U.S. school shootings already at record level in 2022: criminologists

A gun-free zone signage is seen near Times Square in New York, the United States, Sept. 1, 2022. (Photo by Michael Nagle/Xinhua)

SYDNEY, Oct. 28 (Xinhua) -- With more than two months left, 2022 is already the worst year on record for the United States, as the country has seen 257 shootings on school campuses, surpassing the 250 total for all of 2021, criminologists from U.S. universities has said.

In an analysis published by Australian media network the Conversation on Tuesday, three scholars of criminal justice stressed that many of these shootings were not the mass killing events that schools typically drill for, but an extension of rising everyday gun violence.

Many of these incidents have been simple disputes turned deadly because teenagers came to school angry and armed, they noted, adding that multiple cases involved student shooters firing dozens of shots.

The experts warned that aside from the near daily occurrences of actual school shootings, there are also the near misses and false alarms that only add to the heightened sense of threat, pushing many parents, students and teachers on edge.

Another record of them showed that between 2018 and 2022, mass shootings at U.S. schools claimed a total of 52 lives, seven more than the fatalities in the previous 18 years combined.