Documenting Shootings Through Graphic Images

Lillian Malone 

How does the use of graphic images in journalist's documentation of shootings change the perception of the events by the audience, and how has the publics reaction to these images changed throughout history? 

CONTENT WARNING: THERE ARE GRAPHIC IMAGES OF CRIME SCENES IN THIS PROJECT.

Research Summary: 

I researched the impact of using graphic images in the covering of mass shootings, school shootings in particular throughout various news organizations. I talked about the good aspects of using these jarring images as well as the negative implications and consequences that can come from it. I did this because I wanted to find out more about the direct consequences of my actions as a journalist. I have always had an interest in learning more about the events that usually happen leading up to and after a school shooting and have always been interested in advocating for gun control, but since becoming a journalist my view on some of the aspects of how they are reported on has changed, so I wanted to dig into that. I used the various ethical lenses that we discussed in the first half of the course to tie it back to the class and directly talked about how each of those lenses could be applied to journalistic decision making to help lead the photographer and writer in the correct ethical direction. I think the answer to my question on whether graphic photos in the news are helpful or detrimental varies on a case by case basis, but even when used they should be given a content warning to avoid inflicting any pain on the viewer or reader. Many news organizations argue that these photos are the only way to get people to care about the subject, especially since Americans have become so desensitized to gun violence. I have advanced this area of research because there is very little research on the use of graphic images in the covering of mass shootings in particular. 

Text From my Newspaper Spread

DOCUMENTING SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

Using graphic photos in covering shootings

Throughout history, journalists have progressively begun to reduce how graphic the photos that they select to include in coverage are. Especially with the improvement in the quality of photos, a photo of a body from the 20th century will be blurry and non-distinct. A photo of a body today will be high quality and, for many, could be difficult to look at. The impact of a jarring photo is something that has long been recognized. When 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched by white men in 1955, his mother, Mamie Till-Mobly, made sure he had an open casket funeral because she wanted everyone to see the pain her son had been put through. Till-Mobly invited journalists to take a photo of his beaten face, stating "They had to see what I had seen." The photo was published around the nation. It made such an impact that his name is still known around the world and his face is easily recognizable. Today, this photo can be difficult to find because many news sources no longer publish it in articles about him. This same impact that Till-Mobly spoke of so passionately following her son's death is often avoided today. There is a general understanding that the reader of the paper does not always have an interest in seeing photographs depicting graphic events. A majority of Americans are desensitized to mass shootings. They happen regularly, especially in schools, and reading about another one every other day is sad but nothing majorly impactful. Occasionally, something major will happen and a new record number of deaths will be reached, like with the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary or at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was really impactful for me when I was in eighth grade, and sparked a long-lasting interest in gun control and political advocacy against violence in schools. For many, however, hearing of a new school shooting won't spark an interest in advocacy. And many still believe that the second amendment right to bear arms is more important to the American people than the protection of their children in the classroom. I often think that people do not fully understand how gruesome these shooting areas are. I often think that they may never fully understand their impact until their own children are involved in something so terrible. The Washington Post did a fascinating article on the impact of an AR-15 gun, where they went in depth on some of the graphic images that exist from various school shootings, many of which were never posted in any other publications. It is accompanied by multiple content warnings as the article progresses, with the most graphic photos at the bottom. In addition to publishing these photos, they acknowledge the media's general refusal to publish overly graphic images. However, they also acknowledge the value these photos can have in making an impact on readers.

Avoiding gruesome pictures in coverage

It is not easy to guess that constant exposure to graphic images can cause readers to be desensitized to violence, no longer impacted by it in the same way they were the first time they saw it. On the other hand, repeated exposure to these images may leave some people traumatized and anxiety ridden about their own danger in everyday situations and general cynicism towards the state of the world. This is the reason there are many rules in place now that keep news organizations from having access to crime scene photos from police departments, something that they did have access to after the events of Columbine. That tragedy became the playbook for how journalists should and shouldn't go about the coverage of mass shootings, particularly in schools since a majority of the victims are young and impressionable. After 9/11, there was a lot of research done on the effects of the heavy amounts of news coverage and the graphic photos from the scene of the attack on those who lived in the area as well as those who did not live anywhere close by. What they found was that even six months after the event took place, those subjects were still experiencing heavy amounts of anxiety and the beginnings of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder just from the depictions of the tragedy alone. Journalists should remember that even though they are doing their jobs, they are often speaking to victims on the worst days of their lives. Even before the photos are published, they should remember the importance of boundaries as they are taking the photos. The work that they do has the power to make positive change or work to the detriment of victims and readers alike. Some of the victims of Columbine, such as Heather Martin, who was a 17-year-old senior at the time of the shooting, have since spoken out on their experience with journalists who violated their boundaries and failed to give them the proper space to grieve. The same way journalists are now taught to respect these boundaries on the ground and in the thick of the action, they should also consider the implications of publishing graphic photos, and the ways that may violate the boundaries of the reader. Some of this has been combated in recent years with the wide implementation of content warnings, which have become a regularly used technique for warning readers.

The role of the media in the rise of gun violence in the 2000's

In some ways, journalists have contributed to the interest in mass shootings from the public and made trauma worse for victims of mass shootings, bombarding them with questions and refusing to give them time to process things on their own time. By often sensationalizing the events, they are making them almost another piece of entertainment, but there is a constant battle between providing much needed information on the tragedy and contributing to the trauma of the victim. It is a difficult line to walk, but one that is necessary.

The internet and social media's contribution to mass violence

Social media has had a heavy impact on the occurrence of mass shootings, whether they take place inside of schools or elsewhere. The National Institute of Health calls this the Copycat Effect. What it means is that one shooter will take cues from another, almost as though they are inspired to kill or cause harm by another act of violence. Social media contributes to this heavily, as it is common for shooters to post on their accounts ahead of time with photos of guns or threatening messages. They often go unnoticed, or are ignored even if they are reported to the police. By sharing this information, they are giving other potential shooters ideas on how to carry out their own plans. The shooting at Columbine is considered a playbook for the media on what to do and not to do when covering tragedies, but it has also begun to serve as a playbook for other copycat shooters. It is common for shooters' search history to include heavy research on Columbine once it is investigated by the police. The media also contributes to the copycat effect in some ways, as they are providing a database of information in their articles which future shooters can use as information for inspiration on how to carry out their own cruel plans. There is a difficult balance here between the silencing and censorship of voices against public safety.

COLUMBINE HIGH SCHOOL

Photos of Columbine

When the news of Columbine was first heard by news organizations around the world, nobody was prepared for how to cover the tragedy. It was the first of its kind, and while larger publications had nobody in the area who could be on the scene, the Rocky Mountain News sent their photographers to ground zero. The photographers of this small town newspaper worked overtime to document what would unfold, and later won a number of awards for their coverage. They took shots of everything: the good, the bad, and the ugly. There were no mass shooting protocols for the school either, which meant injured students were left strewn among the lawns of neighboring homes to receive medical treatment, leaving them vulnerable to being documented by journalists in the area. The scene was hectic and last minute. And it is painstakingly documented by small town photographers from the Rocky Mountain News. Columbine is one of the only mass school shootings with photos of the bodies of students that were published in the paper. They are still public today, and are no doubt some of the most jarring photos of school shooting scenes available to the public. The photo of David Rohrbough on the sidewalk with his soda can spilled on the ground next to him is what sparked this project for me. That photo is something I think about a lot. I think about his privacy and his family's trauma, but I also think about the students crouching behind the car with a gun aimed at the school and how they might feel if they saw this photo. Photos have the unique ability to freeze time. And there were no restrictions on taking and publishing graphic photos during the Columbine shooting, so what was captured is a true and accurate representation of what unfolded outside of the school as the tragedy took place inside in the library and hallways.

How Columbine changed history

Columbine is often referred to as the first of its kind. Although there were other shootings in school buildings beforehand, this was the first that was a proven calculated attack, the first to be clearly planned ahead of time, and the first to have such a significant death and casualty toll. There were a lot of mistakes made in the way that Columbine was handled. The police made mistakes with how they approached entering the school, students made mistakes by not reporting the suspicious behavior of the students when they first noticed that something was wrong, and the media made mistakes with how they portrayed the tragedy in the months and years following its conclusion. Columbine is one of the only shootings which has photos of bodies of students publicly posted even still today. After Columbine happened, schools began implementing active shooter drills as an attempt to protect students from the potential danger of a shooting in their own schools. There were also rules and restrictions put into place to prevent the publication of crime scene photos, something that was not prevented when it came to the coverage of Columbine. Today, it is rare for photos of a crime scene to be posted when they involve the bodies of victims or blood of those killed or injured. One of the only other examples I have found of this happening was in the shooting at Robb Elementary School in 2022, when the photos from the crime scene were attained by the Washington Post through an independent source as the police station refused to release the images. Outside of actual response by the government and law enforcement to Columbine and other subsequent school shootings, Columbine thrust America into a new era of violence that can be difficult to comprehend. Thousands of mass shooters have modeled their attacks off of what took place on the fateful April day in 1999. The media's coverage of the event has been used as inspiration for those seeking violence, and it has made information on the subject easily accessible to everyone, including those who have bad intentions. It has been proven time and time again that when one tragedy occurs, there is a higher likelihood for another similar attack over the course of the next 13 days. This is exacerbated by the coverage of the event in the news, which in the modern technological world can seem unavoidable. After Columbine, so many people said never again. Hundreds of anti-gun legislations were brought to the table after the tragedy of Columbine, but less than 10% of them ended up passing. This trend has continued, except as Americans become more and more desensitized to the occurrence of gun violence, the number of legislation even proposed continues to go down. Gun violence is not often considered a fact of life, and something many Americans fear every day.

MARJORY STONEMAN DOUGLAS HIGH SCHOOL

Photos of Marjory Stoneman Douglas

The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, which happened on Valentine's Day in 2018 and left 17 people dead, brought to light more of the harmful actions that the media takes when covering mass shootings, and further changed the action plan for news organizations nationwide in their efforts to provide relevant, accurate and meaningful information on tragedies. One of the topics that was brought to light in the photos that should and shouldn't be used in coverage of mass shooting as a result of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School was photos of the suspects themselves. There is a lot of discussion about the glorification of shooters in the media and how this kind of attention can lead to more copy cats wanting to commit similar crimes, seeking fame through the creation of violence in the hope that the media will give them their moment of fame as they have for other shooters in the past. NPR covered this idea, and even talked about whether the name of the shooter should be published, much less their photo. Since the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, there has been a concerted effort by the media to post less information about the shooter and more information on the victims and the tragedy itself. This has been an attempt to prevent the desire for fame as playing a role in motivation for future school shooters. The only complication with the actions journalists are taking to prevent the publication of the shooter's name where not necessary is that it does reduce their ability to be total truth tellers. Some consider this omittance of information to be a disservice to the public that journalists are supposed to be serving. Despite this argument, it is a very noticeable change since the Valentine's Day shooting in 2018. While the name and face of Nikolas Cruz is commonly known by people across the nation, many would not be able to identify the face of the shooter responsible for the shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. There are no photos of bodies or serious photos of blood that were published from this shooting, showing some of the restrictions put in place after Columbine. The photos that are not of the suspect as he is being arrested are photos of those mourning afterwards, which is similar to Columbine, or photos and videos taken from students' phones.

An overall look at two tragedies, 19 years apart

The first memory that many current college students have of a mass shooting is the tragedy of Marjory Stoneman Douglas in Parkland, Florida. The Valentine's Day massacre left 17 dead and shook the nation. Marjory Stoneman Douglas is often considered the school shooting which resulted in the most impactful policy changes. Advocates X Gonzalez and David Hogg, along with other classmates, faced the issue head on and went after organizations such as the National Rifle Association, compelling them to make change and recognize the faces of victims whom they were directly harming with their political decisions. The photos that were published from the two tragedies show the changing of the times and the rules around photos of crime scenes, but it also shows a change in the emphasis of the actions that led up to the events themselves. The photos from the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas include an emphasis on the shooter himself, especially since he is one of few shooters who chose to flee the scene instead of ending his own life, a common occurrence among the perpetrators of the violence. Adam Lanza (Sandy Hook Elementary School,) Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris (Columbine High School,) and Seung-Hui Cho (Virginia Tech University). Even Salvador Ramos, who was responsible for the shooting of Robb Elementary School, was killed by police inside the school. Nikolas Cruz, who carried out the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, was arrested by police away from the scene of the crime and is still alive in jail today. It may have been for this reason that his face was widely published in the media and his name became well known by Americans who were keeping up with his prosecution. One of the most commonly published photos from Marjory Stoneman Douglas is that of Cruz being arrested after he committed the crime. While the emphasis of Marjory Stoneman Douglas the criminal behind the incident, the emphasis of Columbine was on the tragedy inside the school. Photos of the library, where students took shelter from the fire and where a majority of the killings occurred, were widely published, blood still fresh on the floor and bullet holes easily visible in the walls and the shattered glass of the large windows. Because there were more emergency response plans put in place in high schools around the country by the time the shooting in Parkland occurred, there are fewer photos of students who have been injured. While in Columbine they were treated on the front lawns of homes surrounding the school, victims were transported directly to the hospital in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shooting, leaving fewer opportunities for photos to be taken of their pain.

SANDY HOOK ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Photos of Sandy Hook

Other than the photo of the shattered glass where shooter Adam Lanza first entered the building, there are very few available crime scene photos from inside of the school. The photos from this tragedy were heavily focused on the pain of the survivors and the families who were waiting anxiously outside. The famous story of teacher Victoria Soto, who hid her students in cabinets and claimed that they were in gym class, saving the lives of many children but being shot in the end, is accompanied by a photo of her pain stricken sister Carlee as she finds out the news of her sister's death. The photos from this event show a national shift as America had to recognize that even elementary schoolers were not safe from the pain inflicted by gun violence. This shooting remains as one of the deadliest in American history, and there are a number of stories told from inside the building that give a better sense of the tragedy that took place, more so than the photos that were shared from the event. Although the photos that were published are heart wrenching and show a clear level of pain in the victims and their families, they are not gruesome in the same way that other photos from previous tragedies have been. There are stories that have been told by students and teachers alike of the woman working at the front desk, who, despite being one of the first to be killed when the gunman entered, turned on the intercom so that the shots could be clearly heard throughout the school and the teachers could be warned of the danger. Her screams echoed through the hallways and the classrooms, and no photo could do this story justice.

ROBB ELEMENTARY SCHOOL

Photos of Robb

The shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde Texas has some of the most graphic crime scene photos available to the public of any school shooting in history. Many of them were far too graphic to include in this project, but they are all available through an article by The Washington Post, who retrieved the photos from an external source with the sole purpose of exposing the public to the true horrors of an AR-15 rifle. The emphasis of the photos from Robb Elementary is the mishandling of the situation by the police department, who waited for almost an hour and a half to enter the classroom where the gunman was shooting fourth graders, one by one. Only the teacher survived the killings, and he is left with a lifetime of trauma because the officers outside the door failed to take proper actions to disarm the shooter, something they had vowed to do, some of them as police officers and some of them as designated school resource officers. After the shooting, a number of body camera videos emerged from the officers which showed just how long they waited to enter into the classroom and apprehend the suspect. By the time they entered the room, every child in the area had been murdered. The scene is one of the most gruesome in history, and the shooter, who was an alum of the school, sparked conversations about how schools can better support students to make them feel welcomed and included in their learning environment. The decision to post these photos went with a lot of thought from The Washington Post, and they posted a separate article explaining the decision in full, where they emphasized how desensitized America has become to mass shootings.

Two deadly tragedies, 10 years apart

The biggest difference between these two tragedies is that the Uvalde Police Department had someone from the inside release the horrible crime scene photos to The Washington Post. There is nobody, other than the Newton Police Department and the victims who were inside of the building as it all went down, that can truly speak to the horrors that took place inside of Sandy Hook Elementary School. It is very easy to argue that this is the way that things should be. For the sake of the victims and their families, these photos could be better kept private so as not to stir up old aspects of trauma and pain for everyone involved. In addition, it is easy to notice that the majority of the photos from Sandy Hook are that of families and victims mourning after the fact, showing the true and raw emotions that unfolded after the incident took place. In the Robb shooting, the emphasis is on the photos that became available through an outside source, even though crime scene photos are not normally allowed to be released to news organizations so as not to traumatize readers or sensationalize violent actions. Beyond the changes that have happened in the media's handling of shootings in the ten years between Sandy Hook and Robb, many have drawn parallels between the two, pointing out that the suspects each killed the family member they were living with before going to the school to commit the second part of their evil acts. President Joe Biden pointed out that he has been in office for both of these tragedies, and visited the site of the incident both times, being forced to comfort families repeatedly even though he has done everything he can to pass gun restrictions, to no avail. The worst part about all of this is that it is a uniquely American problem. They continue to take place both inside and outside of the classroom, and firearms are the number one cause of death among children, including those who injure themselves with a firearm left unlocked in their own home. When will America wake up to their own reality?

OVERVIEW OF ALL FOUR

Applying ethical lenses to the use of graphic images in news

The ethical lenses that we learned about in class can help us when determining whether we should continue to post graphic photos in the media. Let's take a look at each of them and how they could apply.

Rights Lens

The rights lens is a "treat others how you wish to be treated" lens. When trying to decide if you should publish a graphic photo or not, think about if it was your family member in the photo. Would that change the way that you view it? Does the person in a photo have a right to privacy?

Justice Lens

This is about giving each person what they deserve. If someone who died in the shooting also happened to be the shooter, they probably have less of a concern around them regarding a right to privacy than a photo of the body of an innocent victim.

Virtue Lens

The virtue lens asks you to think about what kind of person you will become if you carry through with any particular action. Does publishing graphic photos on the news make you someone who is helping to spread awareness about the terror of the events, or does it make you someone who is unable to respect the privacy of victims?

Utilitarian Lens

This lens asks you to think about which of your actions is going to do the most good for the most people. If publishing graphic photos is going to show others the terrors of mass gun violence and help to bring legislation to the table, then it could be good. But if that decision is going to cause copycats, then it is something that you should try to avoid.

Common Good Lens

This is the idea that everyone has to work together in order to make something happen. If someone was working to show lawmakers the photos of these massacres as the journalists are publishing them, then they might do more good than if they are just seen by the public.

Virtue Lens

This may be the most valuable lens. It involves asking the audience what they think would be best and talking with the families who are grieving.

The balancing act of privacy and spreading information

In the criminal justice system, there is a balancing act that is used to determine how much officers can infringe on an individual's constitutional rights when they are attempting to solve a crime or stop a suspect from fleeing. The balance that they are trying to keep is the importance of constitutional rights, especially personal safety and privacy, in comparison to the safety of the officers and of the surrounding public. When journalists are trying to decide if they should publish a photo, especially when it is a graphic depiction of something that happened during a traumatizing event such as a mass shooting, they should consider this same balancing act. The privacy of the individuals in the photo is vital to the integrity of the newspaper and the media as a whole. They must think to themselves, how might this impact the people in this photo, or the family members of the subjects of the photo? On the other hand, a journalist's job is to act as detective in some aspects. By censoring certain photos, they are reducing their interest in searching for these photos, which could lead them to miss out on other information that could be valuable to the progression of the case. The job of the journalist is to act as a messenger for the public, not to withhold information from them that they think they might not be able to handle. This is when content warnings become incredibly valuable in journalistic work. By giving these warnings, the journalist is allowing the reader to come to their own conclusion on whether or not they are able to look at the image without causing themselves pain. Another valuable aspect of this is to keep the images in less public forums. For example, The Washington Post used photos of the crime scene in an article on the impact of guns in America, but it was tucked at the bottom of the article under multiple content warnings, giving the reader ample opportunity to turn away. This is far better for the reader than if a TV news organization were to broadcast the photos on the television without any warning, traumatizing viewers.

Annotated Bibliography

Daniel E. Traver, The Wrong Answer to a Serious Problem: A Story of School Shootings, Politics and Automatic Transfer, 31 Loy. U. Chi. L. J. 281 (2000).

Available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/luclj/vol31/iss2/6

This piece talks about the concept of Automatic Transfer, which means that within the criminal justice system, a juvenile criminal may be automatically moved to a criminal court based on the offense that they committed. This is done partially to ensure the the criminal gets the correct punishment for the very mature crime that they committed, such as is the case in school shootings, but also to ensure that other less dangerous juveniles in prison are not put in harms way by having to share a space with the more dangerous person. This has a lot to do with the way that we perceive criminals that are moved to criminal courts and how that impacts the way that we view school shooters. A majority of school shooters, however, display signs of mental illness before they commit their respective crimes, so it can sometimes seem counterproductive to charge them so heavily afterwards while refusing to pay attention to the future criminals who are publicly postion about their intentions online. The author argues that juvenile court is moving in a direction that causes them to forget the rehabilitation aspect of the system as it was intended to be, and that could be exactly what these shooters could need. It should be examined on a case by case basis rather than acting as a system of automatic transfer.

Lauren Rygg, School Shooting Simulations: At What Point Does Preparation Become More Harmful than Helpful?, 35 CHILD. LEGAL RTS. J. 215 (2015). Available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/clrj/vol35/iss3/3

This document discusses the negative impacts that active shooter drills in schools can have on the mental health of students and staff, as well as discussing how effective they actually are at preventing mass casualties in the case of a school shooting. It uses the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas as an example, explaining that they had an active shooter plan in place and had done drills extensively with students, but it did little to lessen the impact of the shooting once it was actually in their midst. It also talks about the inconsistencies between active shooter drills and how the severity of the drills vary depending on the state you are in, with some of them going so far as to fire blanks in the hallways when the students are still in the building. The trauma that these drills could inflict could also be compared to the trauma someone may experience by viewing a photo of a body in the news, which could be important if you consider that students should not have to experience those things for the sake of the second amendment.

Hannah Batsche, Education Connection: School Safety: The Industry Shootings Has Created and What We Can Do to Protect Our Children, 39 CHILD. LEGAL RTS. J. 208 (2020). Available at: https://lawecommons.luc.edu/clrj/vol39/iss2/13

This piece goes into depth on the ways that mass shootings have caused a boom in the security industry, and talks about some of the various security options that are available to schools or are currently in development. This is important to note because in the same way that this industry is growing as a result of the pain, lawmakers are taking advantage of those growths and using money to their advantage when advocating for guns to be easier to access. It also has to do with the sensationalization of mass shootings, the same thing that happens when the media publishes a lot of detail on shootings that happen or posts graphic photos of the aftermath.

Works Cited

Crawford, A.J. et al. (2024) Journalists can do better covering mass shootings , Nieman Reports. Available at: https://niemanreports.org/journalists-can-do-better-covering-mass-shootings/

Alvarez, P. et al. (2022) Gunman in Texas School massacre emerged from Closet as border patrol agents moved in, Source says, CNN. Available at: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/27/us/uvalde-texas-elementary-school-shooting-friday/index.html

McBride, K. and Castillo, A. (2021) NPR standards need more clarity around when to name a mass shooter, NPR. Available at: https://www.npr.org/sections/publiceditor/2021/03/25/981170871/npr-standards-need-more-clarity-around-when-to-name-a-mass-shooter

Meindl, J.N. and Ivy, J.W. (2017) Mass shootings: The role of the media in promoting generalized imitation, American journal of public health. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC5296697/

Mass shootings in the United States (2023) Everytown Research & Policy. Available at: https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shootings-in-america/

Graphic imagery online can lead to psychological harm, UC Irvine experts say (2024) Los Angeles Times. Available at: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-19/violent-images-social-media-public-health-threat

Hassan, A. (2021) Emmett Till's enduring legacy, The New York Times. Available at: https://www.nytimes.com/article/who-was-emmett-till.html?searchResultPosition=14

Ritchin, F. (2014) Why violent news images matter, Time. Available at: https://time.com/3705884/why-violent-news-images-matter/

Texas Elementary School shooting echoes the Sandy Hook Massacre (2022) NBCNews.com. Available at: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-elementary-school-shooting-echoes-sandy-hook-massacre-rcna30400

(No date) Terror on repeat: A rare look at the devastation caused by AR-15 shootings. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/interactive/2023/ar-15-force-mass-shootings/

(No date a) Why are we showing graphic AR-15 content? A letter from the executive editor. - The Washington Post. Available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/11/16/about-ar-15-graphic-content/

Blad, E. (2024) How columbine shaped 25 years of school safety, Education Week. Available at: https://www.edweek.org/leadership/how-columbine-shaped-25-years-of-school-safety/2024/04

Korhonen, V. (2024) Number of K-12 school shootings U.S. 1999-2024, Statista. Available at: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1463594/number-of-k-12-school-shootings-us/

MM;, D.E.E.A. (no date) School shooters: Patterns of adverse childhood experiences, bullying, and social media, Journal of pediatric health care : official publication of National Association of Pediatric Nurse Associates & Practitioners. Available at: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/35058114/#:~:text=Results%3A%20Approximately%2088%25%20of%20school,of%20guns%20and%20threatening%20messages.