Are gun ownership rates and regulations associated with firearm incidents in American schools? A forty-year analysis (1980–2019)
Introduction
School shootings have become a pressing concern for the American public education system. In the United States, the number of shootings on school grounds is consistently higher than that of any other country in the world (Hahn et al., 2005). While many gun incidents in US schools do not lead to injury or death, a non-trivial number of devastating mass shootings occurring in the past decade have resulted in substantial numbers of victims and ignited intense gun control debates. One of these highly distressing incidents was in 2012 when a 20-year old with a history of mental health problems murdered six adults and twenty children between the ages of six and seven in a mass shooting at an elementary school in Connecticut (Langman, 2015). More recently in 2018, national attention became refocused on gun control after a 19-year old assailant killed fourteen students and four school staff at a high school in Florida where he had been previously expelled (Aslett, Webb Williams, Casas, Zuidema, & Wilkerson, 2020). Loss of life and psychological trauma are directly observable ramifications for schools and communities that experience a school shooting. The traumatic effects of these incidents also appear to extend beyond the location of the shooting itself, inflicting damage on the psyche, confidence, and wellbeing of the broader public (Collins, 2014; Newman, Fox, Harding, Mehta, & Roth, 2005).
Public outcry after major school shootings has spurred varying proposals for action from federal, state, and local officials (Schildkraut & Hernandez, 2014). While policy recommendations have ranged from arming teachers to strengthening mental health supports for troubled youth, gun control has been at the forefront of disputes over how to prevent school shootings (Rajan & Branas, 2018). Many states have enacted gun safety legislation following rampage-style school shootings (Schell, Cefalu, Griffin, Smart, & Morral, 2020). The main rationale for enhanced gun control is straightforward. The United States has both the highest rate of gun ownership and the greatest number of school shooting incidents in the developed world. Proponents of strong legal restrictions on firearms argue that these patterns demonstrate that guns are too accessible to those with mental health issues and a history of violence, making school shootings an inevitable consequence. Yet, opponents claim that gun prevalence is a response to existing crime and violence, and that restrictive gun laws violate the right to bear arms enshrined in the US Constitution by preventing law abiding citizens from owning guns (Stolzenberg & D'alessio, 2000).
In the empirical literature, many researchers have estimated correlational associations between gun ownership rates and general crime and violence, but this work is inconclusive (Kleck, 2015; Shetgiri, Boots, Lin, & Cheng, 2016; Siegel, Ross, & King III, 2013). Investigations of gun control regulations have exhibited more consistent associations with lower crime and violence (Andres & Hempstead, 2011; Fleegler et al., 2013; Hurka & Knill, 2020; Schell et al., 2020; Smith & Spiegler, 2020). For school-based incidents with firearms, empirical analyses are lacking. Nevertheless, there are compelling reasons to expect that high rates of gun ownership increase the likelihood of school firearm incidents as school shootings often involve weapons stolen by minors from family members, friends, and neighbors (Jeynes, 2020; Shetgiri et al., 2016). Some evidence on regulation is suggestive, indicating that laws holding gun owners criminally liable for negligent storage of firearms (e.g. child access prevention laws) are linked to lower prevalence of gun carrying in school (Anderson & Sabia, 2018; Fla. Stat. Ann. § 790.174, 2011; Hawaii Rev. Stat. § 134-10.5, 2011). Other scholarship on preventative measures is predominantly theoretical, drawing from threat assessment models (Cornell, 2020) or in-depth analyses of a subset of school shootings (Langman, 2009a). Broader empirical analysis is needed to launch a line of inquiry that can shed light on policy responses that might hold promise for reducing school shootings.
This study investigates the relationship between state gun ownership rates and school firearm incidents (n = 1275) and injured/killed victims (n = 2026) of these incidents from 1980 to 2019 in the United States. Over this forty-year period, it also examines whether child access prevention, minimum age requirements for gun purchases, and mandatory gun safety training laws are associated with decreases in school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims. For the analyses, data from the School Shootings Database were linked to data from the State Firearm Law Database, the National Center for Education Statistics, and US Census. State-level fixed effects models are performed to explore whether state-level gun ownership rates are related to the number of school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims. Interrupted time series analyses are then used to examine whether child access prevention, minimum age requirements for gun purchases, and mandatory gun safety training laws are associated with declines in school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims. This study provides a quantitative analysis of school firearm incidents over a forty-year period that has the potential to contribute to an underdeveloped literature. It may also raise important questions for gun policy and regulation.
Section snippets
The relationship between gun ownership and crime and violence
The literature on school firearm incidents and gun ownership is limited. However, a large body of work has investigated links between general gun violence and gun ownership. In the United States, rates of gun violence are marked by different trends over the past sixty years (Kleck, 2004; Gramlich, 2019). For example, between 1960 and the mid-1970s, gun homicide and crime in the United States rose sharply when the homicide rate went from 4.7 to 9.9 per 100,000 people (Blumstein, 1995; Kleck, 2017
Current study
The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between state-level gun ownership rates and the number of firearm incidents and injured/killed victims of firearm incidents in schools. Fixed-effects models are used to investigate results within states over a forty-year period. For these analyses, the following question is addressed: Are state gun ownership rates associated with the number of school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims of these incidents? This study also explores
Data sources
For the analyses, data from the School Shootings Database were linked to data from the State Firearm Law Database, the National Center for Education Statistics, and US Census. Developed by the Center for Homeland Defense and Security, the School Shootings Database contains all firearm incidents occurring in American schools from 1970 to the present. The School Shootings Database is the most comprehensive dataset on school firearm incidents in the United States, recording the details of every
Results
Fig. 1 presents average state gun ownership rates from 1980 to 2019 and the total number of school firearm incidents and injured/killed victims of school firearm incidents over the same period. In 1980, the average state gun ownership rate was nearly 51% but trended downward to a little under 40% as of 2019. From 1980 to 2017, the total number of school firearm incidents generally stayed near the range of 20 to 40 incidents each year. However, school firearm incidents skyrocketed to
Discussion
Gun ownership and regulation are at the center of debates over how to address the high number of firearm incidents occurring in American schools. Yet, little prior empirical work exists on state gun ownership, gun regulations, and school incidents with firearms. This study sought to understand whether state gun ownership rates and gun control laws are associated with school firearm incidents. The analyses produced mixed results that did not offer consistent evidence of a relationship between
Conclusion
The search for policy levers that can reduce incidents with firearms in schools is of critical importance. This study's empirical results showed weak and inconsistent evidence of links between school firearm incidents and state gun ownership rates and three gun control laws. Although this study does not provide immediate direction on which policies should or should not be undertaken in the short term, the analyses contribute empirical data to a largely theoretical debate over how to address
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