clock menu more-arrow no yes mobile

Filed under:

This map shows every school shooting since Sandy Hook

Zack Beauchamp is a senior correspondent at Vox, where he covers ideology and challenges to democracy, both at home and abroad. Before coming to Vox in 2014, he edited TP Ideas, a section of Think Progress devoted to the ideas shaping our political world.

A school shooter attacked Reynolds High School in Portland, Oregon on June 10, killing at least one student. It was the 74th school shooting since the infamous assault on Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut — and, as this map shows, they've happened all over the country.

Screen_shot_2014-06-10_at_1.48.46_pm

Shootings at K-12 schools in red, at colleges/universities in purple. Everytown for Gun Safety/Mark Gongloff

The data comes from Everytown for Gun Safety, a recently formed gun control advocacy group. Everytown defines school shooting as "assaults, homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings" that take place "inside a school building or on school or campus grounds." Huffington Post editor Mark Gongloff mapped Everytown's data and tweeted it out.

It's hard to find statistically reliable research about school shootings, but there's no doubt gun violence is still a serious problem in America. Despite the fact that the gun homicide death has declined substantially in the past two decades,  about 11,000 Americans are still killed every year in firearm homicides. About 19,000 die in gun suicides.

That's a much higher rate than anywhere else in the developed world. The causes are complicated, but there's mounting evidence that America's loose gun laws contribute to both the suicide and homicide problem.

You might also be interested in:

Sign up for the newsletter Today, Explained

Understand the world with a daily explainer plus the most compelling stories of the day.