63 school shootings have occurred – means any time there is a shooting on a school campus – until 2026.
They happen so frequently that preparing for one has become normal. Students as young as 4 regularly practice for the possibility of a school shooting through lockdown drills – usually, in the corner of a dark classroom, hidden behind a locked door.
Pauls Valley High School in Pauls, Oklahoma goes into lockdown on April 7, 2026 The armed gunmen opened fire Inside the building. School principal Kirk Moore tackled the gunman and was shot in the leg.
Lockdown and Moore’s heroism is expressly prevented A positive end to any further violence in this rare school shooting situation. But after all, do lockdowns generally work to keep students safe?
as A criminologist For those who study violence and mass shootings, I think it’s important to note that there are no federal requirements dictating how often or even how lockdown drills should be conducted in schools in the United States.
Different approaches to lockdown
Most states There is some sort of requirement for a minimum number of lockdown drills per year. In MinnesotaThe number is five. New York Mandate Four, when Arizona law Called three people.
There is also a lot of variation in how schools interpret the term “lockdown drill.” In some places, it’s used loosely for a variety of situations—everything from a medical emergency to animals in buildings. But that broader use can obscure what these drills are actually designed for.
In practice, lockdown drills are synonymous with preparing for an active shooter or similarly serious threat of violence. This is why many refer to them as straight up “active shooter drills”.
The I Love You Guys Foundation’s guidelines reinforce this point. It is widely accepted Standard Response Protocol Defines a lockdown as locking doors, turning off lights, staying out of sight and remaining silent—measures specifically intended to maximize time and distance from a violent intruder until first responders arrive.
In 2025, Minnesota, where I live, First law passed A country that defines an active shooter drill as a form of lockdown and distinguishes it from an active shooter simulation.
A drill, in the context of this Act, “means an emergency preparedness drill designed to teach students, faculty, school personnel, and staff how to respond in the event of an armed intruder on campus or an armed assailant on school grounds.”
It differs from an active shooter simulation, which includes “sensitive materialActivities or elements that simulate a real-life shooting.” The law says students can be forced to participate in ex parte, but not in a simulation, where you may involve crisis actors or have the sights and sounds of a real tragedy.
Based on my research, any drill must be done in a measured, age-appropriate and trauma-informed way, so that children are not harmed by the exercises. There’s a difference between a teacher walking through a procedure to calm students, versus a police officer in tactical gear banging on a door or jangling the handle to check if it’s locked.
Implicit effects on children
Most schools went into lockdown after the shootings Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut in 2012 and at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida In 2018. This is the first generation of students to practice what a school shooter would actually do to kill them – and they’ve been practicing since pre-K. We don’t yet know what it does for a person’s lifetime.
so far, Available research Mixed evidence shows whether these drills help students feel more prepared or scare them. Study Looking at the mental, emotional, and behavioral health outcomes of school active shooter drills tells us that drills have short-term benefits in reducing fear if they are carefully designed and that they create systemic knowledge that can reduce panic. at the same time, Research occupied increased fear, concern and others trauma response In these drills, especially children and staff who already have developmental disabilities or a history of trauma.
Lockdown drills have limits
most of school shooter A current or former student of the school. They know where the kids are hiding because they themselves were trained in lockdown response. In 2025, the shooter at Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis even wrote in their journal how active the shooter drills were.useful“Because they learned from them.
Another problem is that drills tend to assume a single type of scenario, even though school shootings can unfold in many different ways. Practicing for just one event can inadvertently put students at a greater disadvantage. D 2022 Uvalde school shooting Texas is a good example. There were children kept behind locked doorsBut then the gunman was in the room with them and killed them all. Good response, disappear, the building will be evacuated.
More than anything, I think there’s a risk that drills normalize school shootings. We turned off the lights and handed over the security of the school to the teachers and students. Hiding makes a searcher guess. Even small children understand the logic of hide and seek (someone is looking for you, and if they find you, you lose). Drill casts students as victims. That fact alone is a tragedy for American society.
James DensleyProfessor of Criminal Justice, Metropolitan State University
Reprinted from this article the conversation Under Creative Commons license. read on Main article.
