Are School Shootings Really That Different?

School shootings often grab headlines and spark fear. Many think they are a special kind of violence. The idea is that angry, suburban white boys target their classmates without reason. But is this really true? Recent studies suggest school shootings might not be so different from other gun violence in communities. To test this, researchers looked at 752 nonfatal school shootings and compared them to 28, 109 nonfatal public shootings. They studied data from 1, 098 counties across 45 U. S. states between 2015 and 2019. The results were surprising. There were only small differences between school shootings and public shootings. These differences might be because the shootings happened in a school setting. The study suggests that school gun violence and community gun violence might have similar causes. This challenges the idea that school shootings are a unique form of violence. Instead, they might be part of a bigger problem of gun violence in society. Understanding this can help in finding better solutions.