Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.

Guest: Dr. Daniel Semenza is an Associate Professor at Rutgers University and the Director of Interpersonal Violence Research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers on issues of gun violence, victimization, and health disparities and his research has been featured in the New York Times, LA Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Scientific American, The Trace, Prevention Magazine, PBS, and NPR.

Links to topics in the show:

* CBS News: Inside the $3 billion school security industry as deadly shootings continue

* What is school security?

* Abundant Life Christian School Shooting: Interview on WORT in Madison, WI

* Six common factors in the school shooting at Abundant Life Christian

* I study school shootings. Here’s what AI can — and can’t — do to stop them

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

David Riedman, founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database, joins WORT 89.9fm (Madison, WI) afternoon radio show A Public Affair hosted by Sara Gabler.

This interviews follows the December 16th school shooting at Abundant Life Christian School in Madison, Wisconsin. Riedman joins Gabler to discuss this shooting in context of the 323 school shootings that have happened so far this year. They unpack what the data tells us about these tragedies, the importance of recognizing warning signs, and policies needed to prevent future school shootings.

Image posted by the shooter’s father that was discussed during the interview:

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database

Guest: Dr. Daniel Hamlin is an associate professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on the effects of education policies related to student health and safety, parental involvement, school climate, and school choice.

Papers:

* Understanding Different Forms of Gun Violence in American Schools: An Analysis from 1980 to 2019

* Are gun ownership rates and regulations associated with firearm incidents in American schools? A forty-year analysis (1980–2019)

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database

Guest: Shannon Woods, Ph.D. Candidate, Performance as Public Practice, University of Texas at Austin

Papers:

* The Threat Is Now: Choreography, Temporality, and the Active Shooter Drill

* Drilled Choreographies: Interventions on Preparing for the Active Shooter

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

GoogleLM summary of shootings on campus in November 2024.

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database

Guest: Jack Anderson, expert in insurance, risk, catastrophe, and security

Peer-reviewed paper: The Fortress Problem

When they rely on robustness or complication, positions of strength are only tolerant of stress up to a defined point or of a certain character. For a fortification that fails to adapt, centralization—even of strength—presents a surprising liability. Fortresses concentrate risk.

A grand design for security will not produce grand security. Security requires fewer scripted plans and more improvisation, more diversity, less uniformity, less training with partners, and more learning to work with strangers.

Articles mentioned in the show:

* My article about The Fortress Problem: Using data to design safer schools

* My article on security screening concentrating risk: Why TSA-style security doesn't work for schools

* Attack Trees and Threat Modeling

* The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents, and Nuclear Weapons

* The Taming of Chance

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database

Guest: Dr. Algernon Austin, Director for Race and Economic Justice at the Center for Economic and Policy Research

New research paper: Gun Violence Lowers Academic Achievement Especially for Black Children

Article referenced: The Other School Shootings: Gun Violence at America’s Poorest Schools

Peer-reviewed research on economic impact of school shootings:

* The Impacts of Shootings on Students' Human Capital and Economic Outcomes

* Effects of School Shootings on Risky Behavior, Health and Human Capital

* Do school shootings erode property values?

* Impacts on the mental health, education, and earnings of American youth

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Recorded on November 1, 2024 at the Hamline University Violence Prevention Project Research Center in St. Paul, MN. Note: This was the first panel of the event and there are a couple glitches in the audio that get fixed as the discussion goes on.

David Riedman – Founder of the K-12 School Shooting Database. David's pioneering work tracks and analyzes school shooting incidents across the U.S., offering crucial data that informs violence prevention strategies. He also serves on the advisory board for the Violence Prevention Project Research Center (VPPRC) and is an assistant professor at Idaho State University.

Shannon Hill – Violence Prevention Specialist at Saint Paul Public Schools. Shannon leads the implementation of the CARE team model, a collaborative approach developed with the VPPRC to prevent and address violence in schools. Her extensive background working with at-risk students makes her an invaluable advocate for safer learning environments.

Rudy Perez – Assistant Chief of Police, Golden Valley Police Department & President of the National Association of School Resource Officers (NASRO). Rudy has spent over 23 years enhancing school safety through law enforcement strategies, including training school resource officers and improving community collaboration. His leadership at NASRO continues to shape how we keep students safe.

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Host: David Riedman, creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database.

Guest: Shea Swauger is a PhD student in Education and Critical Studies at the University of Colorado Denver. He researches social factors that influence school shootings and gun policy.

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

This is not a “real” podcast in the traditional sense of the word. Google has a new AI tool called Notebook LM creates podcasts from text articles. I didn’t write the script. The voices you hear are completely generated by Google’s language models.

The botcast is based on my article: School Shootings: Issue Attention Cycle & Law of Unintended Consequences

My article argues that the public's attention to school shootings is a cyclical pattern: intense focus in the immediate aftermath of an event, followed by a decline in interest. This cycle often leads to hastily implemented policies that fail to address the issue effectively and can even have unintended negative consequences.

David Riedman is the creator of the K-12 School Shooting Database, Chief Data Officer at a global risk management firm, and a tenure-track professor. Listen to my weekly podcast—Back to School Shootings—or my recent interviews on Freakonomics Radio, New England Journal of Medicine, and my article on CNN about AI and school security.

School Shooting Data Analysis and Reports is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.