The Killing Fields

The easy access to guns, and especially military-style assault weapons, in the United States is taking its toll on school children and teachers. This map shows the locations of school shootings throughout the world, but the overwhelming majority of shootings are in the United States.

Click on the markers to see detailed information on the school shooting there.

Schools:
Dead:
Injured:

The red markers indicate schools where four of more children were killed.

Shootings by year in U.S.

The chart below shows school shootings in the United States, and starts at 1997. School shootings also occurred in earlier years, and there were many, but most are not included.

The likely cause of 2020 school shootings being less than adjacent years was school closings because of COVID.

Age/gender of shooter

The average age of shooters is 20.7 and the mean is 17.5. While there are female shooters, we've not identified any involved in school shootings. The small number of female shooters tend to be workplace shooters.

China school shootings

The map above has no markers in China. Chinese school children are not being shot in school. This does not means they are not being murdered in school. It means that guns are not the weapons being used. It's extremely difficult for individuals in China to obtain guns, so knives are used most often instead.

If China allowed private gun possession like the United States, they too would have casualty counts like we do. Check out the Wikipedia page for Chinese school killings.

Arming teachers

The idea that arming teachers is a solution to the problem of school shootings has been thoroughly debunked by the Uvalde, Texas school shooting. We can't expect teachers to go up against a shooter with a military-style assault weapon (an AR-15) when dozens of police were afraid to do so, and didn't, while children were being murdered close by.

Politics

Americans who want to stop school shootings are frustrated by the National Rifle Association's power over the political parties—primarily the Republican Party. That party refuses to enact and blocks any legislation to solve the problem. Republican politicians think they need to have perfect ratings from the NRA to win their elections. This may be true, which signals a terrible societal problem.

It's more maddening when party members celebrate automatic weapons by posing with them for their family Christmas card photos and their campaign posters.