Preventing school shootings: A public health approach to gun-related homicide and murder-suicide in schools

School shootings have received substantial media attention in recent years, largely due to the increased incidents of gun violence in schools and the number of casualties and deaths that have occurred as a result. These acts of gun violence have frequently resulted in the deaths of perpetrators as well as victims and include incidents of homicide, suicide, and murder-suicide. Consequently, school personnel, parents, law enforcement, and policy makers have become increasingly concerned about school shootings and how to most effectively prevent them. The purpose of this chapter is to describe a public health approach to school shootings, with a particular emphasis on preventing homicide and murder-suicide in schools. Both school-based and community-based approaches for preventing school shootings are reviewed, including restricting access to guns among young people, identifying potentially homicidal and suicidal youth through threat and risk assessments, and effective crisis response and intervention.