Today, when Americans hear about a school shooting, it’s passed off as a normal occurrence. How normal is it really? According to the Common Wealth Fund, the United States is in the 93rd percentile of firearm mortality among all countries. This means we are in the top 7% of countries with high death rates from guns. If that still doesn’t sound bad, the same website says that the United States is ranked “16th out of 204 countries and territories for firearm mortality in the world.”

Now that there’s an idea of the number of issues with gun use in the United States, how bad is it in schools? World Population Review ranked the U.S. number one out of all countries for school shootings. There were 288 shootings in 2025. The number two country is Mexico, with eight. There is a large difference between those two numbers. 

So, how can we protect our students? If you hear or see someone threaten a school shooting or even any form of violence at the school, tell an adult. If you have young siblings in the house, remind the adults to ensure that any weapons are not easily accessible. If it is needed, advocate for your school to become safer and have more security. 

Ideally, any violence is avoided, but that doesn’t always happen. At the beginning of the year, students were shown a video on what to do in the event of an active shooter. However, there’s a chance that people don’t remember or didn’t even watch the video. So, if there’s an active shooter in the building and you’re next to a quick exit, safely leave the building. If there is a window in your classroom, you could leave from there, too. If there is no exit, barricade all entrances into the room, silence phones, hide, and do not make any noise. If there are no other options, fight, but try to avoid doing that. More information can be found at Active Shooter Safety.