Education

4,955: Number Of Public-School Students Who Had Gun At School Was Highest In Decade In 2021-22 School Year

PatrickRich/Creative Commons, Public Domain

In the 2021-22 school year, 4,955 public school students “brought firearms to or possessed firearms at school,” according to data published by the National Center for Education Statistics, which is an agency of the U.S. Department of Education.

“During the 2021–22 school year, 5,000 public school students from kindergarten to 12th grade were reported to have possessed firearms at schools in the United States,” says the NCES’ Report on Indicators of School Crime and Safety. “This translates to an overall rate of 10 firearm possessions per 100,000 students, which was higher than in any other school year over the previous decade (ranging from 2 to 7 possessions per 100,000 students).”

A table in the NCES’s Digest of Education Statistics, however, puts the number precisely at 4,955. A spokesperson for NCES told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the 5,000 public school students cited in the report as having possessed a firearm at school was simply a “rounding” of the 4,955 in its table.

In 2011-12 school year, according to the NCES table, 2,687 public school students brought firearms to or possessed firearms at school. In the COVID pandemic year of 2019-20, it dropped to 1,115; but then, in 2021-22, it jumped to 4,955.

In 2022, the United States saw the second largest number of school-shooting casualties (including both killed and wounded) in any year in the 21^st century.

According to the report, there were four “active shooter incidents” at elementary and secondary schools in the United States that year. These incidents resulted in 52 casualties, including 23 people killed and 29 wounded. That was up from 2021, when there were 14 casualties, including four killed and ten wounded.

The highest number of casualties from school-shooting incidents in this century occurred in 2018, when there were 81, including 29 killed and 52 wounded.

Among the 50 states, Alabama had the highest rate of public-school students — 30.3 per 100,000 — possessing guns at school in the 2021-22 school year. Illinois had the second-highest rate at 29.2. New Mexico had the third-highest rate at 24.3. South Carolina had the fourth-highest rate at 23.2, and Louisiana had the fifth-highest rate at 21.4.

Washington, D.C., however, had a higher rate than any state. In our nation’s capital, 38.2 public-school students per 100,000 had a firearm at school.

While the number of students with firearms at school increased from the 2011-12 school year to the 2021-22 school year, the percentage of public-school teachers estimated to be “physically attacked” by a student declined.

“Lower percentages of public school teachers in 2020-21 reported being threatened with injury by a student from their school (6 vs. 10 percent) or being physically attacked by a student from their school (4% vs. 6%),” said the report.

Nonetheless, according to an NCES table, an estimated 155,000 public school teachers were physically attacked by a student in the 2020-21 school year. In the 2011-12 school year, an estimated 197,400 teachers had been physically attacked by a student.

Female public-school teachers were far more likely to be attacked by a student than male teachers. Of the estimated 155,000 public-school teachers who were physically attacked by a student in the 2020-21 school year, according to an NCES table, only 19,500 were male teachers while 135,500 were female teachers.

Teachers in public elementary schools were also more likely to be physically attacked by a student than were teachers in public secondary schools. Of the estimated 155,000 public-school teachers physically attacked by a student in the 2020-21 school year, 129,600 were elementary school teachers and 25,400 were secondary school teachers.

The active-shooter incidents that took place at elementary and secondary schools were mostly perpetrated by male shooters. “From 2000 through 2022,” said the NCES report, “there were 51 active shooters responsible for the 50 incidents at elementary and secondary schools. Of the 51 active shooters, 49 were male and two were female and 35 were 12 to 18 years old, 7 were 19 to 24 years old and 9 were 25 years old and above.”

The Journal of Adolescent Health published a study in 1997 entitled: “Characteristics of students who bring weapons to school.”

“Study results suggest that both the structure and the dynamics of the family play an important role in weapon carrying behavior,” said a summary of this report.

“In a multivariate logistic regression model, being male, not living with both parents, not feeling close to parents, drinking heavily, participating in fights, damaging school property, and perceiving that at least a few other students brought weapons to school, were significantly associated with weapon carrying,” it said. “Victimization and fear for safety in school were not significantly associated with weapon carrying in the multivariate model.”