GUNSDo Armed Guards Prevent School Shootings?
Roughly a third of parents with school-age kids are very or extremely worried about gun violence at their child’s school, according to a 2022 survey by The Pew Research Center. The same Pew survey found that roughly half of U.S. parents think armed security in schools is an effective response. Do armed guards — sometimes called school resource officers or school police officers — are actually a deterrent to gun violence and mass shootings?
Roughly a third of parents with school-age kids are very or extremely worried about gun violence at their child’s school, according to a 2022 survey by The Pew Research Center. And in much of America, the response to school shootings has been to put more guns in schools. The same Pew survey found that roughly half of U.S. parents think armed security in schools is an effective response.
Despite the prominent media coverage of mass shootings, and school shootings in particular, they account for just 2 percent of gun deaths. In 2022, there were 51 active shootings that caused injury or death — excluding suicides — in K-12 schools or on school buses. There are roughly 100,000 public schools in the United States, meaning that these incidents are quite rare. Still, widespread worry fuels an active national debate about how to curb these shootings.
A reader wanted to know, are armed guards — sometimes called school resource officers or school police officers — actually a deterrent to gun violence and mass shootings? We found the evidence is limited.
Have guns stopped mass shootings at schools?
There are only a handful of documented cases in which an armed security guard or stationed police officer has stopped a school shooting. A commonly cited example involves a school resource officer who chased a gunman off a high school campus in Dixon, Illinois, in May of 2018, then shot and wounded the perpetrator.
A recent study by researchers from The Violence Project suggests that armed guards in schools don’t reduce fatalities. Researchers examined 133 school shootings and attempted school shootings between 1980 and 2019, tallied up by the K-12 School Shooting Database. At least one armed guard was present in almost a quarter of cases studied, and researchers found no significant reduction in rates of injuries in these cases. In fact, shootings at schools with an armed guard ended with three times as many people killed, on average. “Whenever firearms are present, there is room for error, and even highly trained officers get split-second decisions wrong,” the researchers wrote. “Prior research suggests that many school shooters are actively suicidal, intending to die in the act, so an armed officer may be an incentive rather than a deterrent.”
