Are Active Shooter Drills Worthwhile?

Hi Emily, are active shooter drills in school worth the stress they put on kids? Are they effective in helping to keep kids/teachers/staff stay safe during a mass shooting? My state just passed a law mandating that each school perform an active shooter drill — and each school is getting $50K in state funding to conduct them. It seems like some research suggests these drills are more harmful to kids’ mental health, but I would appreciate your review/analysis. My daughter is only 3, but I’m already dreading her having to participate in these drills when she goes to school.
—Dubious About the Drills

We get this question a lot, and it is a hard one to answer with data.

On the first question of whether these drills keep people safe, the answer is that we do not have data to answer that, and I doubt we ever will. That school shootings ever happen is a disgraceful tragedy. But the mass shootings that these drills are designed to prevent are very rare. Although firearms are a leading cause of death for children in the United States, the vast majority of those deaths are not in school shootings.

This means that our ability to provide evidence on what makes a shooting more or less likely, or more or less deadly, is limited. This doesn’t mean these drills could not work; we just cannot show that they do. There are reasons to think they might help (children know what to do, how to be quiet), and other reasons to think they might not (shooters often know the school and therefore might be prepared).

On the other side, we do have some evidence on the mental health effects of active shooter drills, and it is not encouraging. In a 2021 paper, researchers analyzed social media posts from school-related individuals before and after active shooter drills. They found an increase in language associated with anxiety and depression in the period after these drills. This certainly points to some possible mental health effects; in their data, it was more so among older students.

Active shooter drills are not some clear solution to school shootings, and they do have potential risks. I think there is an additional concern that focusing on this policy may allow us to lose focus on other policies that would be more effective, like assault weapons bans.

For a longer answer, and overall excellent analysis of this and related issues, please check out the post “Active shooter drills: Do risks outweigh benefits?” in Your Local Epidemiologist.