With federal gun control on ice, advocates look to other solutions for school shootings

Advocates are urging greater action against school shootings in 2025, saying the only way to slow the bloodshed is a combination of moves from legislators, schools and parents.

Multiple trackers counted an increase in school shootings last year, and experts are calling for solutions ranging from violence prevention programs to better-secured firearms at home.

The multipronged approach could be the only way to affect real change on school shootings under a unified GOP government that is unlikely to make any substantial moves on gun control.

“Make no mistake, these are not right or left issues, these are life or death issues. As 2025 gets underway, there's no stopping our progress in states across the country because when it comes to the leading cause of death for children and teens, nothing will stand in our way,” said Sarah Burd-Sharps, head of research at Everytown for Gun Safety.

The number of school shootings in a given year can be difficult to count as organizations use different definitions of such events and pull their data from different sources.

Education Week’s school shooting tracker, which only counts incidents that occurred during school hours or at school-sponsored events, found 39 shootings in 2024, with 18 people killed and 59 injured. Those incidents outpaced 2023 but were less than in 2022.

Everytown, however, looks at any time a shot is fired on school grounds, even if no one was injured or killed. The group recorded 219 incidents of gunfire on grounds last year, with 59 deaths and more than 160 injuries.

“I would say that last school year did see over 30 percent increase in incidents of gunfire, and that is particularly concerning in a time when violent crime overall in this country is going down,” Burd-Sharps said.

“The last school year had the second-highest number of shooting incidents since we've been tracking a decade ago, and the highest was right after students came back from the pandemic [...] These shootings — both ones where someone was killed or wounded or just guns in schools — are very disruptive in our country and are really a cause for a lot of trauma,” she added.

Her organization continues to advocate for an assault weapons ban and background checks on all firearm sales, but such ideas are going nowhere in a Washington where the GOP controls the White House and both chambers of Congress.

When it comes to school shootings, Republicans have focused on precautionary measures such as arming teachers, armed security guards and fortifying most building doors so only one can be used as an entrance point.

After the 2022 Robb Elementary School massacre in Uvalde, Texas, that killed 19 children and two adults, Republicans including Ken Paxton, the state's attorney general at the time, said schools need "teachers and other administrators who have gone through training and who are armed."

As of April, a Newsweek map showed more than 30 states allow teachers to carry a gun on school grounds, either with no restrictions or under certain circumstances.

But those solutions have been highly controversial.

“I think that this is not just about hardening schools, and, trust me, school districts don't have the funds to create fortresses that would prevent anyone from getting hurt from the kind of firepower that civilians can access,” said Abbey Clements, executive director and co-founder of Teachers Unify to End Gun Violence.

“The data is clear that states with stricter gun laws have fewer instances of gun violence. That means people are safer in those states,” she added.

But there are a few moves on the issue that can find bipartisan support, such as violence prevention programs and empowering law enforcement to take preventative actions.

During Trump's first administration, lawmakers passed the Students, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Act, which was backed by the group Sandy Hook Promise.

“The STOP Act makes annual grants available to states, school districts, and tribal organizations to bring evidence-informed programs and strategies that prevent violence to schools, and it encourages the development and operation of anonymous reporting systems to address threats before tragedy can strikes,” said Mark Barden, CEO of Sandy Hook Promise and father of Daniel, who was killed in the 2012 Newtown, Conn., shooting.

The group’s new goal is to pass the Preparing Leaders to Assess Needs (PLAN) legislation, which would help schools connect with experts to implement gun safety programs.

Experts are also calling for increased vigilance at home.

2024 had a first-of-its-kind legal ruling, sentencing the parents of a Michigan school shooter to at least 10 years in prison for not properly locking up their firearms and ignoring their teenager’s mental health issues.

Also facing charges is Colin Gray, the father of accused Georgia school shooter Colt Gray. In November, the elder Gray pleaded not guilty to charges of second-degree murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty to children after he allegedly ignored his son's mental health struggles, purchasing him items including ammunition and a laser sight.

The urgency in getting parents to lock up their firearms and keeping weapons away from troubled children comes as youth mental health took a downward spiral during the pandemic and has struggled to recover.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found 40 percent of highschoolers had depressive symptoms in 2023. It also reported increases in bullying and threats involving weapons.

“One thing we all can do, and lawmakers really could get, as we've seen, bipartisan agreement on, is safe storage,” said Clements.

“Because safe storage is the culture change that could really affect the statistics. We could get out of this terrible situation we're in where gun violence is leading cause of death for children and teens in America by simply launching campaigns for culture change of locking up your guns and keeping it separate [from] your ammunition,” she added. “Also, enacting laws where if you don't do those things and something happens in your home, then you're liable.”

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