A shooting at the Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, on Monday left three people dead, including the shooter, and several wounded. With a tragedy like this, we are faced with people dying unnecessarily and prematurely. In this case, young children were involved, making the event even more horrific and disturbing.
These kinds of shootings incite cries for gun restrictions and bans. In this case, the shooter was a 15-year-old student at the school, too young to own a firearm. However, access to firearms is a safety issue that everyone can get behind.
This year has been the quietest year for firearm deaths and injuries for some time. To date, there have been 30 mass killings in 2024, defined as four or more people killed, excluding the shooter. By comparison, 2023 and 2022 saw 40 and 36 mass killings, respectively. To date, there have been 491 mass shootings in 2024, defined as four or more people shot, excluding the shooter. By comparison, 2023 and 2022 saw 656 and 646 mass shootings, respectively. This means that 2024 will have the lowest such number since 2019, when 414 mass shootings were reported.
Perhaps what is most disturbing about the Madison school shooting is the age of the shooter. Access to a firearm for such a young person must be questioned. If the person took the firearm from her home, then the safe storage of firearms becomes the issue of concern.
A look at school shootings versus all mass shootings shows that from 2014 to 2023, school shootings typically represented around 12% to 13% of all mass shootings. The one gaping exception is 2020, when schools were largely shut down, so the ratio plummeted to around 4% (22 school shootings and 610 mass shootings).
In 2024, the percentage has jumped to more than 17%. Whether this is a temporary aberration or a change in trend remains to be seen.
What stands out with the data is that 2024 is on track to have the lowest number of mass shootings since 2019 (491) yet have the highest number of school shootings ever (83). However, the number of schools shootings in 2023 and 2022 were 82 and 79, respectively. This means that the nation has experienced fewer mass shootings overall, while school shootings have remained flat.
Why is this the case? The simplest explanation may be the definition of a mass shooting versus a shooting at a school. Mass shootings are defined by the number of people shot — specifically, four or more people — while any discharge of a firearm at a school with at least one person shot counts as a school shooting. This provides the most plausible explanation as to why school shooting frequency appears more common relative to mass shootings in general.
This apples-to-oranges analysis does not diminish the horror anytime a school shooting occurs, or for that matter, any mass shooting, in the nation. Indeed, anytime a person is shot or, worse yet, killed, a life is lost prematurely and avoidably.
What it does highlight is that when reporting data, the appropriate context must be stated, and the frame of reference for the data appropriately explained, something that some media are not always careful to do.
Over the next week, much more will be learned about the Abundant Life Christian School shooting, the backgrounds of all the victims and, perhaps most importantly, how a young girl got her hands on a firearm and decided to shoot at fellow students and teachers.
As people are mourned and buried, let us never forget that all such events are avoidable, not by top-down policies but by bottom-up human interactions and concern. That is where the solution to school shootings, and indeed, all shootings may reside.
Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a professor in computer science in the Grainger College of Engineering and the Carle Illinois College of Medicine at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He uses his expertise in risk-based analytics to address problems in public policy and public health.
Submit a letter, of no more than 400 words, to the editor here or email letters@chicagotribune.com.