MINNESOTA, USA — More and more children are dying from school shootings.
On Monday in Madison, Wisconsin, three died. A teacher, a student, and a 15-year-old girl who police identified as the shooter. Experts say they are concerned the country is becoming numb to cases like this.
Marc Gorelick, CEO of Children's Minnesota, wrote a book on gun violence, "Saving Our Kids: An ER Doc's Common-Sense Solution to the Gun Crisis."
"At its root it's a health issue. It's a health issue for kids," said Gorelick.
He said it's important to pay attention to these shootings — because there are things that everyday people can do.
According to the Washington Post's School Shooting Tracker, 270 kids were at Abundant Life Christian School Monday's shooting. Just this year, 31,000 children have been affected by a shooting on a K-12 campus.
Thirteen people have died. Fifty others who were shot survived. School shootings have taken place in 21 states in 2024.
"I think it gives us a sense of, sort of, how big is the problem," said Dr. Jillian Peterson, executive director of Hamline University's Violence Prevention Project Research Center. "What are we talking about? When are they happening? Why are they happening? Who's doing it?"
According to the Center, this is the first time a female has killed more than one person going back to the year 2000. Their data, which is accessible to the public, tracks mass shootings and homicides at places like schools from 2000 to 2023.
"You see this common pathway, which is typically starting off with significant early childhood trauma, that's kind of the early foundation building towards a crisis point," said Peterson.
Their data also points to solutions.
Peterson points out two specific pieces of data she says are supported by their research. One of which is a crisis response team that includes anonymous reporting systems, noticing when a child is in crisis, strong relationships with educators and more. The other includes safe storage of firearms.
"Safe storage of firearms is probably the single most effective thing," said Gorelick.
Gorelick said when the numbers feel overwhelming, concentrate on what you can do, like having healthy conversations with friends and family.
"If your child is going to someone's house to play, ask, do you have a gun at home and is it stored safely?" suggested Gorelick. "That shouldn't be weird. If your child had a severe food allergy, it wouldn't be weird to ask what food they're planning on serving. I mean, if there were some new disease that were that were threatening kids, we'd probably be talking about it. This is no different."