Schools are looking to actual warzone technology to limit fatalities from the next mass shooting

The school version listens for gunfire and looks for muzzle flashes using infrared sensors, a system that might be particularly useful in a situation such as the one at Virginia Tech in 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people as he roved among multiple buildings on a vast campus.

To buttress their case for installing the devices, the gunshot-detection companies point to a 2013 FBI study of active shooter cases.

The study examined 160 incidents in the United States from 2000 to 2013. It found that these shootings were rare but were increasing, almost tripling in the study’s second half to 16.4 a year. A total of 486 people were killed over the 14-year span. The study captured high-profile shootings such as the ones at Virginia Tech, at Fort Hood, Tex., in 2009 and at a movie theater in Aurora, Colo., in 2012.

Twenty-seven of the 160 shootings occurred in schools serving kindergarten to 12th grade.

Twelve other shootings took place at colleges and trade schools.

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