by Abigail Ullendorff

Abstract

This paper studies how gun prevalence, represented by federal firearm background checks, affects the occurrence of school shootings. While precedent literature has estimated adverse effects of school shootings on exposed children, including reductions in mental health, academic achievement, and labor market earnings, few studies have attempted to identify factors that influence school shooting frequency in the first place. The analysis sample is an annual state panel of shootings during 2000-2021, constructed from the proprietary K-12 School Shooting Database as well as from data on background checks, demographic characteristics, economic conditions, and measures of violence and mental health status. Estimates from difference-in-differences regressions that include state and year by-census region fixed effects and state-specific linear trends indicate a positive relationship between gun prevalence and school shootings, particularly when the dependent variable is specified as a binary indicator of multiple school shootings having occurred. Results are robust to using the annual shooting count or its quartic root, an indicator that a shooting occurred, Poisson regressions of school shooting count models, and quadratic state trends as additional controls. Several types of shootings, including targeted, elementary school, high school, and deadly shootings, increase in frequency and/or likelihood when gun prevalence rises.

Professor Jeffrey DeSimone, Faculty Advisor
Professor Grace Kim, Faculty Advisor

JEL Codes: I18, I29, K42

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