An exploration of K–12 school shooting threats in the United States.

Abstract

This exploratory study examines approximately 1,000 shooting threats made at K-12 schools gathered from publicly available news reports over a 4-year academic period, including prepandemic, pandemic, and postpandemic data. The content analysis finds violent threats increased dramatically in 2021-2022. A majority of individuals who make school shooting threats are male students at large public high schools, which is consistent with those who perpetrate mass shootings at K-12 schools. However, those who threaten shootings are a more diverse population than perpetrators themselves in that they are a wider variety of ages and nearly one fifth are female. Text analysis identified words indicating the specificity of a threat and showed threats tended to be both negative and angry. In 40% of cases, it was unclear if the threat was real or a joke/hoax, yet the most common outcome was to arrest the individual making the threat and charge them with a felony. This study concludes with a call for research to better understand who makes school shooting threats and the challenges to this line of research. Public Significance StatementThe results of this exploratory examination of 1,000 school shooting threats over a 4-year period show that threats are increasing. Those who threatened school shootings were a more diverse group than perpetrators of school shootings; and in 40% of cases, it is unclear if the threat is real or a joke. Future research is needed to understand and design appropriate intervention strategies for various forms of threats.