Monday's shooting at a Christian school in Nashville was a stark reminder of how frequently even young American children are exposed to gun violence. A Stanford study estimated that 100,000 schoolchildren in the U.S. attended a school at which a shooting occurred — and that was just in the two-year span from 2018 to 2019. The trauma of living through a shooting can last a lifetime: The same study found that students exposed to shootings at their school were less likely to graduate, less likely to be employed and had lower earnings in their mid-20s.
The Covenant School, where Monday's shooting occurred, is a private school that enrolls preschool through sixth-grade students and has about 200 students, according to a Nashville independent schools group. Now, after living through a shooting in which three of their peer students and three adults were slain, those students will face the social and psychological struggle of rebuilding their lives and their sense of security.
