There have been at least 77 school shootings in the United States so far this year, as of November 17. Twenty-seven of those were on college campuses and the remaining 50 were on K-12 school grounds. The incidents have left at least 34 people dead and more than 85 injured, according to CNN’s analysis of events reported by the Gun Violence Archive, Education Week, and Everytown for Gun Safety.
CNN cross checks these reports of school shootings against school and police accounts and media reports. All incidents of gun violence are included if they occurred on school property, from kindergartens through colleges/universities, and at least one person was shot, not including the shooter. School property includes but is not limited to, buildings, fields, parking lots, stadiums and buses. Accidental discharges of firearms are included, as long as at least one person is shot, but not if the sole shooter is law enforcement or school security.
In the first year of the pandemic, when schools were closed, there was a major decline in gun violence incidents on school grounds. Since then, recent years have seen a stark increase in school shootings, with both 2021 and 2022 setting records since at least 2008, when CNN began tracking shootings. Last year, which saw the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, was one of the deadliest years for school shootings since 2008. That day, 19 students and two educators were killed and more than a dozen others were injured.
Students and educators have engaged in activism around the issue of gun violence, and some educators have quit the profession.
Some states in the south have seen the highest rate of school shootings relative to their populations since 2008, according to CNN’s analysis. Washington, DC had the highest rate — 5 total shootings, more than 0.7 per 100,000 people — while Texas had the most overall with 54 school shootings. Meanwhile, just five states — Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island — had no school shootings in that period, according to CNN’s analysis.