Two Sources of Information on U.S. School Shootings
The National Institute of Justice has created a database on school shootings. Its aim is “to better understand the causes of school-related gun violence and identify intervention points.”
“When school shootings occur,” “the NIJ explains, “they tend to be highly publicized events. Even so, little is known about the overall circumstances that lead to these tragedies because school shootings tend to be studied on an individual basis and in isolation rather than in concert with other shootings that have taken place on school grounds (or in close proximity) that did not result in mass causalities. A collective analysis of these types of events could shed light on larger trends.”
Unfortunately, in light of the latest shooting incident in Texas, the NIJ is likely to have a host of requests for access to its data. Wikipedia, incidentally, has a list of school shootings in the U.S. It’s appallingly long.