Last week’s deadly shooting in Aurora Colo., demonstrates what most people already know – a multiple victim shooting can occur quickly and in any setting.  As with any other situation of this magnitude, it may take a while before we have accurate and detailed information on this tragedy.  This incident does, however reinforce some important points learned from past shootings.

Planned firearms attacks can occur almost anywhere in the world.  We have now seen deadly shooting sprees in Canada, Germany, Norway, Australia, Scotland, Russia, Israel, France, Brazil, Mexico, Vietnam and the People’s Republic of China to name just a few.  Though there are often significant differences in per capita homicide rates between countries, multiple victim shootings have occurred in countries with broad civilian ownership of firearms as well as in countries where even the possession of a single round of ammunition can result in a swiftly applied death penalty after a suspect confesses while being tortured by the police and is tried without the benefit of a jury trial. 

We have seen these types of shootings in shopping malls, day care centers, places of worship, public and private K-12 schools, institutions of higher learning, office complexes, factories and a variety of other venues.  In the K-12 area we have seen campus shootings at an Amish School, a small reservation school, schools in rural states like Alaska, Montana and Vermont as well as in our some of our nation’s largest cities.  Campus shootings have occurred in every region of the country with the exception of Hawaii.  While the U.S. K-12 school homicide rate has declined significantly over the past three decades, campus shootings are still clearly a concern for educators, students and parents.   

Of course, we are all painfully aware of the potential for campus shootings at institutions of higher learning though the picture that is painted of this being a uniquely American problem is also not fully accurate.  For example, many people are prone to forget that the majority of higher education campuses globally are sited on U.S. soil and that there have been quite a few shootings at colleges and universities in other countries. 

Though people often become far too focused on the horrific yet relatively rare multiple victim shootings, forgetting the massive U.S. campus populations in relation to countries like Canada and the U.K., the sheer scale of some of the incidents over the past 30 years demonstrates how high the stakes are when it comes to these terrible acts of violence.  As last year’s attack in Norway and last week’s attack in Colorado indicate, we could see even more lethal attacks carried out, particularly if improvised explosive devices and/or chemical agents are more effectively utilized in combination with firearms attacks than they have been in past incidents where such combinations have been utilized.

Modern approaches to physical security, detection of potentially dangerous individuals and emergency preparedness measures that will work under actual field conditions are now appropriate for any setting.  As with generals who try to “fight the last war” an over-emphasis on the out of context evaluation of any single tragic incident can cause us to get tunnel vision, studying a wide range of these violent episodes has helped us avert a number of tragedies and can reduce the loss of human life in the future.  A sad reality is that we must continue to assess and improve our efforts to prevent, prepare for, respond to and recover from deadly campus shootings.

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• 7 Signs a Weapon Is Being Concealed
• Poll Results: Should Legally Obtained Weapons Be Allowed on College Campuses?

Note: The views expressed by guest bloggers and contributors are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, Campus Safety magazine.

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