Teachers raised with shooter drills grapple with school gunfire's busiest year

• Abbi Stinger, 23, remembers the first time she was corralled into a bathroom in fifth grade after the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, sandwiched between classmates as they practiced an active shooter drill.
• By the time she reached high school, active shooter drills became "a normal part of our culture at school," she told Axios.
• Now as she instructs her students in shooter drills, the fear she felt while in that tiny bathroom rushes back.

Friction point: According to Everytown for Gun Safety, over 95% of American public schools now drill students on lockdown procedures.

• Despite that, there is little research on the impact active shooter simulations have on students — or their efficacy in real-world applications.
• Hyper-realistic drills — sometimes involving props and actors — can be deeply traumatizing for students, especially those who experienced gun violence in the past, Sarah Burd-Sharps, Everytown for Gun Safety's senior director of research, told Axios.
• "Part of the issue is we don't have enough clarity at a federal level on what [school shooting drills] are, what they look like, how often they happen," she said.

Zoom in: Some schools have installed metal detectors. Others have invested in bulletproof glass. And across the board, school shooting drills have emerged as a norm — a routine reenactment of an all-too-real possibility.

• On her first day at her school, Stinger immediately noticed the wall of windows between her classroom and the outside world: If someone broke in, there would be nowhere to hide.
• She was terrified her first day, praying that she wouldn't "disappoint these 20 little children." More than fears of typical classroom chaos, there was an underlying reality: "I might have to lay my life on the line for these kids."

Zoom out: Bobbi Sloan, a 22-year-old senior at Vanderbilt University and a Students Demand Action volunteer leader, had her "ideal perception" of being a teacher shattered in March 2023.

• As she sat in a college class, the sound of sirens signaled the arrival of victims to the university's hospital: The ambulances carried those injured in The Covenant School shooting that killed six, including three 9-year-olds.

By the numbers: As of Dec. 16, at least 205 incidents of gunfire on school grounds have occurred nationally this year, resulting in 58 deaths and 156 injuries, according to Everytown for Gun Safety's database.

• That surpasses the 199 gunfire incidents on school grounds recorded in the database's previous record high in 2021.

• The deadliest school shooting came just weeks into the 2024-2025 school year when a 14-year-old student killed four people with an AR-platform-style weapon at Apalachee High School in Georgia.
• On Monday, a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin, left three dead, according to law enforcement.

Behind the scenes: During their first active shooter drill of the year, Stinger was perplexed by the questions her 7- and 8-year-old students asked.

• "Are we allowed to fight?"
• "Can we throw our iPads at them?"

But Sloan guided first graders through a drill earlier this year and was struck by how few inquiries they had.

• "I went to kindergarten — I remember what a lockdown drill is," her students told her matter-of-factly.
• "It feels very disheartening to know that our children aren't safe and that they've grown up in a culture where they're expecting people to want to hurt them," Sloan said.

At the beginning of the school year, Stinger found a 7-year-old boy lying in the hallway while another student looked on — that student was showing him what to do if a shooter entered their classroom.

• "When do we practice playing dead?" he asked, leaving Stinger stunned and scared.

The bottom line: "They can't even tie their shoes," Stinger said. "But they know how to play dead for a shooter."

Editor's note: This story has been updated with new statistics from Everytown for Gun Safety.

Go deeper: School gun violence torments America's youngest generation