Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

Date of Award

2025

Cohort Year

2025

First Faculty Mentor

Stephen Demuth

Abstract

School shootings are a hot topic in the media and an important discussion among citizens of the United States. Despite this, the government does not collect data on school shootings and has left it to lay people, reporters, and researchers to create their own data sources largely culled from media reports. In the present study, I compare two popular datasets, the K-12 School Shooting Database collected by Riedman (2025) and school shootings data collected by reporters at the Washington Post (2025), that claim vastly different numbers of school shooting incidents over time. I examine incidents since the Columbine shootings in 1999 and focus on how reported incidents have changed before and after the Sandy Hook shootings in 2012. Results suggest that the number of school-related shootings have increased over time, but the size of the increase depends greatly on the definition of "school shooting." Part of the recent rise in what are reported to be "school shootings" may be due to a more expansive definition of school shootings than before. For example, a larger percentage of incidents post – Sandy Hook occurred outside of the school building, outside of school hours, and did not involve any physical injuries. Some of these incidents likely existed in earlier years but would not have been identified as school shootings. I discuss the importance of establishing clear definitions in the media to avoid the creation of a moral panic and the need for systematic data collection independent from media sources.

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