Fact check: Harris says 75% of school shootings used gun that 'was not secured'
At an event in Las Vegas, Vice President Kamala Harris misrepresented a statistic from a U.S. Secret Service study published in 2019.
Posted — UpdatedAt an event touting the Biden administration's efforts to curb gun violence, Vice President Kamala Harris said the vast majority of guns used in school shootings come from unsecured locations in homes.
On April 15 in Las Vegas, Harris said gun owners have a responsibility to secure firearms so children and young people can’t access them.
"Put it in a lockbox, because especially if a young person is just curious, or, you know, wants to play with a gun … let's not make it too easy to get," Harris said. "And that's what secure storage is about. You know, the numbers that I have seen suggest that as many as 75% of school shootings resulted from a gun that was not secured."
We took a closer look at the statistic and found the study Harris cites concluded that some school shooters acquired firearms that were considered unsecured or easily accessible in family homes — but not 75%.
The study evaluated 41 incidents, 25 involving firearms. Nineteen of the shooters, or 76%, got their guns from homes. Twelve, or 48%, of the shooters obtained their weapons from what researchers considered to be "accessible" or "not secured in a meaningful way."
"You get to the 75% or 76% number by adding the firearms from homes where the guns had been locked up," said Daniel Webster, a distinguished research scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
Criminologists and youth gun violence experts told PolitiFact data on gun storage and its relationship to U.S. school shootings is scant. The best available figures show that many school shootings by younger perpetrators are carried out with firearms that were considered unsecured or accessible in the home.
"It makes sense that most of the guns used in school shootings come from the shooter's home. It's the easiest place for a juvenile to find a gun," said Jay Corzine, an emeritus sociology professor and a gun policy specialist at the University of Central Florida. "But, is it 75%? Is it 68%? I don't know."
The Secret Service study and its limitations
Besides the 12 cases in which the shooters obtained the guns from spaces deemed unsecure, perpetrators in four incidents accessed firearms from more secured locations. Although the guns were in a locked gun safe or case, the shooters knew the combination, or where the keys were kept, or could guess the password. If those four cases are included in Harris’ "not secured" count, the percentage is closer to 64%.
In the three remaining cases, researchers could not determine whether the firearm had been secured.
The study didn’t examine school attacks involving perpetrators who researchers said couldn’t be identified, or incidents related to "gang violence, drug violence, or other incidents with a strong suggestion of a separate criminal nexus." It also didn’t include in its analysis "spontaneous acts," such as after "an unplanned fight or other sudden confrontation."
When is a gun considered unsecured?
A "unsecured" or "accessible" firearm is typically defined as one that is not safely stored in a gun safe, unloaded and separated from ammunition.
Under that standard, Hoops said, unauthorized people "don’t have a key or the combination to the safe."
Garen Wintemute, director of the University of California, Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Program, said "secured" means that firearms are locked up and unloaded. "‘Locked up’ doesn’t have to mean locked inside something; there can be a lock placed on the firearm," he said, with the ammunition stored in a separate location.
What other research shows about gun storage, school shootings
There is little data showing how often unsecured guns obtained from homes are being used in school shootings.
The report defined a K-12 school shooting as one that occurs at school during the school day, involves one or more perpetrators who are current or former students, and injures or kills at least one person. Using this definition, researchers identified 57 K-12 school shootings from 2001 to 2018.
PolitiFact ruling
Harris said that 75% of school shootings "resulted from a gun that was not secured."
The study found that 19 shootings were carried out with firearms taken from family homes. Of those, 12 came from unsecured or readily accessible locations, the authors said — about 48% of the shootings studied. Another four came from spaces that researchers considered "more secure" but that perpetrators were able to access because they had keys, combinations or passwords. If those are tallied in, the percentage is closer to 64%.
Experts say more robust data is needed to better understand the link between gun storage and school shootings. However, a few studies have shown that around half of these incidents are carried out with firearms obtained from unsecured or otherwise accessible locations in family homes.
Harris’ statement contains an element of truth — the best available data suggests a relationship between unsecured guns at home and school shootings — but her statistic is off and ignores critical facts that would give a different impression. We rate it Mostly False.
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