What research says about preventing school shootings

A lot of the conversation around making schools safer has centered on hardening schools by adding police officers and metal detectors. But experts say schools should actually focus on softening to support the social and emotional needs of students. "Our first preventative strategy should be to make sure kids are respected, that they feel connected and belong in schools," says Odis Johnson Jr., of Johns Hopkins University's Center for Safe and Healthy Schools.

Warning Signs: Identifying School Shooters Before They Strike

Dr. Langman’s timely book presents practical, research-based guidance on anticipating and preventing mass attacks. Warning Signs is for all members of a school community, including school personnel, mental health professionals, law enforcement officers, parents, and students

A Culture That Kills Its Children Has No Future

An America vacillating between violent struggle and idle nihilism is shuddering toward its end.

How school shootings impact survivors in the long term

Our research shows that despite often escaping without physical harm, the hundreds of thousands of children and educators who survive these tragedies carry scars that affect their lives for many years to come.

78 Minutes

That’s how long police say they left children locked in a classroom with a gunman as they repeatedly called 911, begging for help.

An Age-by-Age Guide to Talking to Children About Mass Shootings

A devastating reality of raising children in America today is that parents must be prepared to talk to their kids about mass shootings. It’s a wrenching task, and experts say there are some universal best practices — like avoiding graphic details. Or doing your best to actively listen, rather than trying to take away children’s pain.

Arming teachers – an effective security measure or a false sense of security?

The majority of teachers, parents and students oppose allowing teachers to carry guns.

Britain ended the horror of school shootings after one single massacre

On March 13, 1996, an ostracized former Boy Scout leader around whom rumors of pedophilia had swirled for years, walked into the gym of Dunblane Primary School and fired at children aged five and six gathered at a gym class.

Deadly Dreams: What Motivates School Shootings?

After a recent spate of school shootings, researchers are analyzing the malignant fantasies of young assassins for warning signs that could help prevent future tragedies.

Experts say we can prevent school shootings. Here's what the research says

A lot of the conversation around making schools safer has centered on hardening schools by adding police officers and metal detectors. But experts say schools should actually focus on softening to support the social and emotional needs of students.

Guns are the things most likely to kill young people in America

In the decade since Sandy Hook there have been over 900 shootings on school grounds in America. After more than 60 years in which motor-vehicle crashes were the leading cause of death for young people, since 2017 guns have killed more Americans between the ages of one and 24.

School Shooters: What's Their Path To Violence?

Most shooters in these cases had led difficult lives, the studies find. "Adolescent school shooters, there's no question that they're struggling and there have been multiple failures in their lives," says Reid Meloy, a forensic psychologist who has consulted with the FBI.

Science has identified common threads in school shootings

The problem of mass shootings is not simple. An actual solution will not be simple either, but we can mitigate the threat by analyzing the commonality in mass shooters.

Social Media Increasingly Linked With Mass Shootings

"Social media has compounded a growing racial, cultural and gender divide in America and the world," explained Anthony Silard, professor at the Luiss Business School, Rome, and the author of The Art of Living Free in the Digital Age.

The Mad Rush to Bulletproof American Schools

Aggression sensors. Classroom barricades. How architects are transforming schools for the era of mass shootings.

The school shooting generation grows up

After coming of age in a world wholly unprepared to deal with the aftermath of mass school shootings, an early wave of survivors is now in their 30s and 40s, grappling with the present.

Three Decades of School Shootings: an Analysis

A comprehensive review of nearly three dozen mass shootings, including Columbine, reveals some notable similarities

What It Feels Like to Lose Your Child in a Mass Shooting

Nicole Hockley describes her son’s death in the Sandy Hook shooting, and the long grieving process that the parents of 19 children in Uvalde now face.

What to say to kids about school shootings to ease their stress

In the days and weeks that follow a tragedy, parents should talk to their children about how to cope when they feel concerned or anxious. There are some really good books out there to have those conversations around...

What we know about mass school shootings in the US – and the gunmen who carry them out

When the Columbine High School massacre took place in 1999 it was seen as a watershed moment in the United States – the worst mass shooting at a school in the country’s history. Now, it ranks fourth.

‘Just Evil’: Gunman Kills 19 Kids at Texas Elementary School

It has been less than a decade since 26 people, most of them children, were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary, and barely 10 days since the last major U.S. mass shooting made national news in Buffalo. And now, yet again, the nation faces the senseless deaths of a mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas.