School shootings rise when economy struggles, study suggests

WASHINGTON – A new study finds that school shootings rise when the economy tanks, even as violent crime in general appears to be unaffected.

Researchers analyzed data from 379 shootings in schools between 1990 and 2013 and found a link between changes in national and local unemployment rates and the frequency of shootings.

Most were targeted attacks – often not fatal – and suicides, according to the study in Monday’s journal Nature Human Behaviour. Only six percent of the shootings studied were random mass shootings.

Some experts not involved in the research did not find the study convincing, in part because different types of gun violence at school – random and targeted, and fatal and non-fatal – often have different motivations and root causes.