Inside America’s hoax school shootings epidemic

Over the past six months, The Economist has been investigating gun violence in American schools. The impacts of firearms are devastating, even when no gun is fired. The fear of school shootings is being weaponised by hoax callers claiming they are about to attack a school.

In the 2022-23 school year there were 450 such hoax calls, over six times more than in 2018-19. On February 22nd 2023 there were 17 in Colorado alone. In this film, The Economist investigates what happened that day.