Latest news with #schoolshootings
CBS News
21 hours ago
- Business
- CBS News
Demonstrated at Miami-Dade school, Texas company's drones aim to stop school shootings in seconds
A Texas-based company is hoping drone technology can help stop school shootings or at least help law enforcement in South Florida respond more quickly. Campus Guardian Angel founder and CEO Justin Marston said their system is designed to save lives in the critical early moments of an active shooter situation. "In a school shooting most of the death happens in the first 120 seconds so it's really about how quickly can you get there to engage the shooter before they've had the chance to kill a whole bunch of children," Marston said. In a demonstration at AcadeMir Preparatory High School in South Miami-Dade, the company showed how the drones, which remain stored in a box on campus, can be deployed within seconds of a silent alarm being triggered. "If somebody comes into the school with a gun, our pilots from our central ops center can immediately start flying them and our goal is to respond in 5 seconds, be on them in 15 seconds and then take out that shooter in 60 seconds," Marston said. The drones can fire powder pellets and potentially knock down a suspect, and the company demonstrated how difficult the devices are to shoot down. Marston said Gov. Ron DeSantis approved $557,000 in the 2025–2026 state budget to fund pilot programs in three Florida school districts. He said the Florida Department of Education will decide which districts are selected, but Miami-Dade County Public Schools has shown interest. It costs about $1,000 per month for a school of 500 students, or roughly $4 per student, according to Marston. "School safety used to be a fire drill, fire alarm, tornado drill once a year – it's now active shooter drills, hostage drills, things of that nature, it's turned into traumatizing events for students and parents," said AcadeMir Preparatory principal John Lux. "We send our kids to school to be safe, I think this is another step in the right direction to ensure the safety of our kids," Lux said. Marston said installations are underway in four school districts and one university in Texas.
CBS News
07-07-2025
- Health
- CBS News
Study finds 6% of Florida teens have handguns, a 65% increase in two decades
Despite increased concerns about rising gun deaths among children, new research found that the number of teenagers who have handguns has gone up. The study, published Monday in the journal Pediatrics, found that Florida adolescent general handgun carrying increased by 65%, from 3.7% to 6.0%, from 2002 to 2022. Females, middle school-aged teens and white students were among the groups that most substantially contributed to the increase. "These findings indicate the need to specifically tailor earlier prevention strategies focused on handgun access and carrying toward female and middle school students, with ongoing attention to rural and male adolescents across racial and ethnic identities, who still have the highest prevalence of carriage after a 20-year period," the authors wrote. Researchers used data from the Florida Youth Substance Abuse Survey, a cross-sectional survey of Florida middle and high school students. In total, more than 700,000 student respondents were analyzed. Though general handgun carrying went up, carrying in school decreased by 60%, from 1.1% to 0.4%, according to the study. There was also a 39% decrease in favorable attitudes toward school carrying, the study found. The authors noted that both these decreases initially seemed contradictory, as school shootings have increased in the past 25 years. "Ongoing research should explore factors influencing regional and sociodemographic differences in these trends, such as the increases in school safety measures (eg, controlling access to buildings, requiring visitors to sign in, using security badges) or increases in the presence of security or law enforcement officers," the authors wrote. They also noted the study's limitations, including the reliance on self-reporting, which can introduce bias. Firearms are the leading cause of death among children and teenagers in the United States, with a steep increase in ages 15 to 19 starting in 2020. Nonfatal firearm injuries among children under age 18 also increased 113.1% from 2011 to 2021, another recent study found. A study published last month in JAMA Pediatrics found gun deaths among children rose in states with lax firearm laws, with certain states seeing a jump in pediatric gun deaths after amending their firearms restrictions. Meanwhile, in the states that had the most restrictive laws, deaths remained stable or, in some cases, there were fewer pediatric gun deaths.
Japan Times
16-06-2025
- Politics
- Japan Times
Killings at European schools fan concern U.S. problem is spreading
A spate of school killings in Western Europe has raised pressure on authorities to tackle a problem long seen as a largely U.S. phenomenon, increasing momentum for tougher gun and security laws as well as more policing of social media. While mass shootings remain far more common in the United States, four of the worst school shootings in Western Europe this century have occurred since 2023; two of them — a massacre of 11 people in Austria and another in Sweden — have taken place this year. Last week's killings in the Austrian city of Graz sparked calls for tighter gun laws by political leaders, mirroring the response of the Swedish government after the 11 deaths at the Campus Risbergska school in Orebro in February. "Mass shootings, of which school shootings are a part, were overwhelmingly a U.S. problem in the past, but the balance is shifting," said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama. "The number in Europe and elsewhere is increasing." Part of the rise stems from copycat attacks in Europe often inspired by notorious U.S. rampages such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, according to shooters' own comments or their internet search histories, Lankford said. "It's like an export from America. These attackers see other people do it and it has a snowball effect." According to research by Lankford and his colleague, Jason Silva, shootings carried out by people eager for notoriety were twice as numerous in the United States as in the rest of the world between 2005 and 2010. By 2017-22, the rest of the world had caught up. Their data also shows that Europe accounts for a bigger share of mass shootings than it used to. It should be easier for European politicians to act against mass shootings than in the United States, due to the central role of guns in American culture and identity, Lankford said. The European Union has left gun laws and regulation of social media up to member states. Recent killings have seen a drive by several countries to apply tougher rules. In Sweden, the government agreed to tighten the vetting process for people applying for gun licenses and to clamp down on some semi-automatic weapons following the Orebro killings. Incidents of violence and threatening behavior in junior high and high schools in Sweden rose over 150% between 2003 and 2023, according to a report by the country's Work Environment Authority. In Finland, where a 12-year-old shot dead a fellow pupil and badly wounded two others in 2024, schools practice barricading doors and hiding from shooters. The government has also proposed stricter punishments for carrying guns in public. Following a deadly December knife attack at a Zagreb primary school, Croatia's government tightened access to schools and mandated they must have security guards. Germany has gradually imposed tighter controls on gun ownership since school massacres in 2002 and 2009, and last year introduced a ban on switchblades and on carrying knives at public events following a series of knife attacks. Tightening gun ownership was the only way politicians could show they were taking the issue seriously, said Dirk Baier, a criminologist at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. "There will certainly be resistance to this, from hunters, sport shooters, or other lobby groups," he said. "However, I think the arguments for tightening the laws will outweigh the arguments against." Gun laws have also been a hot political topic in the Czech Republic since a student shot dead 14 people at the Charles University in Prague in December 2023. The country made it obligatory for gun sellers to report suspicious purchases and requires doctors to check whether people diagnosed with psychological problems hold gun permits. Britain is holding a public inquiry into an attack in Southport in which three young girls were stabbed to death last year. U.K. drama "Adolescence," a story about a schoolboy accused of murder, explores concerns about toxic online culture. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron this month pressed for EU regulation to ban social media for children under 15 following a fatal school stabbing. What motivated the Austrian school gunman is still under investigation. Police said he was socially withdrawn and passionate about online shooting games. Most such shootings are carried out by young men, and criminologist Lankford said there was a global phenomenon of perpetrators seeking notoriety that eluded them in real life, driven in part by social media. "Even if the shooters expect to die, some are excited about leaving behind a legacy." Austrian President Alexander Van der Bellen said after the attack that the country's relatively liberal gun laws deserved closer scrutiny. Broad support in Austria for tightening gun ownership laws looked probable, although a general ban on private weapons seems unlikely, said political scientist Peter Filzmaier.
Reuters
13-06-2025
- Politics
- Reuters
Killings at European schools fan concern US problem is spreading
ZURICH, June 13 (Reuters) - A spate of school killings in Western Europe has raised pressure on authorities to tackle a problem long seen as a largely U.S. phenomenon, increasing momentum for tougher gun and security laws and more policing of social media. While mass shootings remain far more common in the United States, four of the worst school shootings in Western Europe this century have occurred since 2023 and two - a massacre of 11 people in Austria and another in Sweden - were this year. This week's killings in the Austrian city of Graz sparked calls for tighter gun laws by political leaders, mirroring the response of the Swedish government after the 11 deaths at the Campus Risbergska school in Orebro in February. "Mass shootings, of which school shootings are a part, were overwhelmingly a U.S. problem in the past, but the balance is shifting," said Adam Lankford, a criminologist at the University of Alabama. "The number in Europe and elsewhere is increasing." Part of the rise stems from copycat attacks in Europe often inspired by notorious U.S. rampages such as the 1999 Columbine High School massacre, according to shooters' own comments or their internet search histories, Lankford said. "It's like an export from America. These attackers see other people do it and it has a snowball effect." According to research by Lankford and Jason Silva, shootings carried out by people eager for notoriety were twice as numerous in the United States as in the rest of the world between 2005 and 2010. By 2017-2022, the rest of the world had caught up. Their data also shows that Europe accounts for a bigger share of mass shootings than it used to. It should be easier for European politicians to act against mass shootings than the United States, due to the central role of guns in American culture and identity, Lankford said. The European Union has left gun laws and regulation of social media up to member states. Recent killings have seen a drive by several countries to apply tougher rules. In Sweden, the government agreed to tighten the vetting process for people applying for gun licences and to clamp down on some semi-automatic weapons following the Orebro killings. Incidents of violence and threatening behaviour in junior high and high schools rose over 150% between 2003 and 2023, according to a report by Sweden's Work Environment Authority. In Finland, where a 12-year-old shot dead a fellow pupil and badly wounded two others in 2024, schools practice barricading doors and hiding from shooters. The government has also proposed stricter punishments for carrying guns in public. Following a deadly December knife attack at a Zagreb primary school, Croatia's government tightened access to schools and mandated they must have security guards. Germany has gradually imposed tighter controls on gun ownership since school massacres in 2002 and 2009, and last year introduced a ban on switchblades and on carrying knives at public events following a series of knife attacks. Tightening gun ownership was the only way politicians could show they were taking the issue seriously, said Dirk Baier, a criminologist at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences. "There will certainly be resistance to this, from hunters, sport shooters, or other lobby groups," he said. "However, I think the arguments for tightening the laws will outweigh the arguments against." Gun laws have also been a hot political topic in the Czech Republic since a student shot dead 14 people at the Charles University in Prague in December 2023. The country made it obligatory for gun sellers to report suspicious purchases and requires doctors to check whether people diagnosed with psychological problems hold gun permits. Britain is holding a public inquiry into an attack in Southport where three young girls were stabbed to death last year. UK drama "Adolescence", a story about a schoolboy accused of murder, explores concerns about toxic online culture. Meanwhile in France, President Emmanuel Macron this month pressed for EU regulation to ban social media for children under 15 following a fatal school stabbing. What motivated the Austrian school gunman is still under investigation. Police said he was socially withdrawn and passionate about online shooting games. Most such shootings are carried out by young men, and criminologist Lankford said there was a global phenomenon of perpetrators seeking notoriety that eluded them in real life, driven in part by social media. "Even if the shooters expect to die, some are excited about leaving behind a legacy." Austria has relatively liberal gun laws, and President Alexander Van der Bellen said after the attack the legislation deserved closer scrutiny. Broad support in Austria for tightening gun ownership laws looked probable, although a general ban on private weapons seems unlikely, said political scientist Peter Filzmaier.
Arab News
10-06-2025
- Arab News
What We Are Reading Today: School Shooters by Peter Langman
School shootings scare everyone. They make parents afraid to send their children to school. But they also lead to generalizations about those who perpetrate them. Most assumptions about the perpetrators are wrong, and many warning signs are missed. In this book, Peter Langman takes a look at 48 national and international cases of school shootings to dispel the myths, explore the motives, and expose the realities of preventing school shootings from happening in the future, according to a review on
