Research Letter, Public Health. February 16, 2021. Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019. Jillian Peterson, PhD; James Densley, DPhil; Gina Erickson, PhD. JAMA Network Open. 2021;4(2):e2037394. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.37394 – “..This study examined a total of 133 cases of school shootings and attempted school shootings from 1980 to 2019. Perpetrators’ ages ranged from 10 to 53; however, only 16 shooters (11%) were aged 22 years or older. Ninety-four perpetrators (70%) were current students, and 21 perpetrators (15%) were former students. Of all perpetrators, 83 (76%) were White and 148 (98%) were male. Of 121 cases with full information, 57 (47.11%) were targeted shootings. There were 134 shootings, 12 with more than one shooter. A mean (SD) of 1.34 (3.25) people per case were killed and 3.15 (5.06) per case were injured, with a mean (SD) of 1.63 (1.22) weapons per shooting (primarily handguns; 68.66% [92 of 134]). An armed guard was on scene in 23.58% of shootings (29 of 123)…Based on theory, multivariate models include the presence of an armed guard and control for region, school type (public, nonpublic), and grade level (high school, elementary, other); location (urban, suburban, rural); use of lockdown drills; if the attack was targeted; total number of weapons brought to the scene; number of shooters; and weapon type. Results are presented as incident rate ratios in Table 2 and show armed guards were not associated with significant reduction in rates of injuries; in fact, controlling for the aforementioned factors of location and school characteristics, the rate of deaths was 2.83 times greater in schools with an armed guard present (incidence rate ratio, 2.96; 95% CI = 1.43-6.13; P = .003)…”
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