SHOOTING DATA
used one of those two rifles in the attack that left 21 people dead, including 19 children.
A review of data by Hearst Connecticut Media Group shows many school shootings in the U.S. were carried out by minors and young adults under 21 years old.
In 29 of 62 active shooting incidents recorded at educational facilities across the country between 2000 and 2019, the offender was younger than 18, according to an analysis of data from the Federal Bureau of Investigations. An additional 10 shooters were between 18 and 21 years old.
The data covers cases that occurred at education facilities serving pre-K through college, including two cases at school board meetings.
The FBI's analysis considers only active shootings, which the agency defines as an incident where someone is “actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.”
Many more shootings at schools don't meet the FBI's criteria for an active shooting.
But, researchers at the federally-run Center For Homeland Defense And Security in a separate database use various sources to track all shooting incidents in K-12 schools.
That data shows at least 59 percent of the 2,275 school shootings researchers recorded since 1970 were committed by someone under 21 years old. The offender's age is unknown in another 18 percent of incidents.
The trend holds true In Connecticut, where the shooter was under 21 in at least 13 of 24 incidents, according to the K-12 School Shootings Database.
That was also the case in the Sandy Hook Elementary
School shooting, where the offender was 20 years old. The guns used in that case were bought legally by the assailant's mother. The 2012 massacre in Newtown remains the deadliest school shooting in the United States on record. The death toll in Uvalde is the second highest for a school shooting.
Following the murders at Sandy Hook, Connecticut lawmakers expanded the state's ban on assault weapons, applying to more gun models and magazines. The Connecticut law now applies to semiautomatic rifles that hold more than 10 rounds, for instance. Connecticut also imposes other restrictions, including barring handguns from being sold to people under 21. Both national school shooting databases show handguns were used in most cases.
But rifles and shotguns have been used in dozens of school shootings, data show. And Connecticut's assault weapons ban does not cover many rifles and shotguns 18- to 20-year-olds can legally buy, including ones that could be used to cause serious harm, according to Ari Freilich, state policy director at the Giffords Law Center, a nationwide gun control advocacy group led by former congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, D-Az.
"There are many other semiautomatic weapons
that are not assault rifles," Freilich said. “We know the more these weapons are readily available to young people, the more likely they'll be used to commit incidents like we saw,” in Uvalde.
David Pucino, deputy chief counsel at the Giffords Law Center, said research about brain development has shown young adults tend to be more compulsive and more likely to commit acts of violence using guns.
“They are more likely to engage in violent behaviors,” he said. “They're at higher risk of committing and also being a victim of acts of gun violence.”
Both Giffords Law Center, and another gun control group, Everytown for Gun Safety, said they have conducted studies finding gun violence and death rates tend to be lower in states with stricter gun control laws. And Pucino said he believes raising the age for possession and purchase of “long guns” would help keep weapons out of the hands of youths and improve safety.
Pucino said, for example, if a higher age threshold were imposed, the 18-yearold shooter who killed 10 Black people in a neighborhood supermarket in Buffalo on May 14, would not have been able to legally purchase the gun he used in that racist killing. The gunman bought that weapon in New York, which has similar laws as Connecticut around age minimums and assault weapons restrictions, and later illegally modified the rifle before the attack, Pucino said.
On Wednesday, in the wake of the Texas and Buffalo shootings, New York Governor Kathy Hocul called on state lawmakers there to raise the age from 18 to 21 for someone to legally purchase an AR-15 semiautomatic weapon and left the door open to raising the minimum age to other types of guns, too.
"I don't want 18-yearolds to have guns, at least not in the state of New York," Hochul said, according to the Times Union. "That person is not old (enough) to buy a legal drink."
Freilich said the type of gun reported to have been used in the Uvalde shooting would be prohibited from being sold in both Connecticut and New York under each state's assault weapons ban, since according to descriptions on the manufacturer's website, "it's a semiautomatic rifle that accepts detachable magazines and has multiple additional features indicative of assaultive purposes, including a flash suppressor and pistol grip."
Proposals to raise minimum age restrictions on gun purchases and possession are likely to face legislative and legal hurdles.
Advocates for gun rights have broadly opposed proposals to raise the minimum age to purchase rifles and shotguns. For instance, the National Rifle Association told CNN in 2018 increasing the barrier for 18to 20-year-olds "effectively prohibits them for purchasing any firearm, thus depriving them of their constitutional right to selfprotection."
In March, a federal court ruled California's ban on semiautomatic purchases by people under 21 was unconstitutional.