Gun-free zones and the rise of school shootings: a failed experiment

Editorial note: This report is from the June 2025 issue of Capital Research magazine. Kali Fontanilla was a teacher in public schools for 15 years and is a senior fellow at the Capital Research Center. Her report is being republished because of the murders last week at the school in Minnesota.

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We were told to attend the full-day training in tennis shoes and comfortable clothes, ready to move. What was once a 30-minute training video we could watch on our own time had now turned into a full-day event. The training? A school shooting survival course for teachers.

The session was led by a company called ALICE—Alert. Lockdown. Inform. Counter. Evacuate. With training costs averaging $330 per participant in a school with over 50 teachers meant the district was spending a significant sum for just one day. On top of that, teachers were paid a per diem to attend the mandatory weekend training, making the bill for this training even higher.

Throughout the long day, we were taught how to barricade doors with desks and chairs, evacuate through windows, and run in a weave pattern to make ourselves more challenging targets. We practiced countering an attacker by throwing textbooks and other objects. Then came the simulation, a staged school shooting where instructors armed with fake guns tried to breach our classrooms. Our only defense? Soft foam balls meant to simulate throwing objects at an active shooter. Afterward, we gathered for a debrief. I will never forget one teacher admitting that she was traumatized by the experience and would never want to go through it again.

When I started teaching in the mid-2000s, school shooting training was just a 30-minute passive video. Now, it has evolved into an expensive, full-day, high-intensity, and sometimes traumatizing experience. This reflects the reality of the times we live in, when school shootings are no longer rare, once-in-a-lifetime tragedies but annual occurrences. But it also reflects the absurdity of one-sided political views in our schools, trumping common sense. I mean, throw textbooks? Seriously?

With each new school shooting comes renewed calls for strict gun control, especially the banning of assault rifles. The reaction from the Left is the exact opposite of what should be done to remedy the problem, almost as if their proposals are purposefully wrong. Disarm the good guys by stripping law-abiding citizens of their self-defense, remove armed school resource officers from schools, declare more and more spaces in society as “gun-free” zones (read: soft targets), and even attempt to bankrupt gun manufacturers. Furthermore, gun control nonprofits seize on these tragedies to push anti-gun legislation and fundraising efforts, forcing law-abiding gun owners to fight to protect their Second Amendment rights. It’s a firestorm of emotion, fear, and reactionary policies.

But let’s take a step back. Instead of just reacting, we need to examine the history of school shootings, the rise of gun control nonprofits, the current state of mental health in this country, and what’s really happening in our schools when it comes to guns, school shooters, and the protection of our children. We must have this conversation, but it needs to be based on facts, not just fear.

Early school shootings: A rare occurrence

Millennials like myself hear tales from baby boomers that sound like they are from another country—rifles in the backs of pickup trucks driven by teens into school parking lots. Safe to say, it was a much different time.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, violence in schools was extremely rare. Firearms were a common part of American life and even schools. Students often brought rifles to school for hunting or marksmanship training. Schools had shooting clubs, and even as recently as the mid-20th century, programs like the Civilian Marksmanship Program encouraged safe and responsible gun use among students.

Despite widespread firearm access, shootings in schools were almost unheard of—especially mass shootings. In fact, they were so rare that data on all school shootings wasn’t officially recorded until the mid-1960s. The first official year recorded data was 1966, with nine school shooting incidents recorded, then dropping to five in 1969. Contrast that with 349 incidents in 2023.

This relaxed attitude around firearms on school campuses, even being handled by minors, continued for most of the 20th century. Schools were the opposite of gun-free zones, and the culture surrounding firearms was dramatically different. Students participated in shooting sports, and many schools had rifle teams. Guns were seen as tools for hunting and self-defense rather than as instruments of violence. Millennials like myself hear tales from baby boomers that sound like they are from another country—rifles in the backs of pickup trucks driven by teens into school parking lots. Safe to say, it was a much different time.

Then came the mass shooting in 1966, which suddenly put school mass shootings into the national spotlight. Charles Whitman, a former Marine, climbed the University of Texas Tower and opened fire, killing 16 people and wounding over 30 others. However, it was not yet an indication of a new trend. This isolated incident was shocking and rare for its time, with many blaming Whitman’s severe, untreated mental illness. Nevertheless, the nation got its first experience with a high-media-coverage school shooting, an evil that would plague the country in decades to come.

The late 20th century saw a shift in both gun laws and cultural attitudes. In 1990, the Gun-Free School Zones Act (GFSZA) was passed, making it illegal for anyone other than law enforcement to carry a firearm within 1,000 feet of a school. This act alone showed how far we had come as a country, long removed from the days of high school rifle clubs. It was already a different America, one that previous generations probably would not have accepted. This law, signed by President George H.W. Bush, created what many Second Amendment advocates call “soft targets”—places where law-abiding citizens were disarmed while criminals faced little resistance. Prior to this legislation, school shootings remained rare. However, after the enactment of gun-free school zones, mass school shootings began to rise significantly. Coincidence?

The Columbine High School massacre in 1999 marked a major turning point. Two students, armed with illegally obtained firearms and homemade explosives, killed 13 people and wounded over 20 others before taking their own lives. Despite existing gun control laws, the attackers had no trouble acquiring weapons. I remember this tragic event as a junior in high school. Suddenly, the idea of a disgruntled classmate coming and shooting up the classroom became all the more real, and many of us were paying more attention to the loner teen boys who liked to wear combat boots and long trench coats, with some of those same teens being bullied because they resembled the school shooters in the eerie videos recorded that day.

The 21st century: Gun-free zones and continued failures

Canada has plenty of guns and yet does not have the same issues with violence as America does. The issue, clearly, is not guns.

Sadly, Columbine proved to be like a model for deranged individuals to follow. The Virginia Tech shooting in 2007, the Sandy Hook massacre in 2012, and the Parkland shooting in 2018 all followed the same pattern: an armed individual entered a gun-free zone and carried out an attack with little to no resistance. In many of these cases, warning signs were ignored, law enforcement failed to intervene quickly, and schools had little to no adequate security measures in place.

At Parkland, for example, multiple reports had been made about the shooter’s dangerous behavior, yet the school and law enforcement failed to act. Instead of addressing these failures, the response was to push for an “assault weapons” ban, even though semi-automatic rifles are used in a minority of mass shootings—78 percent of mass shootings since 1982 were done with handguns.

Gun control measures like red flag laws and universal background checks are frequently proposed after these events, even though many school shooters obtain their weapons illegally or steal them. Restrictions placed on law-abiding gun owners do nothing to stop criminals who already disregard the law. Maybe we should outlaw murder next? That’ll stop them, right? Obviously, I’m being sarcastic, but the point is that criminals don’t care what the law is, so making more and more guns illegal will only affect law-abiding citizens who need to defend themselves. We need the good guys who stop a school shooting before it happens. At the end of the day, these new gun control measures have not solved the problem, and the shootings have continued.

So what happened? How did America go from a place where school shootings were extremely rare to the point of not recording them as a separate category of crime statistics to a trend nearing epidemic levels? Michael Moore famously tried to tackle these questions in his 2002 documentary Bowling for Columbine, where he postulated that teenage violence was a reflection of U.S. foreign policy. He noted that a major employer in Littleton, Colorado, where the infamous Columbine shooting occurred, was Lockheed Martin, the weapons manufacturer, and tried to draw a link between the two. The problem with this thesis is that U.S. foreign policy hadn’t changed all that dramatically from the 1960s or even earlier, when school shootings were rare, to the late 1990s when the Columbine shooting took place. Why didn’t two world wars in previous decades lead to mass school shootings? Why didn’t the Vietnam War cause school shootings? This argument falls apart pretty quickly. Moore does get one thing right, however—Canada has plenty of guns and yet does not have the same issues with violence as America does. The issue, clearly, is not guns. And yet, that seems to be the main target of gun control groups since Columbine.

The largest gun control groups in America

They claim to stand for safety yet consistently promote laws that strip rights from law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves, the very people who follow the rules and help keep this country safe.

We constantly hear the phrase “commonsense gun reform” from gun control organizations and the media that amplifies their arguments, which seems reasonable. Still, when you look more deeply into their agenda, it becomes clear that these groups are not about safety—they’re about control. Who’s behind these nonprofits? Who funds them? What is their agenda?

Let’s start with Everytown for Gun Safety—the country’s biggest and most well-funded gun control group, thanks to billionaire Michael Bloomberg. This organization has absorbed smaller groups including Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action, giving it a massive grassroots and media footprint. But what they label as “gun safety” is a push for sweeping restrictions on the rights of responsible gun owners. They exploit emotional tragedies to promote red flag laws that violate due process, universal background checks that inch dangerously close to a national gun registry, and bans on commonly owned firearms like the AR-15. Everytown has been criticized for using impressionable high school students to push their political agenda, playing loose with facts and figures related to gun control, and funneling money to Democrats. Their messaging might sound compassionate on the surface. Still, the actions of the group don’t reflect an organization that is actually trying to solve the problem of gun violence but one that is bent on amassing power in the hands of the government and disarming citizens while taking out political rivals.

Next is the Brady Campaign, with deep roots in the gun control movement; the group bills itself as the “nation’s oldest gun violence prevention group.” Named after Jim Brady, who was injured during the 1981 assassination attempt on President Reagan, this organization was instrumental in passing the 1993 Brady Bill, which led to the current federal background check system. These days, Brady continues to push for policies that weigh down law-abiding gun owners while doing little to stop actual crime. They back waiting periods and more purchase restrictions despite limited evidence that these policies reduce crime and real potential that they can hinder individuals from protecting themselves and have even made it a mission to sue gun manufacturers. This is a backdoor attempt to cripple the firearms industry entirely—not a genuine strategy to reduce violence. Again, the goal seems to be disarming the American public.

Then there’s Giffords, founded by former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ) after surviving a horrific shooting in 2011. Her story is tragic and powerful, but the policy proposals coming from her organization go far beyond reasonable. Giffords pushes for unconstitutional semi-automatic firearm bans, ridiculously strict magazine capacity limits, and complex licensing requirements that disproportionately affect the very people who rely on firearms for self-defense—especially women, minorities, and those living in unsafe areas.

Sandy Hook Promise is another well-known group started by parents who lost children in the heartbreaking 2012 school shooting. Their mission focuses on mental health programs and early intervention in schools, something I support in theory. But alongside those efforts, they also back federal legislation that further restricts gun ownership and aligns with the broader gun control movement, focusing on gun ammunition restrictions like magazine size. While their story pulls at the heartstrings, their political activism pushes policies that penalize responsible gun owners.

What do these four organizations have in common other than raising a lot of money? They claim to stand for safety yet consistently promote laws that strip rights from law-abiding citizens who want to protect themselves, the very people who follow the rules and help keep this country safe. They target the tool instead of addressing the root problems. They push policies that empower government overreach and disarm citizens who just want to protect their families. In doing so, they pose a growing threat to liberty and personal security in this country.

A mental health crisis

Suicidal thoughts and behaviors have also surged, with nearly one in five high school students seriously considering suicide. At the same time, school shootings have increased, suggesting a correlation . . .

If we’re serious about reducing violence, the focus needs to shift. We must look at mental health, enforce the laws already in the books, and hold criminals accountable. Disarming the law-abiding public will never be the solution, and the more we allow these organizations to shape the narrative, the more we risk losing the freedoms that make this country different from the rest.

The real crisis driving the rise in school shootings isn’t the presence of firearms, it’s the dramatic decline in youth mental health. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), rates of persistent sadness and hopelessness among teens hit 42 percent in 2021, the highest level ever recorded. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors have also surged, with nearly one in five high school students seriously considering suicide. At the same time, school shootings have increased, suggesting a correlation that points more to emotional instability than firearm access, which has always been prevalent in America. Social media addiction, broken families, fatherlessness, overmedication, and isolation all play significant roles in the growing mental health epidemic among young people. Blaming guns ignores the deeper issue: a generation in crisis, emotionally unwell, and often untreated. Until the mental health crisis is addressed, no amount of gun control will stop the violence.

In August 2017, my former district, the Salinas Union High School District board unanimously voted against implementing a school resource officer (SRO) program in partnership with the Salinas Police Department. As a former teacher in the district, I found this decision deeply disappointing. The proposal, which aimed to station officers on campuses, was rejected due to concerns over the district’s lack of input and the perceived control granted to the police department. In my experience, having trained police officers on site significantly enhances school safety. SROs provide immediate responses to emergencies and build relationships with students, fostering trust and proactively addressing potential issues. Removing these officers leaves schools more vulnerable, as no security cameras or hallway monitors can replace the presence of an armed and trained professional. Prioritizing political considerations over the safety of students and staff is a misguided approach that compromises the well-being of our school communities.

The evidence overwhelmingly shows that gun-free zones do not protect students. Shooters deliberately target places where they know they will not face immediate armed resistance. Meanwhile, schools that have adopted stronger security measures, including armed staff or resource officers, have been able to stop attacks before they escalate. In 2013, an SRO at Arapahoe High School in Colorado stopped a shooter within 80 seconds, preventing a potential mass casualty event. In 2021, a school staff member at a Tennessee high school neutralized an armed attacker before police even arrived. The lesson is clear: The presence of good guys with guns saves lives.

Rather than banning firearms, schools should be allowed to implement armed defense measures and adopt security policies similar to those used to protect politicians and government buildings, such as having an armed resource officer on campus as a first responder. If we can defend banks, courthouses, and celebrities with armed security, why not our children? Regardless of my views on how schools should protect themselves, I hope we can all agree that throwing textbooks and desk barricades is not enough.

I’m not claiming to have all the answers to this decades-old debate. But I do know what is not going to fix this problem, and that is precisely what left-wing nonprofits and the media are pushing: more and more gun control. Yet taking guns away from law-abiding American citizens will not prevent crime and violence by criminals any more than the new UK ban on ninja swords will seriously address the increase in murders involving sharp instruments in the UK. What’s next? Banning kitchen knives? Rocks?

Again, you don’t need to have all the answers to see the obvious. America had plenty of guns and virtually no school shootings a few decades ago. The question should be: How do we go back to the positive elements of that society—a healthy society in which the population, including teenagers, was moral enough to have guns without worry?