School Shootings – Why Are They Happening?

Less than 9 miles from Ridgewood High School, half a dozen gunshots were heard coming from the parking lot of Passaic County Technical Institute. Two people were hospitalized.

After a Friday-night football game on August 30th at around 7:33 PM, a 16-year-old boy had fired shots into the crowd, injuring a 15 and a 16-year-old girl. Police arrived on the scene and sent the two injured students to St. Joseph’s University Medical Center. The Wayne Police Department, the Passaic County Sheriff’s Office, and the Passaic County Prosecutor’s Office immediately arrived at the scene, and arrested the shooter; he is now in custody facing charges including attempted murder.

This incident marks the third school shooting in New Jersey—one of the nine states with an assault weapons ban—as of the start of the 2024-2025 school year, with two others occurring in Newark, resulting in one death and injuries to two others. This is the most school shootings New Jersey has experienced in a year since 2019, when there were five.

Since November 27th, 78 school shootings have occurred in the United States, resulting in the deaths of 36 individuals and 105 wounded. 53 of these shootings took place at K-12 schools, while the other 25 happened on college campuses (Matthews, et al. 2024). 

The US is the leading country for school shootings worldwide, with 288 incidents in 2018, far surpassing Mexico, the country with the second highest number at eight. With such an immense multitude of school shootings rocking the nation, it begs the question: why?

According to a study conducted by Union College, causes include mental illness, lack of gun control, destructive masculinity, lack of social capital, and sensationalization of shooters in the media (Kaufman 2018). 

Severe mental illness, deemed the main cause, is also the most misunderstood. 

“Guns don’t kill people, the mentally ill do,” said Ann Coulter, a legal correspondent for Human Events—a conservative news site. While both conservatives and liberals blame people with mental illnesses for the school shootings, the reality is that the majority of diagnosed people with mental illnesses do not engage in gun violence against others. It is clear from the numerous mass shootings that are carried out by people with mental illness, most of which are likely undiagnosed, that many individuals are not receiving the diagnosis or aid they require, pointing to a deeper issue in the foundations of our society, and how we approach mental health. 

Beyond that, though, it is important to realize that the weapon itself cannot be ignored in this discussion. According to the BBC, in the US there are 120.5 guns per 100 people, up from 88 guns per 100 people in 2011; it is the highest in the world, second to Yemen with 52.8 guns per 100 people. This number is exacerbated by the National Rifle Association’s heavy lobbying against gun control, on which they spend millions of dollars more than pro-gun control groups.

The most popular gun, owned by 1 in 20 Americans, is the AR-15, a semi-automatic weapon that is also the gun that is primarily used in mass shootings. The AR-15 becomes even more dangerous with the attachment of a tiny illegal, but nonetheless easily accessible, device called a “Glock switch,” which makes the gun automatic.

“It’s a perfect killing machine,” said Jonathan Metzl, a professor of sociology at Vanderbilt University who researches gun violence.

Based on these statistics, it may not be a complete shock that guns are the leading cause of death for children and teenagers in the US. A common misconception held by nearly half of the parents of the 4.6 million American kids who live in a home with a gun is that the child does not know where the gun is. This is especially concerning considering that 68% of guns used for school shootings come from home, relatives, or friends.

The Georgia school shooting on September 4th was carried out by 14-year-old Colt Gray, who received an AR-15-style gun as a present from his father. Gray had demonstrated signs of mental illness previously. During the shooting, he killed two students and two teachers, injuring nine others in this allegedly premeditated attack. 

Gray’s father had requested that his son receive counseling at school, but did not follow up to ensure Gray got the help he required (Kallingal, Sayers, 2024). Males carry out 96% of school shootings (Kaufman 2018), thus suggesting a connection to the lack of support for men who struggle with mental illness. This is made abundantly clear by the rapid rise of men with mental illness, with at least 6 million men suffering from depression each year. 

“There’s also a copycat phenomenon,” said Professor Metzl.

Often untouched is the issue of the sensationalization of shooters in the media. According to Union College’s research, when depicting the attacks, the focus on the shooters instead of the victims increases chances of future shootings, especially when their names are mentioned (Kaufman 2018).

School shootings have shaken the nation for decades, and a person has to look no further than America’s severely lacking mental health support and lax gun control regulations to find the flaws that have intensified the frequency of these tragedies.