WASHINGTON, May 21. In the US over the past five years, there has been more than 1,000 school shooting incidents, a significant increase over any other similar period in the past half century, according to a report from the K-12 School Shooting Database, a research center that collects data on US school shootings.
According to the center, from 2018 to the present, about 1,050 incidents involving the use of firearms have occurred in US schools. From 1970 to 2017 inclusive, no more than 60 similar cases per year were recorded in the country's schools, while at the same time from 2018 to 2023 inclusive, the center registered at least 115 cases annually.
The report notes that the most common cause of conflicts with the use of firearms in American schools was «exacerbation of disputes.» The most frequent place of occurrence of incidents on the territory of schools was parking for vehicles. According to the time of the day, conflicts most often occurred within the interval devoted to morning classes.
In 38% of cases, the incident ended in the escape of the initiator with his subsequent detention, in 33.4% of cases the suspects managed to escape. In 8.5% of cases, the suspects surrendered to the police, while in 7.7% the incident ended in their suicide. The majority of conflicts with firearms occurred in high school (63.1%).
The fight against the «epidemic of armed violence», as US President Joe Biden characterizes what is happening in the country, is the declared priority of his administration, but there is no significant progress in this process. Since the beginning of this year alone, there have been more than 130 cases of shootings in public places in the United States. About 4.3 thousand people died in incidents with the use of firearms.