The Second Amendment and Targeted K-12 School Shootings: An American Dilemma

By Douglas Wortman, Esquire

Mass shootings have exacted a deadly toll on communities across the United States. According to statistics compiled by Mother Jones magazine, more than a thousand people have been killed in such attacks since 1982. American society is deeply divided on the issue of gun control and these events have intensified the debate.

This article, presented in two parts, summarizes a 2019 U.S. Secret Service National Threat Assessment Center study of targeted school violence in the United States in the first part. This threat assessment includes Five Stage Sequential Model to explain what might lead students to commit mass murder at their schools. The first part will conclude with the application of the Sequential Model to the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.

The second part of the article will concentrate on prevention of targeted K-12 school shootings, including The Rand Corporation’s Mass Attacks Defense Toolkit which advances practical strategies and guidance on deterring, mitigating, and responding to mass attacks. The article concludes with a description of the 2021 Oxford, Michigan High School shooting and how numerous missed warnings made that tragedy entirely preventable had they only been acted upon.

Although school shootings have a long history in the United States, the 1990s were a pivotal point, with high-profile occurrences in such cities as Pearl, Mississippi (1997); West Paducah, Kentucky (1997); Springfield, Oregon (1998); and Jonesboro, Arkansas (1998). However, it was the shooting at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in 1999 that sparked a national debate on gun violence. In that attack, two students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, killed 13 people before taking their own lives.

Then, in 2012, one particularly disturbing school shooting garnered massive media attention and brought particular urgency