Ask The Trace: Do Armed Guards Prevent School Shootings?

Welcome to the second issue of our Ask The Trace LinkedIn newsletter. Click the subscribe button above to join our community of readers exploring the complexities of gun violence in America.

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I'm Laura Esposito , The Trace's summer engagement intern. Growing up, I watched school shooting after school shooting, each gripping the nation and sparking debates on how to prevent these horrific acts. I remember sitting in a high school classroom on Valentine's Day in 2018, and hearing whispers of what was happening at another school in Parkland, Florida. Days later, I discovered that Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School employed an armed school resource officer, who had not attempted to engage the shooter. He resigned soon afterward.

According to the Pew Research Center, roughly half of U.S. parents think armed security in schools is an effective response to gun violence. With all of this in mind, soon after joining The Trace I volunteered to look into the effectiveness of the strategy.

I spent weeks researching: combing through studies, speaking with experts, and looking at evidence. I found only a handful of documented cases in which an armed security guard or stationed police officer has stopped a school shooting.

A recent study by researchers from The Violence Prevention Project suggests that armed guards in schools don't reduce fatalities. Researchers examined 133 school shootings and attempted school shootings between 1980 and 2019, tallied up by the K-12 School Shooting Database. At least one armed guard was present in almost a quarter of the cases studied, and researchers found no significant reduction in rates of injuries in these cases. In fact, shootings at schools with an armed guard ended with three times as many people killed, on average.?

Experts have argued that schools would be better served by federal and state gun reform. In the meantime, they encourage schools to invest in more holistic preventive measures. Read more about those in the full story on TheTrace.org.