Mass Shootings Across America 

February 14, 2023, marks the fifth anniversary of the massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, where 14 high school students and 3 staff members fell victim to yet another instance of gun violence. The events of that date started the March for Our Lives Movement and created the #NeverAgain movement. The Parkland mass shooting drove schools to increase precautions to help ensure the safety of students and staff members. Because the shooter used the fire alarm to create chaos and increase his victims, schools now follow a delayed release to ensure the evacuation is warranted and to improve student safety. 

The Gun Violence Archive reports more than 100 mass shootings since the beginning of 2023, and the numbers continue to rise. According to the Analysis of Recent Mass Shootings, a 2013 article from The US Department of Justice and Office of Justice Programs, states, “For the purposes of tracking crime data, the FBI defines a ‘mass shooting’ as any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun.” Collected data from the Gun Violence Archive also reports 4,041 mass shootings between 2014 – 2022 in America alone. 

Across the United States, children continue to stumble upon firearms as a result of careless gun owners. On January 6, 2023, a Virginian 6-year-old and student of Richneck Elementary school shot their teacher in their classroom; the childs’ intent is unknown. According to CNN, one adult in Pennsylvania and one adult in North Carolina face charges of endangering the welfare of a child and a misdemeanor due to additional incidents of elementary school students gaining access to firearms then bringing the guns on their campus. On February 9, 2023, yet another six-year-old child brought the firearm onto the grounds of Joseph K. Gotwals Elementary School in Norristown, Pennsylvania. Officials reported the child found the firearm in his mother’s dresser. CNN reported, “His ten-year-old brother took the bullets out of the gun and

was pointing it at his brother, pretending to shoot him.” Fairview Elementary School in North Carolina encountered a similar situation where another six-year-old carried an unloaded 9mm gun in their backpack on February 14, 2023. 

In Las Vegas, Nevada, students and faculty consistently report firearms in Clark County schools. On February 1, 2023, a 16-year-old junior brought a loaded gun onto the Spring Valley High School campus. Additionally, the news released a factoid addressing four more incidents at public schools where the CCSD police and faculty members confiscated four firearms in one school day. On February 4, 2023, following the incident at Spring Valley High School, an anonymous tip led to the discovery of a student carrying a firearm at Brian and Teri Middle School in Las Vegas, Nevada. The school reported no injuries as the weapon remained unfired. 

On February 13, 2023, in Michigan, College students were told to “run, hide, fight ” as a gunman entered the Michigan State campus and hunted down students. The incident killed three students and injured five others. According to CNN, the gunman had a list of multiple premeditated victims, plenty of ammunition, and two handguns. 

Sadly, efforts to reform gun laws did not prevent another tragedy on May 24, 2022, in Uvalde, Texas which exceeded the casualty numbers set by Stoneman Douglas with a total of 21 souls lost; 19 students and 2 teachers killed. As a result of the events of Uvalde, Clark County Schools implemented measures to improve school safety as depicted in “CCSD Updates School Safety”. 

To help regulate gun violence, according to the website for the United States Congress, on June 9, 2022, the United States Senate received an Act “To amend title 18, United States Code, to provide for an increased age limit on the purchase of certain firearms, prevent gun trafficking, modernize the prohibition on untraceable firearms, encourage the safe storage of

firearms, and for other purposes.” Almost a year later on January 23, 2023, the United States Congress introduced the Assault Weapons Ban of 2023, a new Bill stating, “To regulate assault weapons, to ensure that the right to keep and bear arms is not unlimited, and for other purposes.”

Editor’s Note: This story was written before the tragic events of On March 27, 2023, where another mass shooting occurred at The Covenant School, a private Presbyterian Church in America parochial school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville, Tennessee.