Few things keep school superintendents awake at night more than the fear of gun violence at their schools. This anxiety impacts administrators, parents, teachers, and students, fueled by a clear and troubling reality: School shootings are on the rise.

When comparing statistics for the 2022/23 and 2023/24 school years alone, gun-related incidents in school settings accelerated a decades-long upward trend. Data released by The Gun Violence Research Center (GVRC) shows a stark 47% increase in gun-related incidents across K-12 schools and college campuses over the past two school years. 

Despite a decline in incidents defined as “active shooter” cases (typically considered mass casualty events), there were more lives lost and injuries reported due to the overall number of gun-related incidents and an increase in suicides among perpetrators. 

In addition, the latest GVRC data specific to K-12 settings shows other unsettling trends from the past two academic years. Schools experienced a 1,600% increase in the presence of imitation guns on school grounds and a 1,400% increase in false active shooter reports. Such inactive threats pose unique challenges for school leadership and law enforcement to assess and verify threats, which makes responding even more difficult. 

Analyzing threat dynamics

ZeroEyes, an AI-powered gun detection solution provider, has analyzed hundreds of school shooting incidents from the past several decades. Through its data collection and analysis, ZeroEyes has identified gaps in monitoring and response protocols:

• A disproportionate number of gun-related incidents occur on school grounds, not indoors.
• Many shootings occur before school starts or as students arrive when traditional safety measures such as locked doors can’t provide protection.
• Common active shooter drills for law enforcement focus on highly complex incident response, but those types of school shootings account for approximately 6.5% of all incidents.

Reprioritizing prevention measures

For years, schools have generally focused safety investments on two key areas:

1. Hardening physical structures: Installing metal detectors, bulletproof glass, and locked entry systems.
2. Increasing law enforcement presence: Adding school resource officers, patrols, or unarmed staff.

These measures remain important but have limitations. Locked doors often won’t stop a shooter who already has access to a school, and physical hardening indoors doesn’t address threats that occur on school grounds.

To close these gaps, school leaders need a layered security approach that combines physical measures with real-time threat detection. That’s where advancements in artificial intelligence come into play.

Incorporating AI gun detection

ZeroEyes AI gun detection works with your existing security cameras and surveillance systems. The system constantly monitors streaming video, using proprietary AI to scan for the presence of brandished or visible firearms. Once a weapon is detected, highly trained analysts at the ZeroEyes Operations Center (ZOC) immediately review images to confirm the presence of a firearm.

Once verified, the ZOC immediately notifies facility administrators and law enforcement, providing critical intelligence such as the number and location of suspected shooters, physical descriptions, and weapon types involved—often within three to five seconds of detection.

This rapid detection and verification provides schools with:

• Situational awareness: Knowing a shooter’s location, the number of threats, and movements.
• Critical time to respond: Empowering decision-making among responders.

The technology works 24/7/365 using your interior and exterior cameras, making ZeroEyes effective for outdoor areas, sports events, or tracking activities as students arrive and leave campus via parking lots.

Addressing budget constraints: Funding smarter safety

Balancing safety investments with tight budgets remains a constant challenge for school administrators. Fortunately, many federal, state, and local grant opportunities are available to support school safety initiatives. ZeroEyes works with schools to help identify applicable grants and offers grant-writing assistance, helping districts navigate funding pathways and make critical safety upgrades more affordable.

For educators, students, and parents, the fear of a school shooting is deeply personal. While no solution is perfect, combining advanced AI technology with insights from real-world data represents a significant step forward.

Smarter, layered prevention strategies that combine AI gun detection with data and analytics tools, physical security improvements, and enhanced training are essential for a more comprehensive approach to violence prevention and response.

Visit the Gun Violence Research Center from ZeroEyes for a wide range of in-depth reports, articles, webinars, and other resources to help your school safety initiatives in 2025.