The majority of American teens are worried about a shooting at their own school


Including the deadly attack at a high school in Santa Fe, Texas, on Friday, there have been 22 school shootings since the beginning of the year, CNN reports. The spike in mass shootings in recent years has led a generation of high schoolers to live in fear of when they might be next, according to a chilling poll conducted by the Pew Research Center last month:
The results show that some 57 percent of American teenagers are "very" or "somewhat worried" about the possibility of a shooting at their school. Just 13 percent of teenagers said that a school shooting is not a worry at all for them. Parents are even more afraid: Sixty-three percent are at least "somewhat worried" about a shooting at their child's school, the poll found.
The poll reached 743 teens ages 13 to 17 between March 7 and April 10, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 points. Read more about how gun violence is changing American childhood at The Week, and see the full results of the poll at Pew.
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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