What Works & What Doesn’t
According to Buttar et al. (2024), research suggests that visible school security measures like metal detectors, cameras, and police officers do not improve school safety or academic achievement but instead may increase this emotional response in students.
What is anxiety and stress?
Most school shooters exhibit this behavior beforehand - telling a peer or posting online hints about their plans.
What is communicating their intent to attack before the incident?
This is what school shooters are looking for when they turn to online gun communities, using them as substitutes for face-to-face relationships
What is social connection/belonging?
During school shooting incidents school staff are most likely to start this action first.
What is locking doors/sheltering students?
The NTCA stated this early prevention model focuses on identifying students needs rather than punishing them.
What is a behavioral threat assessment approach?
Research by the NTAC found that some attackers exhibited narcissism, lack of empathy, a desire for fame through violence, disregard for authority, and callousness, which may have influenced their behavior.
What are personality traits identified in attackers that may have influenced their behavior?
Gun control in the U.S is strongly reinforced by this constitutional amendment.
What is the Second Amendment?
Communication breakdowns during shootings often occur because staff rely on this slow, outdated method of relying on information instead of coordinated digital systems.
What is word-of-mouth alerts or shouting warnings?
Buttar et al. (2024) directly identifies a major methodological flaw in prior school safety studies. Researchers only included schools that experienced shootings, meaning they lacked this essential comparison group.
What is the comparison of groups of schools that have not experienced shootings?
According to the study by the NTAC, the most frequent symptom combinations involved psychological and behavioral symptoms, and attackers with multiple symptoms often had difficulty regulating their emotions.
What are the common combinations of symptoms among attackers and their impact on emotional regulation?
U.S gun culture ties to a broader cultural belief in this, the idea that individuals should rely on themselves- not institutions- for protection.
What is self-reliance or rugged individualism?
Differences in staff responses across schools often stem from inconsistencies in this aspect of preparedness- leading some staff to freeze while others take action.
What is the quality or frequency of training?
Using threat assessment teams, counseling, and community-based interventions rather than relying solely on zero-tolerance policies or armed security.
What are the preventive strategies highlights by Eadens et al. (2018) as more effective than reactive or purely security-based measures?
NTAC research indicates that persistent defiance and misconduct during childhood may foreshadow personality disorders and violent tendencies in adulthood.
What early behavioral patterns are considered warning signs of potential long-term risk?
Shooters often use gun ownership and firearm expertise to construct an identity that compensates for the feeling of this social condition.
What is social rejection or isolation?
One major challenge during school shooting incidents is that high stress impairs this cognitive ability, making it harder for teachers to remember steps from training.
What is working memory or decision-making?