Stanford Study Finds Children More Likely to Die in Mass Shootings at Home Than School

Gun violence in schools is a pervasive worry for American parents, but new research suggests that children are more likely to be killed in mass shootings in their own homes.

Stanford researchers analyzed 121 mass shootings in the U.S. involving at least one pediatric victim over an 11-year period. The findings, published this week in JAMA Pediatrics, are striking: 59% of children who died in these mass shootings were killed by a family member — most often a parent.

Dr. Stephanie Chao, the study’s senior author and associate professor of surgery at Stanford Medicine, said the data challenges how we think about preventing these tragedies.

“People tend to think that gun violence occurs mostly at random events that they cannot protect their child against,” Chao said. “That perception is heightened by the media’s focus on rare shootings at schools, concerts and public events. While those are frightening events, far more mass shootings occur at the hands of parents and family members within the home, where children should be safe.”

For the study, researchers defined mass shootings as those that left at least four dead, excluding the shooter. Of the 308 children killed in such shootings between 2009 and 2020, the majority were younger than 10, with the average age being 9.7 years old.

In the majority of cases, the perpetrator wasn’t a stranger or a classmate — it was a parent, grandparent, sibling or another family member. The data underscores the strong connection between mass shootings and domestic violence, a link that often goes underreported in national conversations about gun violence.

“Domestic violence doesn’t make headlines because it happens with more frequency. But that is precisely why it is more dangerous, because of the frequency,” Chao said. “Over 22 million U.S. children live in a home with a gun. If a domestic disturbance arises in those homes, the risk of death dramatically increases.”

The breakdown of shooter relationships reveals how pervasive family-related gun violence is, with 40.9% of victims killed by a parent, compared to just 12% by a stranger or 6.8% by a classmate.

Chao is helping to build educational campaigns on the role of domestic violence in mass shootings. Her team at Stanford developed PLEDGE, a curriculum to educate K–12 students about firearm injuries and prevention strategies.

Gun violence is now more common than car accidents as the number one cause of death for children in the United States. Yet, public policy conversations and safety measures often fail to address the root of the issue: the intersection of domestic violence and gun access.

“We know generally that most mass shootings involve domestic violence,” said Dr. Garen J. Wintemute, a UC Davis emergency room physician and gun violence expert who is not connected to the Stanford study. “Gun violence restraining orders have been shown to be an effective tool in preventing mass shootings here in California.”

Such restraining orders allow people to petition a court to temporarily remove guns from the home of someone who presents a danger to others and bar them from buying new ones.

While mass killings in public places continue to grab headlines, the Stanford study serves as a stark reminder: The most common location for these tragedies isn’t a school or a shopping mall — it’s home.

“Sometimes, it is other loved ones, friends or neighbors who may be the first to sense there may be ongoing struggle within the home,” Chao said. “It is our collective responsibility as a community to keep our kids safe. Recognizing where the dangers are is a first step to preventing tragedy.”