Fact Check: How Many School Shootings Have Happened in 2024?
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Sources that track the "number of U.S. school shootings" often use different criteria and definitions of "school shootings," leading to public confusion about the issues of gun safety, school safety, and violent crime.
Different Data: There are two commonly cited sources tracking U.S. "school shootings." The K-12 Violence Project, an independent group, counts any incident "when a gun is brandished, is fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims, time, or day of the week" as a school shooting. This tracker has counted 111 school shootings so far in 2024. EducationWeek (Center bias), a news organization, uses more limited criteria and has counted 12 school shootings so far in 2024. The K-12 Violence Project counted 346 school shootings in 2023, versus 37 counted by EducationWeek.
How the Media Covers It: Many sources, especially on the left and center but also some on the right, cite the K-12 Violence Project data when reporting on the "number of school shootings" in a given timeframe. The Washington Examiner (Lean Right bias) is among the sources that use the EducationWeek data.
Why the Difference: People on the left are generally more in favor of gun restrictions than people on the right are, and many may gravitate toward data sources that suggest guns are a problem. This summary will be updated throughout 2024. Last updated 4/29/24 at 1:55 pm ET.
Featured Coverage of this Story
From the Left
School Shootings by State
A Thursday shooting at an Iowa school that left a sixth-grader dead and at least five other victims wounded continued a troubling trend of school shootings in the U.S. and marked the fourth such incident in the U.S. already in 2024.
Though the devastating impact of school shootings – and of lives lost to any sort of violence – cannot be adequately captured by data and charts alone, they can help illustrate the tragic toll and geography of incidents that have become disturbingly prevalent in the U.S. in recent years.
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School Shootings This Year: How Many and Where
School shootings—terrifying to students, educators, parents, and communities—always reignite polarizing debates about gun rights and school safety. To bring context to these debates, Education Week journalists began tracking shootings on K-12 school property that resulted in firearm-related injuries or deaths.
In 2024, we continue this heartbreaking, but important work. More information about this tracker and our methodology is below.
There have been 2 school shootings this year that resulted in injuries or deaths, according to an Education Week analysis. There have been 183 such shootings since 2018. There were 37 school shootings with injuries...
From the Center
Misinformation on Number of School Shootings Fueled by Inconsistent Reporting
Different definitions of “school shooting” are contributing to misinformation about the issue.
There are several efforts to track the number of school shootings in the U.S. One of them counted 346 school shootings in 2023. The other counted 37. Both have been cited in media reports – the larger one, more often – but the discrepancy is rarely explained. How could they be so different?
The Violence Project, an independent operation run by data scientist David Riedman, has a “K-12 School Shooting Database.” The tracker includes any incident in which "a gun is brandished, is...
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