Giving Compass' Take:

• Nadine Connell, associate professor of criminology is creating a database that will chronicle every school shooting since 1990 with the hope that this information will provide assistance to the police and help with future policy reforms. 

• What other action can be done to address school shootings and school safety?

• Read about various strategies that schools can take to make kids feel safer. 

Quickly after a gunman opened fire on students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, the divisive debate over American gun violence — historically focused on school shootings — re-emerged in full force.

Though school shootings have fueled the gun control debate for more than a century, reliable data on the frequency of school shootings and the factors that motivate the gunmen remain hard to come by.

That’s where Nadine Connell, an associate professor of criminology and director of the Center for Crime and Justice Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas, comes in. Connell is building a database of all school shootings in the U.S. since 1990, information she hopes will help law enforcement and school leaders better understand the causes of school violence, and how to prevent it.

The work comes as students and their advocates nationwide demand new policies they say could help keep students safe. Students across the country recently participated in a daylong school walkout to push for new gun control legislation. But, as Connell has found, school shootings are extremely rare. Although the fear of mass school shootings often drives policy, she said, those efforts aren’t always the most productive.

Read the full article about school shootings by Mark Keierleber at The 74