Terrorism at schools: The unfamiliar versus the fallacy of improbability
The T word--terrorism--is rarely used following a school shooting, even when there are political motives that clearly fit the definition.
“There is a tendency in our planning to confuse the unfamiliar with the improbable. What looks strange is thought improbable, and what is improbable need not be considered.”
- Thomas Schelling, Pearl Harbor: Warning and Decision
An adult scheduled a campus tour to discuss enrolling a student. This happens at public and private schools across the country every day. Nobody expects a man who looks like this to pull a gun from under his sweater and shoot two kindergartners. Just like most school shooters, he killed himself before police arrived.
Feather River School of the Seventh-Day Adventists in Palermo is located in a rural agricultural area of Northern California. The school has 5 staff members and 33 students in k-8 classes. A tiny, rural school with open air hallways between classrooms doesn't have the resources for a "secure entry". Even if they did, this guy had a reason and permission to be on campus.
While schools across the country are making major investments in security tech, adding AI software to the CCTV cameras wouldn't make any difference because the gun wasn't visible until he started shooting and he was dead before an alert would even go out. Same with a panic button, the shooting was over by the time the 911 center would get an alert and the kids/staff on campus would hear gunshots long before they got a text to lockdown.
Even if the school had a police officer or armed guard, unless that officer was standing next to the man when the shooting started, the attack would be over before the officer got there.
California has strict gun laws that would prevent this man from buying a gun at a licensed dealer—he served prison sentences for non-violent felonies—but ghost gun kits sold online allow both teens and felons to bypass state laws. Congress has taken no action to close loopholes by preventing online, private, and gunshow sales to prohibited people.
Terrorism and Schools
Terrorism is the use of violence or threats of violence, often against civilians, to achieve political, ideological, or religious goals by instilling fear and coercing societies or governments.
Terrorism falls into two buckets—domestic and foreign.
Domestic terrorism refers to acts primarily carried out by individuals, groups, or movements who are based within the US. These perpetrators are often motivated by extremist ideologies tied to domestic political, social, religious, or racial issues. Their planning, target selection, and execution happens without guidance or funding from foreign terrorist groups. Acts of domestic terrorism often have small, local targets such as the Planned Parenthood bombings in the 1980s.
In contrast, foreign terrorism involves attacks or plots orchestrated by organizations outside the United States. These attacks are often directed by transnational extremist networks with funding and resources from foreign state actors. These attacks are often at “soft targets” with a high likelihood of success and maximum visibility for media coverage. The motivation for the attacks extends beyond local grievances to influence national or global politics.
Very few school shootings across US history have been committed by adults with a political motive. Investigators believe the gunman targeted the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists because of its affiliation with the church and he was motivated as a response to the war in Gaza.
The day after the attack, a note was found detailing the gunman's motive. The note said he sought to carry out the "child executions" as a "response to America's involvement with Genocide and Oppression of Palestinians along with the attacks towards Yemen".
Domestic terrorist attacks at schools
Far right anti-government and white nationalist groups have discussed school shootings since the 1960s when James Mason—the godfather of the modern neo nazi movement—wrote this essay:
Twenty years later, the Cokeville, WY Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on May 16, 1986 when David Young, 43, and his wife Doris Young, 47, took 154 hostages – 136 children and 18 adults. The Youngs had ties to white supremacist groups, including the Posse Comitatus and the Aryan Nations. They demanded two million dollars per hostage and an audience with President Ronald Reagan.
The couple was armed with ten firearms and an improvised gasoline bomb. They corralled students and teachers into a single classroom to hold them for ransom.
Two hours into the standoff, Doris Young accidentally detonated her gasoline bomb. She was severely burned so David Young fatally shot her and then killed himself.
79 of the 154 hostages were treated for second-degree burns and smoke inhalation.
Given the modern political climate and violent anti-government rhetoric from far-right groups, it’s not hard to imagine domestic terrorist attacking a school. Schools are a symbol of the government institution and have been criticized by far-right groups with claims of indoctrination and “grooming” students. White nationalists have already pushed schools to prohibit teaching AP African American Studies.
There is a very real possibility of hate-based domestic terrorist groups—or lone wolf racially motivated offenders like the Buffalo Grocery Store shooter—targeting Black students and teachers. In fact, the Buffalo shooter wrote in his planning documents that he considered attacking a predominantly Black elementary school.
Foreign terrorist attacks at schools
Terrorism doesn’t make US headlines like it did in the 2000s when everyone was still thinking about the next 9/11. Earlier this year:
French authorities on Friday raised preliminary terrorism charges against an 18-year-old accused of a plot targeting spectators attending soccer games at the upcoming Paris Olympics. The interior minister said it was the first such thwarted plot targeting the Games, which start in eight weeks as France is on its highest threat alert level.
The man is accused of planning a "violent action" on behalf of the Islamic State group's jihadist ideology, the national counterterrorism prosecutor's office said in a statement Friday. The man, who was not identified, is behind held in custody pending further investigation.
Three years after 9/11, the Beslan School Siege in Russia took place on September 1, 2004. Three weeks after the attack, Chechen terrorists issued a statement claiming responsibility for the attack and described the attackers as a "brigade of martyrs". The situation paralleled the Moscow theatre hostage crisis committed by the same group in 2002.
The standoff lasted three days and involved more than 1,100 people (~750 children) held hostage inside the school. The attack ended with the deaths of 334 people—186 children were killed—as well as 31 of the attackers.
As the United States is involved in conflicts across the Middle East, there are dozens of terrorist groups who could be motivated to attack a school in the United States. Unlike kids who commit school shootings based on a specific and personal grievance connected to the campus, these terrorist groups could see a school as a high profile “soft target” that gets international media attention for their group.
Future for Schools
The 9/11 Commission Report found that the most important failure was one of imagination. Our leaders didn’t understand the gravity of terrorist threats. The danger from Bin Ladin and al Qaeda were not even a major topic for policy debate among the public, the media, or in the Congress in the 1990s.
Even though an adult man targeting a 33-student school in rural California is highly improbable, it’s not a surprise that it happened. “Our predictions often fail when we venture out of sample” (Nate Silver, The Signal and The Noise, page. 420). Without meaningful policy action to reduce firearms access, this could happen at any school in the United States.
When schools and public spaces are inherently unsecurable against a surprise attack by an assailant with a gun, we need to refocus on eliminating the means to commit acts of mass violence. If he couldn't get access to a gun, it's extremely unlikely that he could stab the kids and also stab himself to death within seconds before an adult could intervene—or the kids could just run from this frail man.
Just like September 10, 2001, I do not believe that police and school officials understand the gravity of the threats that students may face in the future. Failing to imagine, acknowledge, or address these threats is not an excuse because as two more children were critically injured at their school, the cost of inaction is too high.
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.