Active shooter drills and bulletproof backpacks: how mass shootings changed America’s schools
- Since the Columbine massacre in 1999, school-age children in the US are becoming ever more conscious of the threat of a campus shooting
From active shooter drills and code reds to Stop The Bleed kits and bulletproof backpacks, the explosion of gun violence in American schools since the Columbine shooting in 1999 introduced the country’s next generations of students to a once-unthinkable lexicon.
With the new reality comes an increase in fear: from five-year-olds in kindergarten to high school seniors, figures show that school-age children in the US are ever more conscious of the threat of a campus shooting, while their parents are more concerned than at any time since Columbine for their children’s safety at school.
A Gallup poll last year showed that one in five students nationwide had expressed feeling unsafe at school, and 35 per cent of parents admitted they were worried, up more than 10 per cent since the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school mass shooting in Parkland, Florida, in February 2018, which left 17 people dead.
The following is how America’s schools have changed for “Generation Columbine”.
Regular active shooter drills, often conducted with the assistance of local law enforcement agencies, are now commonplace in classrooms across the country.
Forty-one states and Washington DC have mandated various emergency drills in schools. Only four of these – Arkansas, Florida, Missouri and South Carolina – include the specific words “active shooter” in their legislation.