Alarms, metal detectors and biometrics. Bulletproof chalkboards and ballistic backpacks. Active shooter drills and drones that fire pepper balls. These are just some of the measures schools are using to shield students from an armed attack, fueling what market research firms say is a $4 billion school safety industry.
But critics say such measures turn schools into fortresses to little avail, and may even make children more fearful and less safe.
On Thursday, an armed teenager in Bend, Ore., shot through a locked school door — long considered the simplest and cheapest way to protect against school shootings — to gain entry to Silver Rail Elementary, the authorities said.
He killed three children and a teacher, and was stopped only because he was fatally shot by an armed bystander.
“It is quite normal that there are going to be adults around the country right now saying, ‘What do we need to do to fortify our schools more?’” said Nicole Hockley, the co-founder and chief executive of Sandy Hook Promise, an anti-gun violence group formed after the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school where a gunman shot through locked doors and killed 26 people.
“Frankly, I think it’s the wrong question,” she said. “This is not about security. When the threat is at the door, it’s too late.”
School attackers have shot through glass doors, windows and locks, evaded metal detectors or pulled up at dismissal time and opened fire outside.
“A surprise attack by a heavily armed person is almost impossible to prevent. That’s why a military base has big concrete barriers and fences,” said David Riedman, a data scientist who created the K-12 Shooting Database, which tracks shootings around the United States. “A person who wants to cause harm can get into just about any place that they want to.”
Mo Canady, executive director of the National Association of School Resource Officers, said effective doors and locks were important. “Shooting a lock to the point of overcoming its ability to function is very unusual,” he said.
Ms. Hockley said gun owners should also store firearms securely, out of the reach of children: “That is an act that we can all take.”
But experts argued that the first line of defense should be strong relationships between adults and students.
Teachers, counselors and school police officers with close ties to students are often aware of those who could be struggling and considering violence, Mr. Canady said. Ms. Hockley said adults should be thinking about what children need, rather than how to erect barriers that can make students feel like suspects.
“Kids need connection. Kids need trusted adults that they can talk to, and they need systems that are going to respond,” she said. “That’s going to prevent a lot more crisis and tragedy than security measures will.”
Would-be mass shooters often display red flags such as talk of suicide, glorification of notorious school shooters of the past, showing or bragging about weapons, and even declaring their plan to commit violence, a phenomenon experts refer to as “leakage.”
“I’m heartbroken and my heart is with the community in Bend, and I’m also still waiting because I know that we’re going to hear about warning signs that were missed or not acted on,” Ms. Hockley said.
Sandy Hook Promise has trained millions of educators and students to spot warning signs and says that 20 school shootings have been stopped via tips to its Say Something anonymous reporting system. In a study of more than 100 averted school shootings, Dr. Riedman said more than 80 percent were prevented because a community member, relative or classmate came forward to warn authorities.
On Wednesday, the police in a Chicago suburb said they had arrested a teenager who planned to attack a Hindu temple after co-workers reported that he had told them of his plot.
Experts also raised concerns about online radicalization. Dr. Riedman said that a loosening of standards on internet platforms has allowed “influencer extremists” to proliferate unchecked even on mainstream social media sites.
Young mass shooters like the Georgia teen convicted of killing four people in 2024 are obsessed with their status in a loose social media network centered on mass shootings and violence, Dr. Riedman wrote in his Substack newsletter. He wrote that in recordings of phone calls from jail, the Georgia teen asked his mother to search for his name in forums and read the posts aloud.
“The solution is really simple,” Dr. Riedman wrote. Social media companies should resume stricter regulation of content and ban accounts that espouse violence, he said.
School shootings in the United States have declined for the past two years and are on track to decrease again this year, echoing national trends in crime and gun violence, according to Dr. Riedman’s data.
Last year, he recorded 235 school shootings, down from a peak of 352 in 2023, but still far higher than the average of about 80 per year in the five years preceding the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to Everytown for Gun Safety, gunfire on school grounds has resulted in 33 deaths and 63 injuries this year.
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