Easy A: meaningful actions in five minutes or less

Read This: The Impact of Active Shooter Drills

Sep 7, 2023 | Easy A, Gun Violence Prevention

Did you know 95% of school districts conduct active shooter drills? Some fast facts:

  • There is NO research that backs up the value of active shooter drills. 
  • There’s significant evidence that these drills actually have a negative impact on the mental health of students, teachers, and school staff.

And here’s the kicker:quote: lockdown drills are actively normalizing mass shootings

  • The push for active shooter drills has created a $2.7 billion industry that feeds off the fear of school shootings. That’s right…companies are profiting off our kids’ fear. And these drills are just a bandaid on the problem that elected officials refuse to take action on. 

Research conducted by Everytown for Gun Safety and Georgia Tech found that active shooter drills in schools are associated with a 39% increase in depression, a 42% increase in stress and anxiety, and a 23% increase in mental health problems. There was also a 22% increase in concerns over death in students, some as young as five years old. These fears of death also affect teachers and parents. So while active shooter drills are continuously being pushed instead of passing gun safety regulations, the long term impact on schools and the wider community is being ignored. And our children are paying the price. 

Victims of gun violence often talk about a tipping point, when enough Americans will demand action on gun violence in this country. We know it is past time that our elected leaders take action on gun violence prevention. Children should not be the ones paying the price for this extremism. 

Thanks for taking your easy action for this week. See you next Thursday! 

Subscribe to Easy A

Recent Posts

Watch This: Healthy Shouldn’t Be This Hard

What do safe food, vaccines, hormones, insurance, pollution, and climate change all have in common? They all factor into our ability to be healthy! These are also just some of the things that most women think about every day, because we care about our own wellness and...

Read This: The Struggle for Women to Live Healthy in America

In our divisive political climate, there’s one thing that most suburban women can agree on regardless of party affiliation – we all want to keep ourselves and our families healthy! But every day, that feels harder and harder to do. Fresh, healthy food is way more...

Do This: Two ways to find out if Flock is in your town

Our right to move freely and privately, without being tracked, is fundamental to our democracy. But in recent years, we’ve seen a rise in surveillance technology companies. Flock is one of the largest of those companies, operating a network of AI-powered, automated...

Watch This: What Are Flock Cameras?

In last week’s Easy A, we learned that more than 6,000 communities nationwide have installed Flock surveillance cameras, even though there is no evidence that these cameras, or any automated license plate reader (ALPR) cameras, help prevent or reduce crime. We all...

Read This: Get the Flock Out of Our Communities

If you’ve ever seen the movie Minority Report, you remember the dire warning the Tom Cruise sci-fi movie gave about fighting crime using high tech surveillance. But it’s not sci-fi anymore! There’s a disturbing rise in real-life surveillance that everyone needs to...