Connect the Dots 101

There were more school shootings in 2022 — 46 — than in any year since at least 1999.

Almost all the deadliest assaults were committed by White gunmen, a reality that has left much of the public with the false impression that school shootings almost exclusively affect White students.

Among The Post’s most important findings: the disproportionate impact of school shootings on children of color. Children of color…are far more likely to experience campus gun violence: more than twice as much for Hispanic students and over three times as much for Black students.

The median age of a school shooter is 16. Children, The Post also determined, are responsible for more than half the country’s school shootings — none of which would be possible if those children didn’t have access to firearms.

Beyond the dead and wounded, children who witness the violence or cower behind locked doors to hide from it can be profoundly traumatized.

[Mass shootings: Tracking gun violence in the U.S.]

The federal government does not track school shootings, so The Washington Post has spent years tracking how many children in the United States have been exposed to gun violence during school hours since the Columbine High massacre in 1999.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/interactive/school-shootings-database/