74 people have been killed or injured by guns at American schools this year
Facts And Fact Checking,Gun Control And Gun Rights,School Shootings,Mass Shootings,Violence In America,Media Bias
On Monday, three children and three staff members were fatally shot at the Covenant School in Nashville, which one expert describes as part of an "astronomical increase" in violence on school campuses in recent years.
There is no universal definition of a school shooting, explains Jillian Peterson, an associate professor of criminology and the president of the Violence Project, a non-profit research center.
"In my research, we focus on school mass shootings, which is a really narrow definition where somebody comes, is heavily armed, fires indiscriminately, and kills four or more people," she said.
The federal government currently does not track the specifics of shootings that occur in schools. And while Peterson says they have been relatively rare over the past few years, there has been an increase in frequency in overall violence on school campuses that is undeniable, regardless of the methodology involved in data collection.
"I used to say mass shootings are rare, school shootings are rare," Peterson said. "But it's hard to keep saying that, you know, even though statistically they are, it's getting harder to convince parents of that."
