# The EAGLES Act: What It Does

The EAGLES Act is about preventing school shootings by strengthening a government program that studies and teaches threat assessment—basically, how to identify warning signs that someone might be planning violence. The bill is named after Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, whose mascot is the eagle, and it was introduced following the 2018 shooting there that killed 17 people.

The core idea is straightforward: research shows that most school attackers display warning signs before they act. They often tell someone about their plans, show concerning behavior patterns, or give other clues that something is wrong. The bill expands the National Threat Assessment Center, which is part of the Secret Service, to help schools, police departments, and communities recognize these warning signs early and intervene before violence happens. This means more training for school officials and law enforcement, more research into what actually works to prevent attacks, and better ways to share information between schools, police, and mental health professionals.

Practically speaking, this affects school administrators, teachers, police officers, and mental health professionals who would receive training on how to spot and respond to potential threats. Schools would have access to better tools and guidance for creating threat assessment teams—groups of school and community officials who work together to evaluate whether someone poses a real danger and what to do about it. The bill funds this work with $10 million per year through 2025 and requires the Secret Service to report back to Congress on how many people got trained and whether the training actually helps prevent violence.

The bill explicitly states that none of this money can be used for firearms training, and it emphasizes that the goal is early intervention and help for troubled individuals, not just punishment. It's designed as a prevention strategy based on the idea that catching problems early—through counseling, mental health support, or other interventions—is better than waiting for a crisis to happen.

EAGLES Act of 2021

Deutch, Theodore E.

EAGLES Act of 2021 This bill reauthorizes the National Threat Assessment Center (NTAC) within the U.S. Secret Service. It reauthorizes the functions of NTAC through FY2025 and expands them to include the establishment of a national program on targeted school violence prevention.