Do States with Stricter Gun Laws Have fewer School Shootings?

Evaluating Gun Control Org's Rankings vs. Real World Shooting Data

Everytown USA is an advocacy organization whose sole purpose is to prevent gun violence. They are composed of activists, volunteers, and “everyday people.” They claim to be the largest such organization in the country. Counting how frequently their articles and data get cited in media, that claim seems likely true.

The organization claims to be an authority on how to prevent gun violence. They have a very clear list of solutions that they advocate for, which are typically specific state laws restricting gun ownership in some way. These laws are “proven”, and the data is obvious, if you just look at their graphs, with gun law strictness juxtaposed with gun deaths by state, here. They have data to support their claims. See their methodology here.

[Note: this article focuses specifically on School Shooting data, rather than all gun-related mortality. That subject will be fact -checked and covered in a future post]

In addition to the list of laws they advocate for, they know just exactly how to stop gun violence in schools.

Reading these recommendations, most of them appear to be straightforward, non-controversial, and make sense on the surface. Some of them take some unpacking to understand exactly what they mean, but I can’t image many people being against “Fostering a Safe and Trusting School Climate” or eve secure gun storage. Other items on the list are the subject of a decades long debate between 2nd amendment advocates and gun control advocates.

Somewhat counter-intuitively, they also advocate against active shooter drills, claiming “there is almost no research affirming the value of these drills for preventing school shootings or protecting the school community when shootings do occur.”

The previous statement seems somewhat loaded, considering that these active shooter events are rare, instead of saying they don’t work, they say that there’s no research saying they work. This is a somewhat stunning claim, in light of the recent Covenant shooting, where just such procedures where taken.

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So what does it look like when we take Everytown’s Ranking System and apply it to state level school shootings data? If lax gun laws are related to school shootings, to the point where an “evidence-based” advocacy org can make explicit and certain claims, surely this will be obvious in the data. See below for the charts & links to interact.

The Results: