There were half as many K-12 school shootings last month as there were in Jan. 2024, new data shows.
In Jan. 2025, there were 15 school shooting incidents compared to 30 in Jan. 2024, according to the K-12 School Shooting Database. There were also 12 victims in Jan. 2025 compared to 32 in Jan. 2024. As of Feb. 20, there have been 26 school shooting incidents so far in 2025. These incidents include all instances in which a gun was fired, brandished, or a bullet hit school property regardless of the number of victims.
In Jan. 2025, the most common location for a school shooting was a parking lot (6 incidents) and the most common time was during dismissal (5 incidents), emphasizing the importance of increased school security in those locations and at those times.
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While fewer incidents of gun violence can likely be attributed to many different factors, such as weapons detection systems, improved emergency response plans, and thorough threat assessments, Jan. 2025 still saw a planned mass shooting in the attack at Antioch High School in Nashville. A 17-year-old student gunman brought a pistol into the school and fatally shot one student and injured another before turning the gun on himself.
Like with many other mass school shooters, a 288-page online diary indicated the troubled teen idolized notorious mass murderers. The shooter’s diary entries began on Oct. 18 and described his plans for the attack. His goal was to kill “at least 10 people.” Online postings allegedly from the shooter also praised Adolf Hitler and included selfies with various alt-right paraphernalia and explicit images from previous school shootings.
Additionally, his diary linked to several social media accounts focusing on white nationalist, neo-Nazi, and violently misogynistic incel content.
As with all school shooting investigations, we will have to wait and see if the shooter exhibited any outward warning signs, such as telling someone he was planning an attack or changes in his behavior. According to the U.S. Secret Service, 80% of school shooters tell at least one other person about their plans before carrying out an attack, which shows the need for school leaders to regularly emphasize the importance of reporting potential threats.
School Shooting Averted in Tennessee
Although there is much to be learned from school shooting incidents such as the one at Antioch High School, there is also much to be learned from averted ones.
This month, a Tennessee father was praised for preventing a potential school shooting by reporting his son to police, Local 3 reports. McMinn County Sheriff Joe Guy said he received a call from a concerned parent who said he found a disturbing video recording of his son and another student. The pair were wearing masks and holding pellet guns as if they were firearms. They made statements about people who they felt “wronged” them and how they wanted to harm them.
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Over the course of a few weeks, the parent had “become suspicious of some behavior that the child had exhibited.” Both students were interviewed by law enforcement and gave statements indicating their intention to acquire firearms. They also did web searches for ‘explosives,’ ‘how to make explosive devices,’ and ‘how to acquire explosive devices.
“I can’t speak enough about how courageous that must have been for that parent to call me knowing there was a good chance he might get his own child in some legal trouble,” Guy says. “He just kept saying, ‘This is the right thing to do and I know if it were someone else’s child, I would want them to report if my child might be placed in danger.’”
Last year saw the second-most K-12 school shooting incidents — only 19 fewer than the all-time high recorded in 2023. While those are terrible numbers to be working with, we are hopeful that through continued multi-tiered school safety initiatives, those numbers will continue to drop.
