A Conservative Approach to School Safety
- Griffin Saltron
- Apr 4, 2023
- 4 min read
The debate around school choice has been politicized by gun control advocates who, in keeping with their established tradition, seized upon the tragedy to argue for steps that, if taken, would weaken Second Amendment rights while failing to deter mass shootings in schools.
On May 24, 2022, a mass shooting took place at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, claiming the lives of 21 Texans. Two teachers and 19 students died; a further 17 victims were injured. The horrifying tragedy garnered national attention, sparking an investigation and policy discussions examining how such a horrific incident took place and what measures can be taken to prevent similar tragedies from occurring. Unfortunately, the debate was politicized by gun control advocates who, in keeping with their established tradition, seized upon the tragedy to argue for steps that, if taken, would weaken Second Amendment rights while failing to deter mass shootings in schools.
Gun control proponents frequently call for continuing the policy of gun-free school zones, raising the minimum age to purchase any weapon to 21, and banning “assault-style” weapons. Such proposed policies, however, will do nothing to stop a person determined to carry out a mass shooting; rather, they would amount to no more than policies enacted to give their proponents visceral satisfaction that the country has taken decisive action after a tragedy- that “something has been done.”
Analysis of previous mass shootings- in particular the nine mass shootings at grade schools and high schools that have occurred over the last 24 years and are discussed below- reveal how inadequate gun control proponents’ favored policies are. Each of these crimes occurred in a school that was a gun-free zone. According to an updated 2018 study by John Lott, 96 percent of mass shootings between January 1998 and December 2015 occurred in gun-free zones, indicating that the primary gun control policy utilized at schools does nothing to deter mass shootings. Indeed, it is possible that making schools (nominally) gun-free zones actually increases the odds of a mass shooting on their premises, because the attackers can have a greater degree of confidence that they will not encounter armed resistance until law enforcement arrives.
Raising the minimum age for firearm purchases to 21 would be similarly ineffective. In the aftermath of the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School by a 19-year old man, a report by the Federal Commission on School Safety reviewed a number of studies examining school shootings and concluded that, “Existing research does not demonstrate that laws imposing a minimum age for firearms purchases have a measurable impact on reducing homicides, suicides, or unintentional deaths."
A ban on “assault” weapons, which effectively targets all semi-automatic rifles, would not be effective either; only four of the nine K-12 mass shooters discussed below utilized a semi-automatic weapon in their respective crimes. Furthermore, of those four, two carried a secondary weapon, such as a shotgun or handgun. This suggests that if an “assault-style” weapon ban had been in place at the time of these shootings, it would not have deterred the offenders; rather, they would simply have selected another weapon. In fact, seven of the nine shooters utilized a handgun in the commission of their crime, and six of the nine used illegally obtained firearms in their respective crimes.
Even one K-12 mass shooting is too many, and policies must be enacted to prevent future instances. It is important to realize, however, that such events are exceedingly rare. Since the Columbine High School Shooting in 1999, only eight such incidents have occurred in the United States. It is critically important to distinguish these horrific K-12 mass shootings from the incidents that gun control advocates group under the umbrella term “school shooting.” The latter category includes, for example, an instance in which “a 21-year-old man [who] was shot and injured in the parking lot after a school basketball game." All reasonable people recognize that such an occurrence is cause for concern, but gun control advocates intentionally conflate such incidents with K-12 mass shootings that take a terrible emotional and psychological toll on all of society. Counting these “school shootings” is necessary to make claims such as, “there were 51 school shootings in 2022 that resulted in injuries or deaths." What gun control proponents do not say is that these shootings include those which occurred near a school, accidental discharges during law enforcement vocational training, shootings associated with drug deals, and drive-by shootings.
While these other incidents are tragic, attempting to mislead the public into thinking that 51 shootings similar to that of Uvalde occurred in a single year, for the purpose of advancing a political goal, is deeply troubling. Similar claims, such as “355 mass shootings this year [2015]” or that the U.S. averaged “more than one mass shooting per day [in 2015]” are based on wildly inflated statistics, a practice which Mark Follman of Mother Jones acknowledges “isn’t just misleading the public—it’s stirring undue fear and may be encouraging bad policies.”
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