Statistics of school shootings since 1950

Paco Dennis

Paco Dennis

SF VIP
Location
Mid-Missouri
I searched Google because school shootings were rare in 1950. Now it has become an event that happens almost weekly. Something has gone terribly wrong in our families and/or culture to create an atmosphere this dangerous.

How can we possibly stop this tragedy from happening?


School shooting incidents in the U.S. have risen dramatically, increasing from 20 in 1970 to over 250 annually by 2021, with a record high of 352 incidents in 2023. Recent data shows a sharp increase in frequency since 2018, with a significant rise in student exposure and fatalities, particularly in K-12 schools. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Key Trends in School Shootings (1950–Present)

• Rapid Rise: The frequency of school shootings has accelerated rapidly in recent years, with over 400 incidents occurring since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
• Annual Data Highlights:

• 1970: 20 incidents reported.
• 2018–2023: A significant, sharp increase in incidents began in 2018.
• 2023: Highest on record with 352 incidents in K-12 schools.
• 2025: 233 incidents reported in K-12 schools.

• Fatalities and Intensity: The death rate from school shootings has risen more than sixfold. While 2022 was one of the deadliest with 47 fatalities, 2025 saw 32 deaths,.
• Increased Exposure: The rate of student exposure to school shootings nearly tripled between 1999-2004 and 2020-2024, driven largely by pandemic-era incidents.
• Geographic and Demographic Trends: Southern states have seen the highest rates of school shootings since 2008, while 55% of active shooter incidents since 1999 occurred in high schools. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Contextual Data

• Mass Shootings: While general incidents are up, school mass shootings (3+ victims) do not show the same long-term upward trend, but have seen higher fatalities per incident in recent years (7.6 in 1997–2012 vs. 14 in 2013–2022).
• Definition Variation: Statistics can differ based on whether definitions include only active shooters or any instance of a gun being fired on school property. [7, 8]

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] Study Quantifies Dramatic Rise in School Shootings and Related Fatalities Since 1970
[2] School Shooting Statistics and Youth Gun Violence
[3] https://www.security.org/blog/a-timeline-of-school-shootings-since-columbine/
[4] https://www.kff.org/mental-health/e...d-state-level-and-mental-health-implications/
[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/school-shootings-database/
[6] https://www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg
[7] https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html
[8] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5314897/
 

I think mental illness has become rampant in the U.S. The people that commit these crimes don’t stop to think about the consequences, nor do they care. I knew a pilot that had a son who killed his girlfriend’s parents with his dad’s .357. He suffered from 3 different mental illnesses. I felt bad for our pilot and gave him my condolences because he was in a bad way himself. The cops asked him a lot of questions about the gun and his relationship with his son. He told a small group of us that the cops spoke with him for over 4 hours.

The kid was 17, but got life without parole. The sentence was later revised to 50 years without parole. The last that I knew, the lawyer for the kid was appealing the re-sentence term. They wanted it lowered to 25 years with the possibility of parole after twelve and a half years.
 

RambleTamble said:
In pretty much every case, the perpetrator kills himself or herself. They're suicidal and choose to go out in a "blaze of glory" rather than just killing themselves. And they can do that pretty easily since guns are so readily available in our country.
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They've been readily available in our country for centuries, and ownership wasn't regulated until about 100 years ago. In fact, relative to the size of the population, far fewer people own guns now than back in the wild west days.

Multiple school and mass shootings are a 20th century thing, and there has always been a motive, usually psychological. So, imo, we need to focus on that. We need to find out if those psychological motives are due to societal issues, or if they are actual physical or physiological changes, such as chemical exposure, abnormal hormonal changes, genetic anomaly, etc. And whichever is found to be the likely cause, we need to be fully informed, and insist on effective solutions.
 
We've become a dissolute society. Turning that around would require a major societal shift toward morality, personal responsibility, and ethical behavior. This would require huge changes to industry (particularly the entertainment and broadcast industries), government, schools & colleges, and the home.

Frankly our society seems to cling desperately to its decadence and I really don't see such changes coming any time soon.
 
Paco Dennis said:
I searched Google because school shootings were rare in 1950. Now it has become an event that happens almost weekly. Something has gone terribly wrong in our families and/or culture to create an atmosphere this dangerous.

How can we possibly stop this tragedy from happening?


School shooting incidents in the U.S. have risen dramatically, increasing from 20 in 1970 to over 250 annually by 2021, with a record high of 352 incidents in 2023. Recent data shows a sharp increase in frequency since 2018, with a significant rise in student exposure and fatalities, particularly in K-12 schools. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Key Trends in School Shootings (1950–Present)

• Rapid Rise: The frequency of school shootings has accelerated rapidly in recent years, with over 400 incidents occurring since the 1999 Columbine High School massacre.
• Annual Data Highlights:

• 1970: 20 incidents reported.
• 2018–2023: A significant, sharp increase in incidents began in 2018.
• 2023: Highest on record with 352 incidents in K-12 schools.
• 2025: 233 incidents reported in K-12 schools.

• Fatalities and Intensity: The death rate from school shootings has risen more than sixfold. While 2022 was one of the deadliest with 47 fatalities, 2025 saw 32 deaths,.
• Increased Exposure: The rate of student exposure to school shootings nearly tripled between 1999-2004 and 2020-2024, driven largely by pandemic-era incidents.
• Geographic and Demographic Trends: Southern states have seen the highest rates of school shootings since 2008, while 55% of active shooter incidents since 1999 occurred in high schools. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]

Contextual Data

• Mass Shootings: While general incidents are up, school mass shootings (3+ victims) do not show the same long-term upward trend, but have seen higher fatalities per incident in recent years (7.6 in 1997–2012 vs. 14 in 2013–2022).
• Definition Variation: Statistics can differ based on whether definitions include only active shooters or any instance of a gun being fired on school property. [7, 8]

AI responses may include mistakes.

[1] Study Quantifies Dramatic Rise in School Shootings and Related Fatalities Since 1970
[2] School Shooting Statistics and Youth Gun Violence
[3] https://www.security.org/blog/a-timeline-of-school-shootings-since-columbine/
[4] https://www.kff.org/mental-health/e...d-state-level-and-mental-health-implications/
[5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/school-shootings-database/
[6] https://www.cnn.com/us/school-shootings-fast-facts-dg
[7] https://www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays/mass-shootings.html
[8] https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5314897/
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I firmly believe that you named a primary issue early in your posting. When you said something has gone terribly wrong in FAMILY life, you nailed it. Unless and until the family unit becomes a real focus again we won't be on the road toward solutions. The apathetic parent is perhaps the worst plague of our times.
 
I don't see school shootings as an American issue. Without guns London has had a tragic stabbing incident. A horrible shooting took place in British Columbia, and not log ago we were hearing of the beach shooting in Australia. Even with strict gun laws other weapons come out. When I was growing up I never heard of drive by shootings or issues of that nature. The number of shootings on the streets of Chicago while people stand and watch is deplorable. Even worse are the administrations that pretend crime stats are going down.
 
Rider77 said:
I firmly believe that you named a primary issue early in your posting. When you said something has gone terribly wrong in FAMILY life, you nailed it. Unless and until the family unit becomes a real focus again we won't be on the road toward solutions. The apathetic parent is perhaps the worst plague of our times.
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It's one more mess many in my generation created- and left younger people to cope with it.
 
oldman said:
I think mental illness has become rampant in the U.S.
Click to expand...

This didn't help the situation:

https://www.npr.org/2017/11/30/5674...atric-hospitals-led-to-a-mental-health-crisis

A severe shortage of inpatient care for people with mental illness is amounting to a public health crisis, as the number of individuals struggling with a range of psychiatric problems continues to rise.

The revelation that the gunman in the Sutherland Springs, Texas, church shooting escaped from a psychiatric hospital in 2012 is renewing concerns about the state of mental health care in this country. A study published in the journal Psychiatric Services estimates 3.4 percent of Americans — more than 8 million people — suffer from serious psychological problems.

Texas Shooter's History Raises Questions About Mental Health And Mass Murder​


The disappearance of long-term-care facilities and psychiatric beds has escalated over the past decade, sparked by a trend toward deinstitutionalization of psychiatric patients in the 1950s and '60s, says Dominic Sisti, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care at the University of Pennsylvania.

"State hospitals began to realize that individuals who were there probably could do well in the community," he tells Here & Now's Jeremy Hobson. "It was well-intended, but what I believe happened over the past 50 years is that there's been such an evaporation of psychiatric therapeutic spaces that now we lack a sufficient number of psychiatric beds."

A concerted effort to grow community-based care options that were less restrictive grew out of the civil rights movement and a series of scandals due to the lack of oversight in psychiatric care, Sisti says. While those efforts have been successful for many, a significant group of people who require structured inpatient care can't get it, often because of funding issues.

A 2012 report by the Treatment Advocacy Center, a nonprofit organization that works to remove treatment barriers for people with mental illness, found the number of psychiatric beds decreased by 14 percent from 2005 to 2010. That year, there were 50,509 state psychiatric beds, meaning there were only 14 beds available per 100,000 people.
 
Rider77 said:
I firmly believe that you named a primary issue early in your posting. When you said something has gone terribly wrong in FAMILY life, you nailed it. Unless and until the family unit becomes a real focus again we won't be on the road toward solutions. The apathetic parent is perhaps the worst plague of our times.
Click to expand...
Exactly what I was hinting at. The ones that can help the most are not stepping up and saying "To hell with what others think, this is my kid
and I will get this stopped."
 
I was in Preschool teaching in the burbs of Chicago and I can honestly say I was so happy when I moved from there so afraid
I was going to see some child I had cared for in the papers arrested one day. I could probably predict which household it may
come from. It wasn't just boys I fearful for. That is where my patience for listening and let them just talk gave a bit of "You are
loved and valuable" feelings.
 
Murrmurr said:
They've been readily available in our country for centuries, and ownership wasn't regulated until about 100 years ago. In fact, relative to the size of the population, far fewer people own guns now than back in the wild west days.

Multiple school and mass shootings are a 20th century thing, and there has always been a motive, usually psychological. So, imo, we need to focus on that. We need to find out if those psychological motives are due to societal issues, or if they are actual physical or physiological changes, such as chemical exposure, abnormal hormonal changes, genetic anomaly, etc. And whichever is found to be the likely cause, we need to be fully informed, and insist on effective solutions.
Click to expand...
meanwhile people keep on dying unnecessarily??
 
Trade: I agree with the article. Even here in Pennsylvania, we have closed mental hospitals, including the big one that was in Harrisburg. Most people with a mental illness goes to a psychiatrist or a psychologist. Here in my area, I am told that we lack the numbers of these professionals. We have people with a mental illness, but has to wait until a spot opens up to visit a professional mental health therapist.

Right after I retired, I visited my life coach, who is actually a psychologist. Even then, he told me he was fully booked and that was in 2009.
At one time, many insurance companies didn’t give coverage for a mental illness and then one day they realized that mental illnesses in the U.S. has become a real issue. When the government went after the insurance companies to provide coverage, I could see they did respond and did provide the needed coverage. In 1996, the government began the Mental Health Parity Act, which stated that insurance companies should treat mental health cases the same as any physical, medical or surgical actions.
 
smiley said:
meanwhile people keep on dying unnecessarily??
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And with the understanding that mental health and medical research, studies, and treatment is largely supported by tax dollars here, some suspect that serves a purpose...the type of purpose we're not supposed to discuss on this site.
 

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