School shootings are as prevalent in America as they are fear inducing and an understanding of the history of this phenomena is essential.
School shootings are commonly believed to have become a more hot topic issue in 1999 with the infamous Columbine High school massacre. “It was the first major one. I lived about 30 minutes away from Columbine, It was on local news for us for 1 to 2 years.” Said PRHS assistant principal Michael Godsey.
While Columbine remains the most infamous school shooting in American history many others have occurred which further perpetuated the fear which Americans feel today. Following Columbine, major school shootings in the early 2000’s had begun to occur around five to four times a year with spikes seen occasionally. The most prominent shootings in this era were seen to be the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007, killing 32, and the Red Lake shootings in 2005. (Vigderman, 2024).
However, as we enter the 2010’s and 2020’s there is a notable increase in the amount of shootings and mortality rates in those shootings. More recent school shootings which have come into prominence are the Uvalde, Texas 2022 shooting which sparked discourse surrounding perceived police incompetence, and the Apalachee massacre this year. The propensity of school shootings in America has only increased with time as the amount of school shootings has increased at exponential rate throughout the 2000’s.
According to the Washington Post, 417 school shootings have occurred in America since the Columbine shooting, leading to a staggering 300,000 children in America during the last two decades experiencing gun violence (Cox, 2024).This influx and constant coverage of school shootings has manifested in the fear many parents and students feel today.
In 2018 the Pew Research Center conducted a study gauging the amount of parents and school attendees concerned about a school shooting. Its findings are revealing, “Parents of teenagers express similar levels of concern as teens themselves, with 63% saying they are at least somewhat worried about the possibility of a shooting happening at their child’s school.”
This issue is especially relevant to PRHS as according to the findings of security.org senior editor Eliza Vigderman.”Nearly 60 percent of active shooter incidents at educational institutions since Columbine have occurred in high schools, and about 21 percent have occurred in middle or junior high schools.”.
