Forty Five School Shootings in 2015 Alone; Full List and Interactive Map Available Here
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Days after the shooting at Umpqua Community College, Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, a part of Everytown, today released an interactive school shootings index that maps each school shooting since 2013. The list includes any incident where a firearm is discharged inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement. Incidents where guns were brought into schools but not fired, or were fired off school grounds after having been possessed on school grounds – such as the Isla Vista shooting in May 2014 – are not included.
“It should terrify us that there are still nearly three months left in 2015, yet we have endured at least 45 school shootings just this year,” said Shannon Watts, Founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America. “We don’t have to live by lockdown drill as though school shootings are inevitable acts of nature; they are due to a man-made failure of action. School shootings are entirely preventable, which is why we should be working to keep guns out of the hands of dangerous people. We owe it to our children to provide them with a safe learning environment — no other developed nation is subjecting their students to gunfire.”
“In our country when someone asks ‘did you hear about this school shooting?’ we need to ask, ‘which one?’ and that needs to change,” said Colin Goddard, a survivor of the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting and Everytown Senior Policy Advocate. “Congress’ reaction to the 142 shootings since 2013 has been to sit idly by and do nothing. They have a moral imperative to act. We won’t give up, we will continue to rally Americans all across the country to demand action on Congress and pass common sense measures on the state level at the same time.”
“After the shooting in Roseburg, a student here in Eugene approached me and asked what we can do to prevent these tragedies. She was very frightened, as we all are,” said Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy, a member of the Oregon Coalition of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a part of Everytown for Gun Safety. “It is stunning to know that we’ve had 45 school shootings already this year in America, and our Congress can’t come together and address it. Our hearts grieve for the loss of these people, their families, their friends, their community.”
“As educators we are focused on doing all that is possible to ensure every student has a safe school in which to learn,” said National Education Association President Lily Eskelsen García. “Today’s report by Everytown is a stark and sad reminder of the continued epidemic of gun violence that plagues communities all over our country.”
This year alone, Everytown, Moms Demand Action, and other gun safety advocates have defeated the gun lobby’s efforts to pass legislation that would force guns onto college campuses in 14 states and defeated gun lobby-backed bills that would have allowed people to carry guns in K-12 schools in 15 states.
And since 2013, six states – Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Oregon, and Washington – have passed laws to close the loophole that allows guns to be sold over the internet and at gun shows with no background check, no questions asked. Gun safety advocates are working to pass two ballot initiatives that would close this loophole in Maine and Nevada and 2016.