School shooting data trends with 4 weeks of classes left in 2024

Less than 2% chance of the 2024 total exceeding the record of 349 incidents last year. This is the first downward trend since 2015.

As we head into Thanksgiving, there are 4 weeks of classes left before Christmas break for k-12 schools in the US. So far in 2024, there have been 304 shootings at schools.

This fall, there was an average of 7 shootings on campus per week and 94 people have been shot since August. While I count all shootings regardless of who was involved or the time of day, the significant majority of incidents (83.6%) involved students or staff.

There is a ~70% probability of 332 shootings on campus in 2024 (5% drop from the all time high in 2023). 2024 would be the second highest year on record.

The chances of there being 11 incidents above or below my prediction is ~27%. There is less than a 2% chance that this year exceeds the 2023 record. Even with a 5% drop, we are still at 10x the average from a decade ago.

More than 80% of the shooting on campus involving staff and students makes sense because most of the shootings so far in 2024 were in places where students and staff would be during the school day.

Lightning Strikes Twice (or Three Times)

• Three shootings at Garfield High School (WA)

• Two shootings at I.S. 068 Isaac Bildersee (NY) and Marion-Sterling School (OH)

In September, CBS Nightly News interviewed me about Garfield High:

Highest State Totals

• Texas (21 incidents)

• Ohio (19 incidents)

• Tennessee (16 incidents)

• Georgia (16 incidents)

• California (16 incidents)

Looking at per capita impact, California has 10 million more residents than the COMBINED population of Ohio, Tennessee, and Georgia (39M versus 12M + 7M +11M).

The population adjusted rate is 230% higher in Tennessee compared to California.

Planned Attacks

Two incidents with high victim counts stood out:

• September 4, 2024, at Apalachee High School: 4 killed, 9 wounded.

• January 4, 2024, at Perry Middle and High School: 2 killed, 6 wounded.

Both of these attacks occurred in the morning at rural school districts and were committed by current students who were allowed inside the school.

More about the shooting at Apalachee High.

And more about the shooting at Perry High.

Changing Political Climate in 2025

It looks like the number of shootings will trend down for the first time since 2015. The first change in this trend comes after investing billions of federal tax dollars into school security since Parkland in 2018. Much of this funding didn’t come from school districts or local budgets. For example, billions of dollars of Federal COVID relief funding was reallocated at the state-level to schools after Uvalde.

Here are some political factors likely to impact schools in 2025:

• All COVID relief funding has expired. Schools used this funding for equipment purchases, software contacts, 3rd party security vendor contracts, training, and directly paying armed staff/school police. This is a huge portion of school security funding that will no longer be available.

• Many school security products are leases or subscription services. If districts signed 3-year or 5-year contracts after Parkland (2018) and Uvalde (2022), those services will be expiring. When these contracts expire, without federal COVID funding it is unlikely that local budgets will continue to fund them.

• Federal government—via Department of Education—provides about 10% of the total funding for publics schools in the US ($276 billion in direct funding to states in 2024). The Trump Administration has promised to shutdown the Department of Education.

• Funding reduction or full restructuring of the FBI which is the primary federal agency investing online school shooting threats. Without a federal department investigating online threats, many school shooting plots—especially those made by someone in another state—would not be averted.

• Reduction or elimination of Department of Justice funding used to cost-share salaries of school police officers. Many local school districts don’t have the budget to fund these officers.

• Reduction or elimination of Department of Homeland Security funding that is used to pay for multi-agency teams who investigate threats, and funds police training/equipment across the country. State and local police agency don’t have the budget to fund theses operations which is why they didn’t exist until the federal government funded them after 9/11.

• The Office of Gun Violence Prevention will likely be closed immediately following the Inauguration. There will be no federal leadership tasked with promoting effective gun violence prevention strategies and research.

• Federal funding (already minimal) for gun violence research will likely be eliminated. Just like public health and safety, we can’t reduce risk and loss of life unless we understand the problem through rigorous research.

• Federal ruling that eliminates state-level Red Flag laws used to take away firearms from a person in crisis who plans to hurt themselves or others. Prohibiting Red Flag seizures in Missouri already enabled a suicidal 19-year-old to carry out a planned attack at his former high school. Eliminating these laws across the country would enable even more planned attacks and mass violence to occur.

• Additional states will pass permitless carry laws with the potential for a federal right to carry law or Supreme Court ruling that permits are unconstitutional. This would mean that any adult—even someone who might be about to commit an attack—could legally carry a gun right up to the edge of a school campus.

• Possible repeal of the Gun Free School Zone Act of 1990. Empirical evidence shows that this law reduces gun violence rates and it is a critical prevention tool for allowing police to arrest someone carrying a gun before they start shooting.

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David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.