School shooting totals have declined from recent peaks, tracker says
Rights & JusticeWell-covered
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The Facts
- David Riedman’s database counted 149 U.S. school shootings in 2026 after the Bend attack.
- Riedman’s database recorded 235 school shootings in 2025 and 336 in 2024.
- Riedman defines a school shooting to include gunfire, a gun brandished with intent to harm, or bullets hitting school property.
- The Bend shooting killed three children and one teacher.
- The suspected shooter in the Bend attack was 16 years old.
- The Bend shooting renewed public debate over gun laws and school-shooting prevention.
Context
Why can school-shooting totals differ across sources?
Definitions vary. Riedman’s database counts gunfire, guns brandished with intent to harm, and bullets that strike school property, regardless of victims or timing. NYT DNyuz
What does the current 2026 count indicate?
At the pace reported after the Bend attack, Riedman said 2026 would continue a decline from his totals of 235 school shootings in 2025 and 336 in 2024. NYT DNyuz
What policy issue has the Bend shooting raised?
The case has focused attention on firearm access and parental accountability. Oregon lacks a criminal law specifically holding parents accountable when children use their weapons, according to the New York Times. NYT
Where Left and Right agree, and where they split
- Where Left and Right agree
- Both frame prevention, not the falling yearly count, as the true test — and both treat Bend as a failure of that test regardless of the trend from 336 to 149.
- Where Left and Right split
- Whether the fix is keeping firearms further out of reach of minors and dangerous people, or whether Oregon's existing gun laws already cover this and new restrictions would only burden law-abiding owners.
- Why they won’t converge
- This is a trust-in-institution split: the left reads repeated shootings as proof that current laws and enforcement still leave gaps, while the right reads Oregon's already-strict statute book as evidence that more legislation cannot stop a determined shooter.
How left and right read it
A 16-year-old should not be able to reach a gun, and the measure of success here is not a falling count but a floor of prevention that holds. Each of these killings reliably reopens the gun debate while feeding the very market that arms the next shooter. Break that cycle: keep firearms away from kids and from people who intend harm.
“Research shows that gun sales increase following mass shootings and in response to the law changes that follow, contributing to an ever-growing economy of violence.” — The Independent
Four people are dead in Bend — three children and a teacher — and the immediate demand is another round of gun laws, in a state where the catalog of restrictions the advocates ask for is already on the books. Count the shootings however the database counts them: 149 this year against 235 and 336 before it. Prevention is the test. Law-abiding owners are not the ones who failed it.
“In fact, every gun control law pushed by anti-gun groups is codified here so these people can pipe down.” — Townhall
The receipts — 15 sources
Independent coverage (15)
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