Stopping Violence Before It Starts: An Analysis of How Potential School Gun Attacks Are Exposed

Gun violence in U.S. schools continues to be a persistent concern. A promising line of scholarship focuses on potential school gun attacks that were stopped before they could occur, but this work is limited to a small number of studies. This study investigates how potential school gun attacks were exposed by analyzing 124 publicly reported cases from 2018 to 2023. For the analysis, we generated descriptive data on the school contexts, individuals, and processes associated with exposing potential school gun attacks both on and off school grounds. Findings indicated that in most cases, suspects communicated their intentions, which created opportunities for exposing potential attacks. Students were the most common source for exposure, reporting 42% of cases, while teachers, parents, and community members played smaller but important roles. To illustrate the interacting factors behind exposing a potential attack, we further describe four recurring scenarios: public signaling of intent, private disclosures to confidants, discovery of written plans or private communications, and detection through safety measures. These pathways to exposing a threat suggest that positive relationships in schools, open lines of communication, and high expectations for reporting serious threats may be central to averting school gun attacks.