Definitional Discrepancies: Defining “School Shootings” and Other Incidents of Gunfire Affecting Schools

Abstract

The current review explores multiple definitions of school shootings used by myriad data collection platforms and by various scholars. Importantly, the impacts of definitional discrepancies on inclusion criteria, data divergence, research, policy, and public perception are discussed at length. The review concludes with a call to Criminologists and school gun violence scholars to better collaborate on what should be considered a “school shooting” and lists five benefits that may result from modifying school gun violence definitions and data collection methodologies.