Every shooting at a school in December, 2024 trends, and 2025 outlook
25 years after "Columbine changed everything" for school security, there were five preplanned school shootings and 5x as many victims shot on campus compared to 1999.
It’s hard to believe it but 2024 was 25 years after the most notorious school shooting in US history at Columbine High School. “Columbine changed everything” is a phrase repeated over and over by police officials when they describe training and equipping officers to respond to school shootings.
Sadly, the only thing that really changed since Columbine is the number of victims. There were 5x more people shot on campus in 2024 compared to 1999.
In December 2024, there were 21 shootings on k-12 school campuses ranging from planned attacks in Madison, WI and Palermo, CA to two teens firing a Kel-Tec Sub-2000 folding pistol carbine (same brand of gun used during the Columbine shooting) at a deer in the school parking lot in Hershey, PA.
While I track all types of shootings on campus for any reason, incidents are labeled as an “active shooter” when the shooter killed and/or wounded victims, either targeted or random, within the school campus during a continuous episode of violence.
The use of this definition/criteria for an “active shooter” blends the FBI’s definition with the homicide literature’s differentiation between a rampage killing versus a traditional homicide. It is important to note that there are widely differing definitions for mass killer, serial killer, rampage killer, active shooter, and school shooter. There is no legal definition, or specific criminal charges, for an “active shooter”.
Since 1999—and despite an estimated $3,100,000,000 spent per year on just school security equipment and software—the number of active shooter incidents continues to rise. In 2024, there were preplanned attacks at:
Trends in 2024
Four of the five preplanned attacks at schools in 2024 were committed by current students at the school. This follows the same predictable pattern of insider attacks at schools. The outlier was at Feather River School where an adult pretended that he was going to enroll a student and then opened fire during a tour of the campus.
Most shootings on campus are fights that escalate into a shooting because someone involved is carrying a gun. During these incidents, there is a good chance that the student involved was habitually carrying a gun on campus because they didn’t plan to shoot somebody that day until the fight started (see more: Students arrested with concealed handguns inside schools every day).
Dismissal, sporting events, and morning classes are the most common time period for a shooting.
The parking lot is the most common location for a shooting on campus. This makes sense when dismissal (when students are going to the parking lot) and sporting events (when fans are in the parking lot before or after the game) are the most common location.
Most shootings on campus are isolated incidents with 1 or no victims (shots missed). During these shootings, there is no danger to other students or a need for a multi-hour lockdown of the school.
Most shootings in 2024 happened at high schools. Strangely there are very few shootings at middle schools even when there are often two middle schools that feed into each high school (there are 3x as many elementary/middle schools as high schools across the country).
Outlook in 2025
Statistics and probability are amazing tools. Back in November, I predicted a 70% chance of 332 shootings at schools in 2024. With a couple days left in the year, there have been 330 incidents.
While it seems like these incidents are random—"it could never happen here"—the characteristics, frequency, time, and campus location of the shootings is predictable.
The big unknown is the specific schools where these shootings will take place. About 65% of shootings take place at high schools and there are 26,000 in the United States. Ohio, Georgia, and Tennessee have by far the highest rate of shootings per capita, but this year shootings happened at schools in every state except North Dakota (which has the 3rd fewest students in the country with only 0.18% of total student population nationwide).
When students go back to class after New Years, there will probably be 7 shootings on campus that week and about 30 total in January. Most will be fights between students that escalate into shootings in front of the school or the parking lot at dismissal. There will also probably be one pre-planned attack in January where a current student at a rural public high school sneaks a gun into the building and starts shooting random classmates inside during morning classes. The attack is likely to begin and end inside the same room, and the student assailant will commit suicide, surrender, or be subdued by classmates before police arrive.
It's impossible to know which 30 campuses will experience this senseless and preventable gun violence. When we haven't taken any meaningful action to stop them, the only certainty is these shootings will happen somewhere in 2025.
Every shooting at a school in December 2024
Date: 2024-12-31
City: Bridgeport, CT
School: Central High School
Time Period: Evening
Location: Outside on School Property
Summary: Person shot in the chest outside the school.Date: 2024-12-28
City: Philadelphia, PA
School: Gratz Prep Middle School
Time Period: Night
Location: Beside Building
Summary: Two men shot next to the school.Date: 2024-12-17
City: Pittsburgh, PA
School: Perry High School
Time Period: School Start
Location: Front of School
Summary: Teen fired 11 shots at a group of students on the front steps, hitting windows and the building.
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