating and lecturing parents and children about guns is not about gun safety,” read a <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/17/515764335/court-strikes-down-florida-law-barring-doctors-from-discussing-guns-with-patient">letter from the NRA</a> in support of the bill. “It is a political agenda to ban guns. Parents do not take their children to physicians for a political lecture against the ownership of firearms, they go there for medical care.”</p>
<p>Though it took six years to do so, the parts of the law that gagged doctors were <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/02/17/515764335/court-strikes-down-florida-law-barring-doctors-from-discussing-guns-with-patient">overturned by the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals</a> in February 2017. </p>
<p>And now, even more than in previous years, doctors are saying they have seen enough – actually, way too much. </p>
<p>Now the awakening of the M.D.s gives me a sense of encouragement and hope that we as a profession can lead our country away from the intransigent position in which nothing gets done. Gun buyback is a middle-ground Gun Sense position that can rally a community around the cause that I have been fighting for since that dark day in November 1981. I hope other municipalities will join us, as <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316569711_Are_Goods_for_Guns_Good_for_the_Community_An_Update_of_a_Community_Gun_Buyback_Program">these programs do work</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/107399/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael Hirsh is the medical consultant for the John C. Wood II charitable foundation.</span></em></p>In response to the NRA telling doctors to ‘stay in their lane’ on gun control, doctors loudly and clearly came back with this response: This is our lane. A surgeon explains their concern and urgency.Michael Hirsh, Professor of Surgery and Pediatrics, UMass Chan Medical SchoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1047352018-10-19T10:35:15Z2018-10-19T10:35:15ZGeneration Z voters could make waves in 2018 midterm elections<p>Unlike the much-studied millennials, we don’t know much about Generation Z, who now make up most of the 18- to 24-year-old voting bloc. </p>
<p>These young people started first grade after 9/11, were born with the internet, grew up with smartphones and social media and practiced active-shooter drills in their classrooms.</p>
<p>In 2018, they have taken an active role in political activism on issues like gun control, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo. For example, Parkland high school students started the movement against gun violence and <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/florida-politics/buzz/2018/10/12/march-for-our-lives-to-embark-on-12-day-national-tour-ahead-of-election-day/">named voting as a way to support the movement</a>.</p>
<p>Yet, many people are skeptical about Generation Z’s commitment to voting. For instance, The Economist explained, in a piece titled “<a href="https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2014/10/29/why-young-people-dont-vote">Why Young People Don’t Vote</a>,” that “young people today do not feel they have much of a stake in society.”</p>
<p>Will Generation Z affect the midterm elections?</p>
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<p><a href="http://civicyouth.org/">The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement</a> at Tufts University, where we do research, has been watching young people’s civic and political behaviors for nearly 20 years. This fall, my colleagues and I are conducting two large-scale national surveys of 2,087 Americans ages 18 to 24 to document and understand what Gen Zs are thinking, feeling and doing when it comes to politics. </p>
<p>So far, the data point to a surge in political engagement, intention to vote and outreach between friends to encourage voting. Gen Zers may be voting for the first time, but they are certainly not new to politics.</p>
<h2>All signs point to youth wave</h2>
<p>Young voters have a reputation of <a href="https://civicyouth.org/quick-facts/youth-voting">not showing up to the polls</a>, especially in midterm elections. This trend goes back 40 years. </p>
<p>There are a few ways we can find out how likely it is that people in Generation Z will turn out to vote.</p>
<p>First, we can just ask. In our survey, 34 percent of youth said they are <a href="https://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-youth-engagement-in-the-2018-election">“extremely likely” to vote</a> in November. While a survey can’t predict exact turnout numbers, data from previous surveys we’ve done using this approach have been close to actual turnout numbers. Other evidence supports this measure of intent to vote: <a href="https://targetsmart.com/analysis-after-parkland-shooting-youth-voter-registration-surges">Voter registration among young people</a> is up in key battleground states and overall.</p>
<p>Research also shows that <a href="http://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-so-much-for-slacktivism-as-youth-translate-online-engagement-to-offline-political-action/">activism and intent to vote are strongly correlated</a>. So, in our survey we also asked young people about activism, such as participating in protests, union strikes, sit-ins and walk-outs.</p>
<p>The proportion of young people who join protests and marches tripled since the fall of 2016, from <a href="http://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-so-much-for-slacktivism-as-youth-translate-online-engagement-to-offline-political-action/">5 percent to 15 percent</a>. Participation is especially high among young people who are <a href="https://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-youth-engagement-in-the-2018-election">registered as Democrats</a>. </p>
<p>Finally, we found that young people are <a href="https://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-youth-engagement-in-the-2018-election/">paying attention to politics</a> more than they were in 2016. In 2016, about 26 percent of young people said they were paying at least some attention to the November elections. This fall, the proportion of youth who report that they are paying attention to the midterm races rose to 46 percent. </p>
<p>It’s clear that more young people are actively engaged in politics this year than 2016. </p>
<p>Why? </p>
<h2>Cynicism and worry aren’t obstacles</h2>
<p>To learn more about what might be motivating Generation Z to vote, we asked our survey participants to rate their level of agreement with three statements. </p>
<p>“I worry that older generations haven’t thought about young people’s future.” </p>
<p>“I’m more cynical about politics than I was 2 years ago.” </p>
<p>“The outcomes of the 2018 elections will make a significant impact to everyday issues involving the government in my community, such as schools and police.”</p>
<p>In this year’s survey, we found that young people who feel cynical are far more likely to say they will vote. Other research has found that cynicism about politics can <a href="http://www.calstatela.edu/sites/default/files/users/u2276/opdycke_segura_vasquez_essay5.pdf">suppress or drive electoral engagement</a> depending on the contexts.</p>
<p>Among young people who said “yes” to all three of those questions, more than half – 52 percent – said they are extremely likely to vote. Among young people who said “no” to all three of those questions, only 22 percent were extremely likely to vote.</p>
<p>Our poll results suggest political involvement in this generation is far above the levels we usually see among youth, especially in midterm election cycles. </p>
<p>In fact, almost 3 out of 4 youth – 72 percent – said they believe that dramatic change could occur in this country if people banded together. Gen Z is certainly aware of the challenges ahead but they are hopeful and actively involving themselves and friends in politics. Beyond almost any doubt, youth are involved and feel ready to make a dramatic change in the American political landscape.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/104735/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg as part of CIRCLE at Tufts University, receives funding from the Democracy Fund, she is affiliated with Democracy Works, Generation Citizen and Nonprofit Vote, Nellie Mae Foundation, the American Bar Association and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences where she serves as a member of a commission, speaker bureau, advisory board, or the board of directors. </span></em></p>A survey shows the newest generation on the voting block is extremely cynical, and that’s actually driving high levels of political engagement.Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, Director, Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement in the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, Tufts UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/986772018-06-25T10:35:06Z2018-06-25T10:35:06ZSchool safety commission should not worry about violence in entertainment media<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/224279/original/file-20180621-137717-116fux4.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Strong link lacking between violence in entertainment and violence in society. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-photo/young-man-pistol-gun-standing-front-442773577?src=hRRPBgRl1VuH72Cu4Nq0Pw-1-1">Mike Focus/www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>On June 21, I testified before Education Secretary Betsy Devos’s school safety commission on the impact that violence in entertainment media has on violence in society. </p>
<p>I’m a psychologist who has studied violent media for 15 years and <a href="https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C22&q=CJ+Ferguson&btnG=">published dozens of studies</a> on the topic in peer-reviewed journals. </p>
<p>As I told the commission, current evidence suggests that the impact of violence in entertainment media is precisely zero and the commission would be better served attending to other issues.</p>
<p>Here are five main takeaways from my testimony:</p>
<h2>1) Violence down despite more violent media</h2>
<p>Society’s consumption of entertainment violence has been associated with <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jcom.12129">significant</a> <a href="http://psycnet.apa.org/record/2014-33466-001">declines</a> in actual violence in society. The reality is that youth violence has dropped by over <a href="https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/beh5.asp">80 percent</a> over the last 25 years even as society has consumed more violence games and movies.</p>
<h2>2) Media violence is not a risk factor</h2>
<p>A few dozen studies track kids over time to see if entertainment media at an early point in life predicts bullying, youth violence or later arrests. Studies from this pool of research <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/272486349_Violent_Video_Games_and_Physical_Aggression_Evidence_for_a_Selection_Effect_Among_Adolescents">generally find</a> that exposure to entertainment violence is not a risk factor for later violent behavior. Instead, issues like <a href="http://christopherjferguson.com/SmithFergusonBeaver.pdf">mental health</a> and <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28042897">family environment</a> tend to be real risk factors for youth violence.</p>
<h2>3) Mass shooters don’t consume much violent entertainment</h2>
<p>Data on mass shooters, dating back to a <a href="https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/ERIC-ED466024/content-detail.html">2002 U.S. Secret Service/Department of Education report</a> and updated more recently in <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313853398_Moral_Combat_Why_the_War_on_Violent_Video_Games_is_Wrong">my work</a> with Villanova’s Patrick Markey, suggest that mass shooters consume less, not more, entertainment violence than <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/313853398_Moral_Combat_Why_the_War_on_Violent_Video_Games_is_Wrong">other males their age</a>. Society’s obsession with video games and mass shooters stems from confirmation bias – a psychological phenomenon in which we attend to cases that fit our beliefs and ignore those that don’t, such as the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/10/02/police-shut-down-part-of-las-vegas-strip-due-to-shooting/?utm_term=.c8af6c8a7bca">Las Vegas shooting massacre</a> of 2017, a case in which the shooter was a 64-year-old male. Further, even some young shooters, like the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20131015095917/http://www.governor.virginia.gov/TempContent/techPanelReport-docs/FullReport.pdf">Virginia Tech</a> and <a href="https://publicintelligence.net/ct-sandy-hook/">Sandy Hook</a> shooters, were found to prefer nonviolent rather than violent games. </p>
<h2>4) Other countries less violent</h2>
<p>Data that look at trends across countries find no relationship between entertainment consumption and societal violence. For instance, some of the most video game-loving countries, such as the Netherlands and South Korea, tend to be among the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2018/02/22/if-video-games-spur-gun-violence-its-only-in-the-united-states/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.066c518bdc25">least violent</a>. </p>
<h2>5) No scholarly consensus</h2>
<p>Lastly, <a href="https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jcom.12182">surveys of scholars</a> make clear there is no consensus that entertainment causes violence. In fact, only a vocal minority of scholars who study media truly believe that entertainment media causes violence in society. If the school safety commission really wants to reduce violence in schools, one thing is absolutely clear to me: Focusing on entertainment violence is entirely a waste of time.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/98677/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Christopher J. Ferguson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As a federal school safety commission searches for ways to lessen school violence, a psychology professor advises the commission that focusing on violence in entertainment media is a waste of time.Christopher J. Ferguson, Professor of Psychology, Stetson University Licensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/968912018-05-18T22:49:09Z2018-05-18T22:49:09Z5 things to know about mass shootings in America<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/219609/original/file-20180518-42238-m3lmmn.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Outside Santa Fe High School in Texas on May 18, 2018.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/David J. Phillip</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>At least <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/18/us/school-shooting-santa-fe-texas.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=a-lede-package-region&region=top-news&WT.nav=top-news">10 students were killed</a> at a Santa Fe, Texas high school on May 18 after a classmate opened fire with a shotgun and a .38 revolver.</p>
<p>The shooting came just three months after <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/police-respond-shooting-parkland-florida-high-school-n848101">another teen shooter killed 17 in Parkland, Florida</a>, sparking <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/26/us/march-for-our-lives/index.html">nationwide youth-led protests</a> over gun violence – and a familiar debate over what changes could really make a difference.</p>
<p>As <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268804619_Effect_of_Gun_Culture_and_Firearm_Laws_on_Gun_Violence_and_Mass_Shootings_in_the_United_States_A_Multi-Level_Quantitative_Analysis">a criminologist</a>, I often hear misconceptions creeping into the debate that springs up whenever a mass shooting occurs. </p>
<p>Here’s what the research actually shows.</p>
<h2>#1: More guns don’t make you safer</h2>
<p>A <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/268804619_Effect_of_Gun_Culture_and_Firearm_Laws_on_Gun_Violence_and_Mass_Shootings_in_the_United_States_A_Multi-Level_Quantitative_Analysis">study I conducted on mass shootings</a> indicated that this phenomenon is not limited to the United States.</p>
<p>Mass shootings also took place in 25 other wealthy nations between 1983 and 2013, but the number of mass shootings in the United States far surpasses that of any other country included in the study during the same period of time. </p>
<p>The U.S. had 78 mass shootings during that 30-year period.</p>
<p>The highest number of mass shootings experienced outside the United States was in Germany – where seven shootings occurred. </p>
<p>In the other 24 industrialized countries taken together, 41 mass shootings took place. </p>
<p>In other words, the U.S. had nearly double the number of mass shootings than all other 24 countries combined in the same 30-year period.</p>
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<p>Another significant finding is that mass shootings and gun ownership rates are highly correlated. The higher the gun ownership rate, the more a country is susceptible to experiencing mass shooting incidents. This association remains high even when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis. </p>
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<p>Similar results have been found by the <a href="https://www.unodc.org/gsh/">United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime</a>, which states that countries with higher levels of firearm ownership also have higher firearm homicide rates. </p>
<p>My study also shows a strong correlation between mass shooting casualties and overall death by firearms rates. However, in this last analysis, the relation seems to be mainly driven by the very high number of deaths by firearms in the United States. The relation disappears when the United States is withdrawn from the analysis.</p>
<h2>#2: Mass shootings are more frequent</h2>
<p>A recent study published by the <a href="http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/features/mass-public-shootings-increasing-in-us/">Harvard Injury Control Research Center</a> shows that the frequency of mass shooting is increasing over time. The researchers measured the increase by calculating the time between the occurrence of mass shootings. According to the research, the days separating mass shooting occurrence went from on average 200 days during the period of 1983 to 2011 to 64 days since 2011.</p>
<p>What is most alarming with mass shootings is the fact that this increasing trend is moving in the opposite direction of overall intentional homicide rates in the U.S., which decreased by almost <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2013/05/07/gun-homicide-rate-down-49-since-1993-peak-public-unaware/">50 percent since 1993</a> and in Europe where intentional homicides decreased by 40 percent between <a href="https://www.unodc.org/documents/data-and-analysis/statistics/crime/ACONF222_4_e_V1500369.pdf">2003 and 2013</a>. </p>
<h2>#3: Restricting sales works</h2>
<p>Thanks to the Second Amendment, the United States has permissive gun licensing laws. This is in contrast to most developed countries, which have restrictive laws.</p>
<p>According to a seminal work by criminologists <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&hl=en&user=07305x0AAAAJ&citation_for_view=07305x0AAAAJ:ufrVoPGSRksC">George Newton and Franklin Zimring</a>, permissive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which everyone except specially prohibited groups of persons can purchase a firearm. In such a system, an individual does not have to justify purchasing a weapon; rather, the licensing authority has the burden of proof to deny gun acquisition. </p>
<p>By contrast, restrictive gun licensing laws refer to a system in which individuals who want to purchase firearms must demonstrate to a licensing authority that they have valid reasons to get a gun – like using it on a shooting range or going hunting – and that they demonstrate “good character
.”</p>
<p>The differences between these type of gun laws have important impacts. Countries with more restrictive gun licensing laws show fewer deaths by firearms and a lower gun ownership rate.</p>
<h2>#4: Background checks work</h2>
<p>In <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/canada-australia-japan-britain-gun-control-2013-1">most of the restrictive background checks</a> performed in developed countries like Canada and Australia, citizens are required to train for gun handling, obtain a license for hunting or provide proof of membership to a shooting range. </p>
<p>Individuals must prove that they do not belong to any “prohibited group,” such as the mentally ill, criminals, children or those at high risk of committing violent crime, such as individuals with a police record of threatening the life of another. </p>
<p>Here’s the bottom line. With these provisions, <a href="http://www.sascv.org/ijcjs/pdfs/Lemieuxijcjs2014vol9issue1.pdf">most U.S. active shooters</a> would have been denied the purchase of a firearm.</p>
<h2>#5: Most mass shootings are not terrorism</h2>
<p>Journalists <a href="http://baltimorepostexaminer.com/mass-shootings-are-homegrown-terrorism/2015/10/04">sometimes describe</a> mass shooting as a form of domestic terrorism. This connection may be misleading. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that mass shootings are “terrifying” and “terrorize” the community where they have happened. However, not all active shooters involved in mass shooting have a political message or cause. </p>
<p>For example, the church shooting in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015 was a hate crime but was not judged <a href="https://www.justsecurity.org/25071/reason-dylann-roof-charged-terrorism/">by the federal government</a> to be a terrorist act.</p>
<p>The majority of active shooters are linked to mental health issues, bullying and disgruntled employees. Active shooters may be motivated by a variety of personal or political motivations, usually not aimed at weakening government legitimacy. Frequent motivations are revenge or a quest for power.</p>
<p><em>Editor’s note: This piece was updated on May 18, 2018 and <a href="https://theconversation.com/six-things-to-know-about-mass-shootings-in-america-48934">Oct. 2, 2017</a>. It was originally published on Dec. 3, 2015.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96891/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Frederic Lemieux does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A criminologist reviews recent research to dispel common misconceptions about mass shootings.Frederic Lemieux, Professor of the Practice and Faculty Director of the Master's in Applied Intelligence, Georgetown UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/962702018-05-09T04:16:22Z2018-05-09T04:16:22ZWe must not punish content creators in our rush to regulate social platforms<p>By harnessing social media, the teenage survivors of the Parkland, Florida massacre in the United States have <a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/02/parkland-students-shooting-survivors-social-media">started a movement</a> that might finally shift the dial on gun control. </p>
<p>Using their cellphones and laptops, they’ve not only organised a march on Washington, but built a digital network of supporters who are putting unprecedented pressure on legislators. </p>
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<p>Social media platforms such as Facebook have richly earned our distrust. From <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2018/04/03/facebook-finds-more-evidence-of-russian-internet-research-agency-interference.html">Russian interference</a> in the 2016 US Presidential election, to the spread of <a href="https://newrepublic.com/article/147174/youtubes-fake-news-problem-isnt-going-away">fake news</a> and the recent <a href="https://theconversation.com/cambridge-analytica-scandal-facebooks-user-engagement-and-trust-decline-93814">Cambridge Analytica scandal</a>, the news just keeps getting worse. </p>
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<a href="https://theconversation.com/australias-screen-future-is-online-time-to-support-our-new-content-creators-82638">Australia's screen future is online: time to support our new content creators</a>
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<p>But the Parkland movement reminds us that digital platforms have also provided the infrastructure to give a new generation voice and influence for civic good. </p>
<p>Recent attempts to deal with the proliferation of fake news and extremist content on platforms has seen some creators lose both audience and revenue. Now that the pitchforks are out for the platforms, their facilitation of new voices should not be overlooked in the push for further regulation. </p>
<h2>Millions of creators and counting</h2>
<p>The Parkland teenagers <a href="http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/03/on-the-ground-with-parkland-teens-as-they-plot-a-revolution.html">were influenced</a> by established online creators like <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UClFSU9_bUb4Rc6OYfTt5SPw">Philip DeFranco</a>. DeFranco owns and operates his own social media brand, producing a daily vlog featuring commentary about topical events that are of interest to his online fan communities. And he’s just one of a number of young online leaders who are using social media platforms for good. </p>
<p>There are an <a href="http://www.recreatecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ReCreate-New-Creative-Economy-Study-Report-508.pdf">estimated</a> 1.8 million YouTube creators, as well as 3 million using Instagram, in the US alone. The top <a href="https://socialblade.com/youtube/top/5000/mostsubscribed">5,000 YouTube channels</a> each have more than 1.2 million subscribers and over 360 million video views. US creators earned an <a href="http://www.recreatecoalition.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/ReCreate-New-Creative-Economy-Study-Report-508.pdf">estimated</a> US$5.9 billion across nine digital platforms in 2016.</p>
<p>We have been researching this rising global creative industry of social media entrepreneurs and entertainers – called variously influencers, YouTubers, micro-celebrities, or just creators. It is radically <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9781479846894/">more diverse and egalitarian</a> than mainstream media, and has brought new voices to the public. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/government-regulation-of-social-media-would-be-a-cure-far-worse-than-the-disease-92008">Government regulation of social media would be a cure far worse than the disease</a>
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<p>In many instances, these online leaders have engaged in or facilitated social activism, raising civic awareness and funding for progressive causes. Videogame player and YouTuber, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7_YxT-KID8kRbqZo7MyscQ">Markiplier</a>, secured 20 million subscribers while also raising over <a href="https://www.forbes.com/30-under-30/2018/games/#69b663d41aeb">$US3 million for charity</a>.</p>
<p>The Green Brothers’ annual <a href="http://www.projectforawesome.com/">Project4Awesome</a> campaign has encouraged dozens of online content creators to dedicate their time and efforts to raise funds and awareness for social causes for over a decade. Ben Stiller, Colin Kaepernick, and Jerome Jarre’s <a href="https://www.lovearmy.org/">#LoveArmy</a> have raised millions for Mexican earthquake victims, Somalian famine sufferers, and Rohingyan refugees. </p>
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<p>At the corporate level, YouTube, through its <a href="https://www.youtube.com/yt/creators-for-change/">Creators for Change program</a>, has provided millions of dollars in support of the collective creative efforts of global multicultural creators. </p>
<h2>Demonetisation has already hurt them</h2>
<p>The capacity of online cultural leaders to pursue these agendas is vulnerable to the new appetite for regulation, and the need for the platforms to put their houses in order. </p>
<p>Both <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/17/extremists-ads-uk-brands-google-wagdi-ghoneim">The Guardian</a> and <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2018/04/19/technology/youtube-ads-extreme-content-investigation/index.html">CNN</a> criticised YouTube for placing mainstream brands’ advertising alongside extremist videos. In response, Google <a href="http://variety.com/2018/digital/news/youtube-changes-partner-program-google-preferred-advertisers-1202665815/">implemented</a> a filtration algorithm that would flag content deemed “brand-safe” for advertisers. </p>
<p>Though it may have been well-intentioned, the resulting “<a href="http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/can-youtube-survive-the-adpocalypse.html">adpocalypse</a>” led to the demonetisation of many of these progressive creators – including DeFranco – due to their use of language and content choices. </p>
<p>In another instance, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/caseyneistat">Casey Neistat</a> and #LoveArmy filmed a fundraiser for the victims of the Las Vegas shooting. However, it was <a href="https://thenextweb.com/google/2017/10/06/youtube-casey-neistat-las-vegas/">removed from YouTube</a> because of the platform’s improper flagging mechanism, which was created in an attempt to minimise the spread of conspiracy videos about the event. </p>
<p>When The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/21/business/media/youtube-conspiracy-video-parkland.html">highlighted</a> the rise of trending conspiracy videos about Parkland survivor, David Hogg, it failed to mention the numerous other videos created in support of the teens. These videos scaled five times faster and were likely also demonetised by YouTube’s filtering system. One <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8tT3FhOA4-g">video</a> by DeFranco directly addressing these “disgusting conspiracy videos” has close to two million views. </p>
<h2>Regulation shouldn’t stifle voices for good</h2>
<p>As the call for greater regulation of these platforms gains momentum worldwide, it is critical to acknowledge that existing government regulation has already imposed greater constraint on many of these creators’ practices than those rules applied to more traditional media like television. </p>
<p>The US Federal Trade Commission <a href="https://www.ftc.gov/tips-advice/business-center/guidance/ftcs-endorsement-guides-what-people-are-asking">regulation</a> demands that online creators be transparent about sponsorship and branded content. But traditional celebrities are able to flaunt their own brands on the red carpet, on the court, and across their own online channels without prohibition. </p>
<p>For decades, Fox News operated with the tagline “fair and balanced” without any regulatory constraint. This despite the years of academic media <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2604679">research</a> that nailed the channel as a purveyor of media disinformation with a staunch conservative bent. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/from-metoo-to-ricebunny-how-social-media-users-are-campaigning-in-china-90860">From #MeToo to #RiceBunny: how social media users are campaigning in China</a>
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<p>These concerns are at their greatest in the policing and censorship of Chinese creators (known as “Wang Hong”). Operating on Chinese owned-and-operated platforms, their ability to raise critically sensitive societal issues is <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/41398423/social-media-and-censorship-in-china-how-is-it-different-to-the-west">firmly surveilled</a>. </p>
<p>In China, as in many parts of the world, LGBTQ content and creators remain <a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/04/16/audacity-adversity/lgbt-activism-middle-east-and-north-africa">forbidden</a> in mainstream media. The only hope for this community rests on the ability of these creators to express and fund themselves across social media platforms. </p>
<p>Whether because of hubris or poor internal governance, the platforms deserve what is coming at them. Our hope is that those regulators in a position to demand that platforms behave more responsibly will not implement policy at the expense of those young online leaders harnessing these platforms for good.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96270/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Stuart Cunningham receives funding from the Australian Research Council (DP160100086) to conduct research on which this article is based.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Craig does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The activism of the Parkland teens is a reminder of where social media gets it right. We mustn’t forget them in our rush to regulate.Stuart Cunningham, Distinguished Professor, Media and Communication, Queensland University of TechnologyDavid Craig, Fellow at the Peabody Media Center and Clinical Assistant Professor of Communication, USC Annenberg School for Communication and JournalismLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/960832018-05-07T22:33:47Z2018-05-07T22:33:47ZThe importance of accountability after deadly disasters<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/217994/original/file-20180507-46335-1el66dl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C161%2C3000%2C2020&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A hand touches the monument that honours the 26 coal miners who perished in the Westray mine disaster at the Westray Miners Memorial Park in New Glasgow, N.S. On the 26th anniversary of the disaster, are we doing enough to ensure those responsible for such disasters are accountable?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>This week marks the 26th anniversary of the explosion at the Westray mine in the Nova Scotia community of Plymouth. Sparks in the mine combined with methane gas to cause <a href="https://novascotia.ca/lae/pubs/westray/">an explosion that killed 26 men on May 9, 1992</a>.</p>
<p>In the inquiry that followed, many people and organizations were singled out as contributing to the event, but <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/westray-mine-explosion-25-anniversary-allen-martin-1.4103956">no criminal convictions resulted.</a></p>
<p>Today, the people of Lac-Megantic in Quebec share a similar tragic fate as the people of Plymouth. The July 2013 train derailment in Lac-Megantic <a href="http://www.tsb.gc.ca/eng/rapports-reports/rail/2013/r13d0054/r13d0054-r-es.asp">killed 47 and wiped out the town’s downtown core</a>. Despite the trials and investigations, we are left wondering who is responsible.</p>
<p>After the failure of complex systems that result in deadly disasters, we struggle to hold people to account. </p>
<p>Organizational anthropologists refer to four types of accountability: Market, bureaucratic, community and randomness. Each type characterizes accountability differently; all have strengths and important limitations. </p>
<h2>Markets and the law</h2>
<p>Markets punish organizations after disasters; share values tumble and lawsuits mount. Many companies do not survive. Low-probability/high-consequence events like these, however, cannot be left to markets alone to address. </p>
<p>Markets encourage people to take chances and cut costs; they incentivize organizations to offload costs on others and not disclose information about vulnerabilities. The highly integrated nature of supply chains means that one small failure can sometimes have a massive cascading effect. </p>
<p>The concept of insurance — a common social response to managing risk — is also limited because these events involve so many organizations, are expensive and occur so rarely that there is a dearth of reliable predictive data. As American economist <a href="https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/06/07/Cummins.pdf">J. David Cummins emphasizes</a>: “Catastrophic events, and particularly mega-catastrophes such as Katrina and the WTC terrorist attack, violate to some degree nearly all of the standard conditions for insurability.”</p>
<p>Legal mechanisms have similar challenges; it is very difficult to find one smoking gun. Last year, Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward Gareau <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ex-engineer-not-guilty-of-criminal-negligence-in-ontario-mall-collapse/article35178289/">found Robert Wood not guilty of criminal charges stemming from the Algo Centre mall collapse in Elliot Lake, Ont.</a>, that killed two people and injured more than 20, partly because there were too many people involved to hold one person to account.</p>
<p>The judge, troubled by his own verdict, declared Wood had to accept moral responsibility for the event, a vague and unenforceable concept.</p>
<p>Other legal mechanisms are also limited. Non-disclosure agreements, <a href="https://www.thestar.com/business/2016/04/27/feds-tight-lipped-on-amount-paid-in-lac-mgantic-settlement.html">as we saw in Lac-Mégantic</a>, can be an efficient way to compensate victims, but they also shelter those who are responsible. </p>
<p>After Westray, the so-called <a href="https://lop.parl.ca/About/Parliament/LegislativeSummaries/bills_ls.asp?ls=c45&Parl=37&Ses=2">Westray bill</a> amended Canada’s Criminal Code to extend the criminal liability of corporations in the field of health and safety. <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/nova-scotia/deadly-westray-disaster-watershed-for-safety-1.4403588">Only five employers have served time for fatality-related incidents since it was enacted in 2004</a>.</p>
<h2>Public bureaucracies</h2>
<p>We value public bureaucracies because of their specialization, stability and clarity of accountability; they can also manage big projects for the public good. </p>
<p>But big projects can also result in big failures, and as projects become larger and more complex, it makes it harder for bureaucracies to identify who is responsible. That in turn facilitates blame-shifting and the practice of sweeping indiscretions under the carpet.</p>
<p>Senior public officials don’t want to take responsibility for failures that they did not create themselves. They do not want to be blamed for policy decisions taken by politicians, or for underfunding.</p>
<p>Yet the “behind the curtain” tendencies of public servants in times of disaster erodes trust in governance. When asked in 2015 whether any public servants lost their jobs because of the events in Lac-Mégantic, then-federal transport minister Lisa Raitt <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/lac-m%C3%A9gantic-disaster-led-to-transport-canada-shakeup-says-minister-lisa-raitt-1.3134120">could not give a straight answer</a>.</p>
<p>Inquiries are crucial for understanding the circumstances surrounding disasters. Westminster-style governments have a tendency to establish inquiries. </p>
<p>Still, governments, which are often in a conflict of interest in these matters, don’t always call them. When they do, it’s sometimes simply to ease short-term political pressure. But inquiries are limited by their mandates, can only make recommendations and are only as good as our willingness to learn from and act on them. </p>
<h2>Community accountability</h2>
<p>Community accountability occurs when a community is held accountable to itself. Here, the concept of “community” is malleable; it refers to a group with a shared identity.</p>
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<span class="caption">A five-year-old girl is taken to an evacuation helicopter at the South Grey Bruce Health Centre in Walkerton, Ont., in May 2000. Officials in charge of the contaminated water supply that claimed the lives of six people did not realize the potential danger of E. coli when they failed to warn residents not to drink the water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(CP PHOTO/Kevin Frayer)</span></span>
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<p><a href="https://novascotia.ca/just/rj/documents/execsumm1.pdf">Restorative justice</a> embodies aspects of community accountability; some call it “face-to-face” accountability. Unlike a bureaucratic approach, a community approach can be deeply personal. </p>
<p>Following the deaths of six people due to water contamination in 2000, <a href="http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/e_records/walkerton/index.html">Ontario’s Walkerton inquiry</a> demonstrated shades of a community approach when Justice Dennis O’Connor chose to hold the inquiry in the town of Walkerton itself and allowed residents to provide personal accounts of the impact of the tragedy.</p>
<p>But there are challenges. Community accountability is oriented inward to the community, not outward to broader society, which also needs to learn about the systemic failures. Communities can fragment under this pressure; if the finger-pointing gets too intense, the community breaks down.</p>
<p>Communities can also feel anger towards outside organizations that they distrust. Following <a href="https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11439851">the Cave Creek disaster in New Zealand</a> in which 13 youth and one adult died after a poorly constructed lookout point collapsed in a national park — and no one was ever convicted of a crime — the lawyer representing the government claimed that some <a href="https://youtu.be/5SVwv5Uhnkw?t=1h16m20s">people were simply out for revenge</a>.</p>
<h2>A random world</h2>
<p>A new dynamic is emerging from our networked society: Randomness. In a random world, bad things happen; the world is a chaotic place, unworthy of trust or rational risk assessment. </p>
<p>Social media typifies this chaotic universe. <a href="https://biblio.ugent.be/publication/4183544/file/4336805.pdf">As European scholar Pieter Rutsaert and his colleagues emphasize</a>, social media “has the potential to develop a seemingly small-scale risk into a full-blown … crisis.”</p>
<p>Accountability can also be random, underpinned by the fickle finger of fate.</p>
<p>Following the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-school-shooting-timeline/index.html">recent school shooting in Parkland, Fla.</a>, an online campaign emerged <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/mec-vista-outdoor-1.4557071">demanding that Mountain Equipment Co-op drop any products related to Vista Outdoor</a> because it was a manufacturer of guns; other organizations managed to avoid the online scrutiny. </p>
<p>Media amplifies some tragedies and plays down others. Events that happen on the weekend, for example, get more coverage.</p>
<p>In this context, the prominence of an event is driven by visuals and by the emotional weight of the story, which can be light on facts. </p>
<p>This dynamic results in people developing defensive posturing, adaptive capacity and brand management.</p>
<p>How we hold people to account after disasters is deeply embedded in social context; it is a legal question and a moral one. </p>
<p>When catastrophic events occur, we must consider the social and technological pressures that shape our behaviours and inform our accountability systems. We must emphasize learning, transparency and ethical conduct, and maintain public confidence in our overall system of governance. Recent events suggest there is much work to do.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/96083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kevin Quigley has received three research grants from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) over the past decade to research topics of accountability and critical infrastructure. He is the Scholarly Director of the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance at Dalhousie University. He is also the co-author of Too Critical to Fail: How Canada Manages Threats to Critical Infrastructure, currently shortlisted for the Donner Prize.</span></em></p>This week marks the 26th anniversary of the Westray mine disaster in Nova Scotia. There have been plenty of disasters since then but we still struggle to hold people to account when systems fail.Kevin Quigley, Scholarly Director of the MacEachen Institute for Public Policy and Governance, Dalhousie UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/942472018-04-04T10:47:46Z2018-04-04T10:47:46ZToday’s youth reject capitalism, but what do they want to replace it?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212860/original/file-20180402-189821-131rfk7.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Today's youth are increasingly rejecting capitalism.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Phil Sears</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today’s youth <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">are increasingly unhappy</a> with the way their elders are running the world. </p>
<p>Their ire was most recently expressed when <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/3/19/17139654/march-for-our-lives-dc-march-24-protest">thousands of teenagers</a> and others across the country marched on March 24 demanding more gun control, a little over a month after more than <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/02/15/us/florida-shooting-victims-school/index.html">a dozen of their peers</a> were shot and killed at a high school in Parkland, Florida.</p>
<p>But there’s growing evidence that today’s young adults, ranging in age from 18 to 29 or so, are strongly dissatisfied with other fundamental aspects of our political and economic system. Specifically, growing numbers are rejecting capitalism. </p>
<p>This led us – a sociologist and an <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=DWGTo1cAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao">economist</a> – to wonder how would young people redesign the economic system if they could. The answer, based on recent surveys, should make any status-quo politician seriously rethink their economic policies.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/212857/original/file-20180402-189804-1tertn5.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Demonstrators march through Cincinnati during the March for Our Lives protest for gun legislation and school safety.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/John Minchillo</span></span>
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<h2>Rejecting capitalism</h2>
<p>We first wanted to better understand how young people feel about the current economic system. </p>
<p>So we started by examining a <a href="http://iop.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/content/160423_Harvard%20IOP_Spring%202016_TOPLINE_u.pdf">troubling 2016 Harvard University survey</a> that found that 51 percent of American youth aged 18 to 29 no longer support capitalism. Only 42 percent said they back it, while just 19 percent were willing to call themselves “capitalists.” </p>
<p>While it may be true that young people of any generation tend to have less support for incumbent economic and political systems and tend to change their views as they age, past polls on the topic suggest this is a new phenomenon felt especially by today’s youth. A <a href="http://www.aei.org/publication/an-enduring-culture-of-free-enterprise/">2010 Gallop poll</a> showed that only 38 percent of young people had a negative view of capitalism – and that was right after the worst financial and economic crisis since the Great Depression, which <a href="https://d-nb.info/1011870347/34">hit young people</a> especially hard.</p>
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<p>What can we make of this? Do they prefer socialism, in which the government more actively regulates and intervenes in the economy and restricts individual choice? </p>
<p>It’s unclear. The Harvard poll showed just 33 percent said they favor socialism. A <a href="http://reason.com/poll">separate poll</a>, however, conducted in 2015 by conservative-leaning Reason-Rupe, found that young adults aged 18 to 24 have a slightly more favorable view of socialism than capitalism. </p>
<p>Their views contrast markedly with their older peers, who consistently tell pollsters they prefer capitalism by wide margins – more so as their age climbs. Still, the share of the overall population that questions capitalism’s core precepts is around the highest in at least 80 years of polling on the topic. </p>
<p>To be sure, the questions pollsters ask Americans vary significantly from poll to poll, and sample sizes aren’t always large enough to draw firm conclusions. </p>
<p>All the same, the data suggest that today’s young people are part of a vanguard of Americans losing faith in capitalism and ready to embrace something new. </p>
<p><iframe id="PZGWv" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/PZGWv/2/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p>
<h2>But what do they want?</h2>
<p>So if young people are increasingly rejecting capitalism but they’re ambivalent about socialism, what do they want? </p>
<p>To answer this, we need to explore what about capitalism they find so unsatisfying. </p>
<p>A <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/04/26/a-majority-of-millennials-now-reject-capitalism-poll-shows/?utm_term=.e8f05f5285ed">follow-up focus group</a> to the Harvard study concluded that many of these young people feel that “capitalism was unfair and left people out despite their hard work.” A 2012 survey by the <a href="http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2012/01/11/rising-share-of-americans-see-conflict-between-rich-and-poor/">Pew Research Center found</a> that 71 percent of those 18-34 years of age perceive strong conflicts between the rich and the poor in American society. </p>
<p>A majority of young people said they believe that those with means got there because “they know the right people or were born into wealthy families.” </p>
<p>These views on the inequality inherent in the American economic system command majorities of Republicans, Democrats, Independents, conservatives, moderates and liberals. To us, this suggests the critical reason young people have lost faith in capitalism is that it has lost its ability to be fair. But they don’t seem to think an alternate system such as socialism can fix the problem.</p>
<p>Rather, we can begin to piece together what might work, in their view, by examining a <a href="https://www.nceo.org/assets/pdf/articles/PPP_results_employee_ownership.pdf">2015 survey by Public Policy Polling</a>, which asked participants their views on employee-owned companies and government intervention to encourage them. </p>
<p>The poll found that 75 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds support this, far more than every other age category, while 83 percent said employee-owned companies are as American as apple pie, hot dogs and baseball. </p>
<p>So these polls in a way suggest young people don’t want less capitalism, they want more of it. They just want to make sure it’s shared more broadly, such as by making it easier for more of us to become capitalists and share in the wealth we collectively create. </p>
<p>As two professors meeting this generation daily in our classrooms, we have been surprised by the strong support for these concepts in our college courses on economics and corporate governance.</p>
<p>Other surveys suggest that the desire for a more inclusive form of capitalism is becoming more widely held. A <a href="http://news.gallup.com/reports/199961/state-american-workplace-report-2017.aspx#aspnetForm">2016 Gallup State of the American Workplace</a> survey found that 40 percent of all American workers would leave their company to work for one that had profit-sharing.</p>
<p>And it’s becoming increasingly easy to do that as more companies in the U.S. embrace employee ownership in one form or another, some drawn by its <a href="http://papers.nber.org/books/krus08-1">ability to reduce turnover</a> and <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/search/node/blasi">improve economic performance</a>. And just last year, a <a href="https://www.certifiedeo.com/about_us">company started up in Silicon Valley</a> offering certification of employee-owned businesses “to build an employee-owned economy.” </p>
<h2>Gunning for the economy</h2>
<p>What Americans witnessed on March 24 was an energetic, dynamic and powerful new political force in America.</p>
<p>Right now it’s focused on guns. But this force may well turn its attention to the structure of corporations and an economic system that has led to ever-widening levels of inequality. </p>
<p>Just as lawmakers may want to rethink their views on gun rights, they may also want to begin re-examining their understanding of what capitalism is supposed to look like. </p>
<p><iframe id="z4GKq" class="tc-infographic-datawrapper" src="https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/z4GKq/4/" height="400px" width="100%" style="border: none" frameborder="0"></iframe></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/94247/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joseph Blasi is affiliated with Rutgers University as a professor.
I also have an affiliation as a Senior Fellow with the The Aspen Institute.
I am currently co-principal investigator of a W.K. Kellogg Foundation research grant on employee ownership and modest income employees. The National Bureau for Economic Research Shared Capitalism Project received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Employee Ownership Foundation for our University of Chicago book's research. The Institute of which I serve as director, the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing receives funding from a number of foundations and individual donors to support fellowships and conferences in this area. The professorship I hold was endowed by the Beyster Foundation.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Douglas Kruse is affiliated with Rutgers University as a professor. I also have an affiliation as a Research Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA) in Bonn. I am currently co-principal investigator of a W.K. Kellogg Foundation research grant on employee ownership and modest income employees. The National Bureau for Economic Research Shared Capitalism Project received funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Russell Sage Foundation, and the Employee Ownership Foundation for our University of Chicago book's research. The Institute of which I serve as associate director, the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing receives funding from a number of foundations and individual donors to support fellowships and conferences in this area. I am a Beyster Faculty Fellow at Rutgers supported by the Beyster Foundation.</span></em></p>The recent March for Our Lives showed just how unsatisfied American youth are with their leaders. Recent polls suggest the economic system may be the next item on their agenda.Joseph Blasi, J. Robert Beyster Distinguished Professor and Director of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, School of Management and Labor Relations, Rutgers UniversityDouglas L. Kruse, Distinguished Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Rutgers UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/938932018-03-26T12:48:15Z2018-03-26T12:48:15ZMarch for Our Lives was about far more than students and gun control<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211872/original/file-20180325-54866-1ujzlnz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>On a cool, sunny Saturday morning in Philadelphia, I watched as an estimated 20,000 people joined hundreds of thousands more across the US to <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-43531391">march for their lives</a>. Responding to February’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/florida-school-shooting-urgency-of-gun-reform-calls-for-dramatic-action-from-young-survivors-92692">mass shooting</a> at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, participants called for an end to the stubborn political and cultural impasse that has frustrated all attempts at gun reform. But March for Our Lives suggests that a far more significant movement for democratic change is taking root.</p>
<p>After the <a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/12/14/us/sandy-hook-newtown-shooting-victims-profiles/index.html">Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre</a> in 2012, public policy scholar Kristin A. Goss <a href="http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.org/brief/americas-missing-popular-movement-gun-control">wrote</a> about the curious absence of a “popular movement for gun control”. The failure of measures to prevent future slayings in the event’s aftermath paralysed many Americans: if the killing of 20 elementary school children could not move policymakers to act, then nothing could. Things are different now. The Philadelphia march alone should force a long-delayed conversation about the city’s gun crime, and will hopefully pressure lawmakers to do something meaningful about it.</p>
<p>Philadelphia has so far been spared the horror of a mass school shooting, but the city is nevertheless blighted by gun violence. There were reportedly 335 gun deaths in 2017. Statistics show that since 2006, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/364274961.html">more than 14,500 people have been shot in Philadelphia</a>. <a href="http://www.ceasefirepa.org/author/shira/">Shira Goodman</a>, executive director of CeasefirePA and currently running for Congress, said at the march that while mass shootings may galvanise people, Philadelphia suffers from a daily problem of violence that remains overlooked.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211861/original/file-20180325-54884-1orxibd.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Calling it.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The timing of the march could not have been better: it coincided with both an <a href="https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/Gun-Show-Illegal-Sales-Arrest-Oaks-Pennsylvania-Montgomery-Delaware-County-474638883.html">annual gun show in nearby Oaks</a> and a Guardian report that a rural Pennsylvania school district would begin arming teachers and students with <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/mar/24/school-district-in-pennsylvania-to-arm-students-and-teachers-with-rocks">buckets of rocks</a>, to be kept locked in a classroom closet in the event of an armed assailant breaking in.</p>
<p>Fitting then that March for Our Lives foregrounded the perspectives of students themselves. To be sure, the diligent work of youth leaders ensured the international success of Saturday’s marches. Assembled outside Independence Hall on the morning were children of all ages, armed with placards, hoodies, and chants asserting the hypocrisy and inadequacies of current gun laws. It was heartening to see politically engaged young people speak so eloquently and passionately about the issues affecting their lives. </p>
<p>And yet, something deeper is happening – and the marchers assembled outside Independence Hall made for a remarkably broad church.</p>
<h2>American responsibility</h2>
<p>Among the marchers were members of all sorts of groups – Moms Demand Action for Common Sense Gun Control, Everytown for Gun Safety, Black Lives Matter, and the Conscious Elders Network. Veterans of last year’s Women’s Marches proudly donned their <a href="https://theconversation.com/pussyhat-power-the-feminist-protesters-crafting-resistance-to-trump-and-his-supporters-72221">pussyhats</a>. Many more took to the streets for the first time, pushed to action by the seriousness of the cause.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211860/original/file-20180325-54881-1589tc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Up in arms.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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<p>And there is little to indicate that gun reform will be enough. The spectre of Donald Trump and all that the current presidency represents loomed over Philadelphia’s march. Marchers Carole and Craig, who have demonstrated since the 1960s, told me they were seizing an opportunity to help galvanise a wider movement for the democratic change they feel the country has needed for some time. Addressing the crowd, Pennsylvania Representative <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/news/at-phillys-march-for-our-lives-calls-to-remember-gun-violence-is-nothing-new-20180324.html">Brian Sims</a> passionately linked gun culture to racism and gender and sexual discrimination. And marked out by their fluorescent vests and clipboards, countless volunteers implored people to register to vote in the upcoming midterm elections and effect broader electoral change. </p>
<p>Many marchers were clearly there to demand a much broader national conversation. Not everyone agreed on the need for extensive gun reform. Pennsylvania is a culturally diverse state, including not just the metropolis of Philadelphia and industrial heartlands but rural areas where <a href="http://www.pgc.pa.gov/HuntTrap/Hunting/Pages/default.aspx">hunting is still a way of life</a>. </p>
<p>I met one marcher who grew up around guns and wants to see a ban on the notorious <a href="https://www.npr.org/2018/02/28/588861820/a-brief-history-of-the-ar-15">AR-15 semiautomatic rifle</a>, but who also prefers the norm of responsible gun ownership to the prospect of a blanket ban of all firearms. Another person I spoke with reflected on the need for people to engage in frank political discussions with their neighbours.</p>
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<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211863/original/file-20180325-54866-58xxoo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">In it together.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
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</figure>
<p>The current uproar about school safety and gun control is part of a deeper American reckoning over personal responsibility and recklessness. Mark Timpone, parent of a student in Parkland, told marchers about his decision to <a href="https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/Stoneman-Douglas-Parent-Turns-His-AR-15-In-to-BSO-474641303.html">give up his own AR-15</a>. The power of his story came from his candid explanation of how he obtained the gun in the first place – how he knowingly exploited loopholes and deliberately sought out an unlicensed vendor at a gun show to get hold of it faster. His frank honesty quietened the assembled crowd. </p>
<p>As with all mass protest movements, whether and how March for Our Lives can translate its momentum into tangible legislative change remains to be seen. By drawing 800,000 demonstrators to the US capital and countless thousands to “sibling marches” around the world, this campaign is already shaping public debate – but gun control measures are only one front in this struggle.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93893/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jon Coburn does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>America’s gun violence debate is at a fever pitch – but it’s part of a much deeper cultural reckoning.Jon Coburn, Teaching Fellow in History, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/937782018-03-22T10:42:38Z2018-03-22T10:42:38ZSchool resource officers can prevent tragedies, but training is key<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211454/original/file-20180321-165550-11x0otl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police in front of Great Mills High School, the scene of a shooting on March 20, 2018, in Great Mills, Md.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Maryland-School-Shooting/dac6de33b09e499d8f0f85796655090b/2/0">Alex Brandon/AP</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Despite <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222199181_School_Resource_Officers_and_the_Criminalization_of_Student_Behavior">legitimate concerns</a> about the effects of placing school resource officers in the nation’s schools, the reality is having these officers on a school’s campus can literally save lives and avert tragedy. </p>
<p>That much became clear on March 20, when school resource officer Blaine Gaskill <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/03/20/us/maryland-school-shooting-resource-officer-response-trnd/index.html">rushed toward a shooter</a> who had opened fire at Great Mills High School in Maryland. He effectively stopped the shooter, who had already wounded two students.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=887&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/211456/original/file-20180321-165574-1xm0lhs.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1115&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Deputy First Class Blaine Gaskill, a school resource officer who engaged a shooter at Great Mills High School.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Maryland-School-Shooting/63ea155a5d8447229a6ae1e1740def8c/1/0">St. Mary's Sheriff's Office via AP</a></span>
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<p>Gaskill’s heroic work stands in stark contrast to that of Deputy Scot Peterson, who was seen on video footage standing outside Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, as the school shooting there was underway. At Marjory Stoneman, 17 people, mostly students, were killed on Feb. 14.</p>
<p>So why do some resource officers perform so well while others don’t?</p>
<h2>The need for training and standards</h2>
<p>What makes a school resource officer successful, though, isn’t only about how they respond to emergencies. In fact, a critical part of their role is in prevention. Stopping school violence before it ever begins relies heavily on the training that school resource officers, commonly referred to as SROs, receive or don’t receive.</p>
<p>I make these observations as the <a href="https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=RzBpB7MAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=sra">director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center</a> and as one who has <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278644867_Campus_Violence_Prevention_and_Response">co-authored a technical report</a> on campus violence prevention and response to active shooters.</p>
<p>Incredibly, there are no national standards – and in many cases no state standards – for school resource officer training. That means there is little consistency <a href="http://www2.ed.gov/policy/gen/guid/school-discipline/guiding-principles.pdf">in how SROs are prepared</a> to work in schools.</p>
<p>While school resource officers have already undergone regular police training, SRO training that exists tends to focus on legal issues or school security, <a href="http://www.modelsforchange.net/publications/261">as opposed to other things</a> like de-escalation techniques, bullying and cyberbullying, child development, symptoms of trauma, or educational issues, such as working with children with special needs.</p>
<h2>How school officers could make things worse</h2>
<p>In my opinion, this lack of training is one of the factors that is fueling the debate over the use of police officers in schools. The U.S. Department of Education has recommended that school resource officers not be involved in school discipline, as inadequately trained officers <a href="http://www.campussafetymagazine.com/article/police_mental_health_social_services_must_work_together/School_Resource_Officers">may inadvertently escalate problems</a> or <a href="http://youthjusticenc.org/download/education-justice/school-policing-security/School%20Resource%20Of%EF%AC%81cers%20and%20the%20Criminalization%20of%20Student%20Behavior.pdf">criminalize</a> students and contribute to what has come to be known as the “school-to-prison pipeline.” This is a particularly sensitive issue when it comes to dealing with minority and disabled students.</p>
<p>In 2015, Deputy Ben Fields garnered national attention when a cellphone video emerged of him appearing to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/video-appears-show-cop-body-slamming-student-s-c-classroom-n451896">body slam and drag</a> a female student across a classroom at Spring Valley High School in Columbia, South Carolina. Such incidents force us to question the wisdom of putting police officers, particularly officers not trained to work with children, in American high schools.</p>
<p>To complicate things further, one study that <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/222199181_School_Resource_Officers_and_the_Criminalization_of_Student_Behavior">examined the impact</a> of SROs found that their presence in schools was not all good or bad. For instance, while arrests for disorderly conduct increased, arrests for more serious offenses decreased.</p>
<p>And yet other studies suggest how positive an influence school resource officers can be. Research on almost 2,000 students found that youth who had positive opinions about police officers reported <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541204014564472">feeling safer</a> in schools with SROs present. In a study in which researchers <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1541204014564472">interviewed dozens of SROs</a>, officers themselves tend to emphasize the importance of informal discussions and education, instead of being overly reliant on formal discipline, whenever possible.</p>
<p>Training is emerging as key in helping SROs successfully increase school safety, as recognized in a U.S. Department of Education <a href="https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED544743">guide on improving school climate and discipline</a> and “<a href="https://www.nasponline.org/resources-and-publications/resources/school-safety-and-crisis/a-framework-for-safe-and-successful-schools">A Framework for Safe and Successful Schools</a>.”</p>
<p>Yet despite a high level of consensus among researchers and criminal justice experts that school resource officers should undergo specialized training, <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2015/11/why-do-most-school-cops-have-no-student-training-requirements/414286/">few of the 19,000 SROs in the United States are in fact trained</a>. </p>
<h2>Different training, different outcomes</h2>
<p>Gaps in training could also explain the difference between the responses in Florida and Maryland.</p>
<p>In “<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278644867_Campus_Violence_Prevention_and_Response">Campus Violence, Prevention and Response</a>,” a 2008 report that I co-authored, my colleagues and I recommended that campus officers should all be trained in active shooter response tactics. In an active shooter situation, <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/278644867_Campus_Violence_Prevention_and_Response">as my colleagues and I argued</a>, campus police need specialized equipment to gain forcible entry into locked buildings and classrooms. This is different from traditional training, where police may be instructed to wait outside. Their staffing levels need to be adequate for the size and layout of the school.</p>
<p>But our report also made recommendations about prevention. A key recommendation was that school personnel need to be trained to identify students at risk.</p>
<p>The Parkland school shooter clearly demonstrated many such warning signs. This is one of the reasons why police there are reviewing <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2018/03/20/deputy-suspended-after-sleeping-tasked-protecting-florida-high-school-where-mass-shooting-happened-w/443818002/">why all these warnings</a> did not suggest a significant pattern to local police.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/93778/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Elizabeth Englander receives funding from the Digital Trust Foundation, Massachusetts District Attorneys, and the Massachusetts Office of Public Safety. </span></em></p>The debate over using school resource officers to prevent school shootings got a fresh airing, after an officer stopped a gunman at a Maryland high school. One researcher says training is key.Elizabeth Englander, Professor of Psychology, and the Director of the Massachusetts Aggression Reduction Center (MARC), Bridgewater State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.