The Typical School Shooting
On the actual day of the shooting, the shooter has quite a few advantages over the rest of the people at the school. For example, the shooters do not appear out of place because they either attend the school or have some other reason to be there like being a teacher or custodian [2]. Normally, school shooters enter through the front door and do not bother using many creative strategies to hide their intentions on the day of the shooting. Once the shooting begins, the average shooter knows that he has 5-9 minutes of uninterrupted action before the police and first responders show up to the school [5]. That number decreases if the school has a school resource officer or a dedicated police force. A worrying trend of recent shooters like the one in Parkland is the use of the fire alarm to lure masses of students into a crowded hallway, which allows the shooter a much easier, more defenseless group of targets [6]. After the 5-9 minutes of police-free shooting, the shooter then either confronts the police and SWAT or attempts to flee in the masses of students. For reference, school shooters are less likely to die than mass shooters who attack factories and commercial locations. However, some school shooters still choose suicide or suicide by cop at the end of their rampage [7].
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