School massacre
Encyclopedia
A school shooting is an incident in which gun violence
occurs at an educational institution.
and Jackson State
in the United States, or the October 6, 1976 Massacre in Thailand
. They are also differentiated from other kinds of school violence
, such as the mass killings of the Bath School disaster
(which involved a homemade bomb rather than shooting), the Cologne school massacre
(which involved a flamethrower); or terror attacks involving multiple kinds of weapons, such as the Ma'alot massacre
, or the Beslan school hostage crisis
in which at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children.
One of the most prominent school shootings was that at Columbine High School
, near Littleton, Colorado
. On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
murdered thirteen people (twelve students and one teacher) on the school campus before they committed suicide
, for a total of fifteen deaths. 24 others were wounded. The shooting was initially planned as a bombing, followed by the shooting of survivors.
In the United States, one-on-one public-school violence, such as beatings and stabbings or gang related violence, is more common in some densely-populated areas. Inner-city or urban schools were much more likely than other schools to report serious violent crimes, with 17 percent of city principals reporting at least one serious crime compared to 11 percent of urban schools, 10 percent of rural schools, and five percent of suburban schools in the 1997 school year. However school shootings in other countries may take on more national or religious overtones, such as the Mercaz HaRav massacre
.
sell products and services designed to identify potential threats, a thorough study of all United States school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service
warned against the belief that a certain "type" of student would be a perpetrator. Any profile would fit too many students to be useful and may not apply to a potential perpetrator. Some lived with both parents in "an ideal, All-American family." Some were children of divorce, or lived in foster homes. A few were loners, but most had close friends. Some experts such as Alan Lipman
have warned against the dearth of empirical validity of profiling methods.
While it may be simplistic to assume a straightforward "profile", the study did find certain similarities among the perpetrators. "The researchers found that killers do not 'snap'. They plan. They acquire weapons. These children take a long, considered, public path toward violence." Princeton's Katherine Newman has found that, far from being "loners", the perpetrators are "joiners" whose attempts at social integration fail, and that they let their thinking and even their plans be known, sometimes frequently over long periods of time.
Many of the shooters told Secret Service investigators that alienation
or persecution
drove them to violence. According to the United States Secret Service, (see Fein, R.A., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W., Borum, R., Reddy, M.,& Modzeleski, W. Threat assessment in schools: A guide to managing threatening situations and creating safe school climates. U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secret Service, May, 2002 for the research and the recommendations therefrom), instead of looking for traits, the Secret Service urges adults to ask about behavior:
One "trait" that has not yet attracted as much attention is the gender difference: nearly all school shootings are perpetrated by young males, and in some instances the violence has clearly been gender-specific. Bob Herbert addressed this in an October 2006 New York Times editorial. Only two female school shooting incidents have been documented.
Another reported similarity is that most of the perpetrators had been taking antidepressant
drugs, which have a documented history of producing violence and aggression as a side effect
.
School shootings receive extensive media coverage and are infrequent. They have sometimes resulted in nationwide changes of schools' policies concerning discipline and security. Some experts have described fears about school shootings as a type of moral panic
.
Such incidents may also lead to nationwide discussion on gun laws.
shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre
on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape
American Indian
entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle
, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only two children survived.
A student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed Schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before. Even though he shot the Schoolmaster point blank in front of his classmates, he was acquitted.
An April 30, 1866 editorial in the New York Times argued against students carrying pistols, citing "...pistols being dropped on the floor at balls or being exploded in very inconvenient ways. A boy of 12 has his pantaloons made with a pistol pocket; and this at a boarding-school filled with boys, who, we suppose, do or wish to do the same thing. We would advise parents to look into it, and learn whether shooting is to be a part of the scholastic course which may be practiced on their boys; or else we advise them to see that their own boys are properly armed with the most approved and deadly-pistol, and that there may be an equal chance at least of their shooting as of being shot."
• June 8, 1867 New York City
At Public School No. 18, a 13 year old lad brought a pistol loaded and capped, without the knowledge of his parents or school-teachers, and shot and injured a fellow classmate.
• December 22, 1868 Chattanooga, Tennessee
A boy who refused to be whipped and left school, returned with his brother and a friend, the next day to seek revenge on his teacher. Not finding the teacher at the school, they continued to his house, where a gun battle rang out, leaving three dead. Only the brother survived.
• March 9, 1873 Salisbury, Maryland
After school as Miss Shockley was walking with four small children, she was approached by a Mr. Hall and shot. The Schoolmaster ran out, but she was dead instantly. Hall threw himself under a train that night.
• May 24, 1879 Lancaster, New York
As the carriage loaded with female students was pulling out of the school's stables, Frank Shugart a telegraph operator shot and severely injured Mr. Carr, Superintendent of the stables.
• March 6, 1884 Boston, Massachusetts As news of Jesse James
reached the east coast, young kids started to act in the same manner. An article from the New York Times reads, "Another "Jesse James" Gang - "Word was brought to the Fifth Police Station to-night that a number of boys were using the Concord-street School-house for some unknown purpose, and a posse of officers was sent to investigate. The gang scattered at the approach of the police, and in their flight on drew a revolver and fired at Officer Rowan, without effect, however. William Nangle, age 14, and Sidney Duncan, age 12, were captured, but the other five or six escaped, among them the one who who did the shooting. The boys refused to disclose the object of their meeting, but it is thought that another "Jesse James" organization has been broken up."
• March 15, 1884 Gainsville, Georgia In the middle of the day, a group of very drunk Jackson County farmers left the Jug Tavern drinking and shooting their revolvers as they headed down the street driving people into their homes. As they approached the female academy, the girls fled the schoolyard into the school where the gang followed swearing and shooting, firing several rounds into the front door. No one was hurt.
• July 4, 1886 Charleston, South Carolina
During Sunday school, Emma Connelly shot and killed John Steedley for "circulating slanderous reports" about her, even though her brother publicly whipped him a few days earlier.
• April 12, 1887 Watertown, New York Edwin Bush, a student a the Potsdam Normal School committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
• June 12,1887 Cleveland, Tennessee
Will Guess went to the school and fatally shot Miss Irene Fann, his little sister's teacher, for whipping her the day before.
• June 13, 1889 New Brunswick, New Jersey
Charles Crawford upset over an argument with a school Trustee, went up to the window and fired a pistol into a crowed school room. The bullet lodged in the wall just above the teacher's head.
The first known mass shooting in the U.S. where students were shot, was on April 9, 1891, when 70 year old, James Foster fired a shotgun
at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, Newburgh, New York, causing minor injuries to several of the students. The majority of attacks during this time period by students on other students or teacher, usually involved stabbing with knives, or hitting with stones.
in May of 1970, where police opened fire on the campus of Jackson State University and the Kent State shootings
also in May of 1970 where the National Guard opened fire on the campus of Kent State University
.
The mid to late 1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history with a series of school shootings, most notably were;
• December 30, 1974 Olean, New York
, Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old Regents scholar armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school.
• June 12, 1976 California State University, Fullerton massacre
, where the school's custodian opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the library on the California State University, Fullerton campus killing 7, and wounding 2.
• February 22, 1978 Lansing, Michigan
After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, kills one student and wounds a second with a Luger pistol.
• January 29, 1979 Grover Cleveland Elementary School Shootings
, California
, where a 16yr old girl opened fire with the rifle, a gift from her father, killing 2 and wounding 9.
• January 20, 1983 St. Louis County, Missouri
the Parkway South Middle School
, eighth grader brought a blue duffel bag containing two pistols, and a murder/suicide note that outlined his intention to kill the next person heard speaking ill of his older brother Ken. He entered a study hall classroom and opened fire, hitting two fellow students. The first victim, was fatally shot in the stomach, and the second victim received a non-fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. Then he said, "no one will ever call my brother a pussy again" then committed suicide.
According to the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
, in the United States, from September 1986 to September 1990 (four year period):
According to a 1987 survey conducted by the American School Health Association
," 3% of the boys reported having carried a handgun to school at least once during the school year; 1% reported carrying a handgun on a daily basis."
The late 1980s began to see a major increase in school shootings including;
• September 4, 1985 Richmond, Virginia
At the end of the second day of school from the East End Middle School a 12yr old boy shot a girl with his mother's gun.
• October 18, 1985 Detroit, Michigan
During halftime of the homecoming football game between Northwestern High School and Murray-Wright High School. A boy who was in a fight earlier that day, pulled out a shotgun and opened fire injuring six students.
• November 26, 1985 Spanaway, Washington
A 14yr old girl shot two boys dead then kills herself with a .22-caliber rifle at the Spanaway Junior High School.
• December 9, 1985 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
At the Archbishop Ryan High School for Boys, a 22yr old Mental health patient took 6 students hostage with what ended up being a starter pistol. No one was hurt in the ordeal.
• December 10, 1985 Portland, Connecticut
At the Portland Junior High School, the Principal was having a heated discussion with a 13-year-old male eighth-grader when he locked the boy inside an office. The student then pulled out a 9mm assault rifle and opened fire. The bullet shattered the glass door and struck the left forearm of the secretary and the glass injured the Principal. The boy fled for the 2nd floor, were he encountered the janitor, and he shot him in the head. The boy then took a seventh-grader hostage. The boy's father and another family member came to the school and talked to him over the intercom system. After 45 minutes, he tossed the gun out a school window and was taken into custody.
• May 16, 1986 The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis
In a ransom scheme, David and Doris Young, both in their forties, took 150 students and teachers hostage on this spring day. Their demand for $300 million dollars came to an abrupt end when Doris accidentally set off a bomb, killing herself and injuring 78 students and teachers. David wounded John Miller, a teacher who was trying to flee, then killed himself.
• March 2, 1987 Missouri
an honours student Nathan Ferris, 12, killed a classmate and then himself.
• May 20, 1988 Winnetka, Illinois
30yr old Laurie Dann
shot and killed one boy, and wounded five other kids, in an elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.
• September 26, 1988 Greenwood, South Carolina
In the cafeteria of the Oakland Elementary School 19 year-old James William Wilson Jr., shot and killed Shequilla Bradley, 8 and wounded eight other children with a 9-round .22 caliber pistol. He went into the girls restroom to reload where he was attacked by Kat Finkbeiner, a Physical Education teacher. James shot her in the hand and mouth. He then entered 3rd grade classroom and wounded six more students.
• December 16, 1988 Virginia Beach, Virginia
Nicholas Elliott, 15, opened fire with a SWD Cobray M-11 semiautomatic pistol on his teachers at the Atlantic Shores Christian School. His first shots struck teacher Karen Farley in the arm; when she went down he killed her at point blank range. Nicholas then injured Sam Marino. He turned the Cobray toward his classmates, but the gun jammed and he was quickly subdued by M. Hutchinson Matteson, a teacher, before he could fire another round.
• January 17, 1989 Cleveland School massacre of Stockton, California
where 5 school children were killed and 29 wounded by a single gunman firing over 100 rounds into a schoolyard from an AK-47
"15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier. By 1993, the United States saw some of the most violent time is school shooting incidences.
• May 1, 1992 Olivehurst, California
Eric Houston, 20, killed four people and wounded 10 in an armed siege at his former high school. Prosecutors said the attack was in retribution for a failing grade.
According to the National School Safety Center, since the 1992-1993 U.S. school year there has been a significant decline in school-associated violent deaths (deaths on private or public school property for kindergarten through grade 12 and resulting from schools functions or activities):
According to the U.S. Department of Education, in the 1998-1999 School Year, 3,523 Students (57% High School, 33% Junior High, 10% Elementary) were expelled for bringing a firearm to school.
The late 1990's started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings including;
• October 12, 1995 Blackville, South Carolina
A suspended student shot two math teachers with a .32 caliber revolver.
• November 15, 1995 Lynnville, Tennessee
A seventeen-year-old boy shot and killed a student and teacher with a .22 rifle.
• February 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Washington
Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
• February 19, 1997 Bethel, Alaska
Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
• October 1, 1997 Pearl, Mississippi
Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.
• December 1, 1997 West Paducah, Kentucky
Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
• December 15, 1997 Stamps, Arkansas
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot
• March 24, 1998 Jonesboro, Arkansas
Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods
• April 24, 1998 Edinboro, Pennsylvania
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
• May 21, 1998 Springfield, Oregon
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home
• June 15, 1998 Richmond, Virginia
One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway
• April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colorado
15 students (including shooters) and one teacher killed, 27 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
• May 20, 1999 Conyers, Georgia
Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend
not a "school shooting" in the contemporary sense
laws. The National Rifle Association
is opposed to such laws, and some groups have called for fewer gun control laws, citing cases of armed students ending shootings and halting further loss of life, and claiming that the prohibitions against carrying a gun in schools do not deter the gunmen. One such example is the Mercaz HaRav Massacre
, where the attacker was not stopped by police but rather a student, Yitzhak Dadon, who stopped the attacker by shooting him with his personal firearm which he lawfully carried concealed. At a Virginia law school
, there is a disputed claim that two students retrieved pistols from their cars and stopped the attacker without firing a shot. Also, at a Mississippi high school
, the Vice Principal retrieved a firearm from his vehicle and then eventually stopped the attacker as he was driving away from the school. In other cases, such as shootings at Columbine and Red Lake High Schools, the presence of an armed police officer did nothing to prevent or shorten the shootings.
A ban
on the ownership of handguns was introduced in the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland) following the Dunblane massacre
.
in Texas
became the first public school district in the U.S. to allow teachers with state-issued firearm-carry permits to carry their arms in the classroom; special additional training and ricochet-resistant ammunition were required for participating teachers. Students at the University of Utah
have been allowed to carry concealed pistols
(so long as they possess the appropriate state license) since a State Supreme Court
decision in 2006.
A commentary in the conservative National Review Online
argues that the armed school approach for preventing school attacks, while new in the US, has been used successfully for many years in Israel
and Thailand
. Teachers and school officials in Israel are allowed and encouraged to carry firearms if they have former military experience in the IDF
, which almost all do. However, statistics on what percentage of teachers are actually armed are unavailable.
Gun violence
Gun violence defined literally means the use of a firearm to threaten or inflict violence or harm. Gun violence may be broadly defined as a category of violence and crime committed with the use of a firearm; it may or may not include actions ruled as self-defense, actions for law enforcement, or...
occurs at an educational institution.
Definition
The term school shooting most commonly describes acts committed by either a student or intruders from outside the school campus. They are to be distinguished from crowd-containment shootings by law-enforcement personnel, such as the shootings at Kent StateKent State shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970...
and Jackson State
Jackson State killings
The Jackson State killings occurred on Thursday/Friday May 14–15, 1970, at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi. A group of somewhat violent student protesters were confronted by city and state police. The police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve...
in the United States, or the October 6, 1976 Massacre in Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. They are also differentiated from other kinds of school violence
School violence
School violence is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved...
, such as the mass killings of the Bath School disaster
Bath School disaster
The Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, on May 18, 1927, which killed 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself; at least 58 people were injured. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth...
(which involved a homemade bomb rather than shooting), the Cologne school massacre
Cologne School Massacre
The Cologne school massacre occurred in a Catholic elementary school located at Volkhovener Weg 209 in the suburb of Volkhoven in Cologne, Germany on June 11, 1964. Walter Seifert, born on June 11, 1922, killed eight students and two teachers....
(which involved a flamethrower); or terror attacks involving multiple kinds of weapons, such as the Ma'alot massacre
Ma'alot massacre
The Ma'alot massacre was a terrorist attack which included a two-day hostage-taking of 115 people which ended in the deaths of over 25 hostages. It began when three armed Palestinian terrorists of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine entered Israel from Lebanon...
, or the Beslan school hostage crisis
Beslan school hostage crisis
The Beslan school hostage crisis of early September 2004 was a three-day hostage-taking of over 1,100 people which ended in the deaths of over 380...
in which at least 334 hostages were killed, including 186 children.
One of the most prominent school shootings was that at Columbine High School
Columbine High School
Columbine High School or CHS is a high school in unincorporated Jefferson County, Colorado, United States.- History :Columbine High School opened in the fall of 1973. There was no senior class in its first year. The school's first graduating class was the class of 1975...
, near Littleton, Colorado
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of...
. On Tuesday, April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold
Eric David Harris and Dylan Bennet Klebold were American high school seniors who committed the Columbine High School massacre. They killed 13 people—including teacher Dave Sanders—and injured 24 others, three of whom were injured as they escaped the attack...
murdered thirteen people (twelve students and one teacher) on the school campus before they committed suicide
Suicide
Suicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
, for a total of fifteen deaths. 24 others were wounded. The shooting was initially planned as a bombing, followed by the shooting of survivors.
In the United States, one-on-one public-school violence, such as beatings and stabbings or gang related violence, is more common in some densely-populated areas. Inner-city or urban schools were much more likely than other schools to report serious violent crimes, with 17 percent of city principals reporting at least one serious crime compared to 11 percent of urban schools, 10 percent of rural schools, and five percent of suburban schools in the 1997 school year. However school shootings in other countries may take on more national or religious overtones, such as the Mercaz HaRav massacre
Mercaz HaRav massacre
The Mercaz HaRav massacre, also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting, was an attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel, after which the gunman himself was shot dead. Eight students...
.
Profiling
School shooting is a topic of intense interest in the United States. Though companies like MOSAIC Threat Assessment SystemsMOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems
MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems is a method developed by Gavin de Becker & Associates in the early 1980s to assess and screen threats and inappropriate communications.Walt Risler of Indiana University assisted in the development of the method...
sell products and services designed to identify potential threats, a thorough study of all United States school shootings by the U.S. Secret Service
United States Secret Service
The United States Secret Service is a United States federal law enforcement agency that is part of the United States Department of Homeland Security. The sworn members are divided among the Special Agents and the Uniformed Division. Until March 1, 2003, the Service was part of the United States...
warned against the belief that a certain "type" of student would be a perpetrator. Any profile would fit too many students to be useful and may not apply to a potential perpetrator. Some lived with both parents in "an ideal, All-American family." Some were children of divorce, or lived in foster homes. A few were loners, but most had close friends. Some experts such as Alan Lipman
Alan Lipman
Alan J. Lipman is an American clinical psychologist in practice in Washington, D.C. and the director of the Center for the Study of Violence. Lipman is also a commentator on the areas of violence, violent behavior, crime, and terrorism, as well as in the general areas of psychology and psychotherapy...
have warned against the dearth of empirical validity of profiling methods.
While it may be simplistic to assume a straightforward "profile", the study did find certain similarities among the perpetrators. "The researchers found that killers do not 'snap'. They plan. They acquire weapons. These children take a long, considered, public path toward violence." Princeton's Katherine Newman has found that, far from being "loners", the perpetrators are "joiners" whose attempts at social integration fail, and that they let their thinking and even their plans be known, sometimes frequently over long periods of time.
Many of the shooters told Secret Service investigators that alienation
Social alienation
The term social alienation has many discipline-specific uses; Roberts notes how even within the social sciences, it “is used to refer both to a personal psychological state and to a type of social relationship”...
or persecution
Persecution
Persecution is the systematic mistreatment of an individual or group by another group. The most common forms are religious persecution, ethnic persecution, and political persecution, though there is naturally some overlap between these terms. The inflicting of suffering, harassment, isolation,...
drove them to violence. According to the United States Secret Service, (see Fein, R.A., Vossekuil, B., Pollack, W., Borum, R., Reddy, M.,& Modzeleski, W. Threat assessment in schools: A guide to managing threatening situations and creating safe school climates. U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Secret Service, May, 2002 for the research and the recommendations therefrom), instead of looking for traits, the Secret Service urges adults to ask about behavior:
One "trait" that has not yet attracted as much attention is the gender difference: nearly all school shootings are perpetrated by young males, and in some instances the violence has clearly been gender-specific. Bob Herbert addressed this in an October 2006 New York Times editorial. Only two female school shooting incidents have been documented.
Another reported similarity is that most of the perpetrators had been taking antidepressant
Antidepressant
An antidepressant is a psychiatric medication used to alleviate mood disorders, such as major depression and dysthymia and anxiety disorders such as social anxiety disorder. According to Gelder, Mayou &*Geddes people with a depressive illness will experience a therapeutic effect to their mood;...
drugs, which have a documented history of producing violence and aggression as a side effect
Side effect
In medicine, a side effect is an effect, whether therapeutic or adverse, that is secondary to the one intended; although the term is predominantly employed to describe adverse effects, it can also apply to beneficial, but unintended, consequences of the use of a drug.Occasionally, drugs are...
.
School shootings receive extensive media coverage and are infrequent. They have sometimes resulted in nationwide changes of schools' policies concerning discipline and security. Some experts have described fears about school shootings as a type of moral panic
Moral panic
A moral panic is the intensity of feeling expressed in a population about an issue that appears to threaten the social order. According to Stanley Cohen, author of Folk Devils and Moral Panics and credited creator of the term, a moral panic occurs when "[a] condition, episode, person or group of...
.
Such incidents may also lead to nationwide discussion on gun laws.
1700s
The earliest known United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre
Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre
The Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre was an incident during Pontiac's Rebellion, in raids and warfare on the frontier following the French and Indian War. On July 26, 1764, four Delaware warriors attacked the teacher and students at a schoolhouse in what is now Franklin County, Pennsylvania,...
on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape
Lenape
The Lenape are an Algonquian group of Native Americans of the Northeastern Woodlands. They are also called Delaware Indians. As a result of the American Revolutionary War and later Indian removals from the eastern United States, today the main groups live in Canada, where they are enrolled in the...
American Indian
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle
Greencastle, Pennsylvania
Greencastle is a borough in Franklin County in south-central Pennsylvania, United States. The population was 3,722 at the 2000 census.-History:...
, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only two children survived.
1800s
• November 2, 1853 Louisville, KentuckyLouisville, Kentucky
Louisville is the largest city in the U.S. state of Kentucky, and the county seat of Jefferson County. Since 2003, the city's borders have been coterminous with those of the county because of a city-county merger. The city's population at the 2010 census was 741,096...
A student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed Schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before. Even though he shot the Schoolmaster point blank in front of his classmates, he was acquitted.
An April 30, 1866 editorial in the New York Times argued against students carrying pistols, citing "...pistols being dropped on the floor at balls or being exploded in very inconvenient ways. A boy of 12 has his pantaloons made with a pistol pocket; and this at a boarding-school filled with boys, who, we suppose, do or wish to do the same thing. We would advise parents to look into it, and learn whether shooting is to be a part of the scholastic course which may be practiced on their boys; or else we advise them to see that their own boys are properly armed with the most approved and deadly-pistol, and that there may be an equal chance at least of their shooting as of being shot."
• June 8, 1867 New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
At Public School No. 18, a 13 year old lad brought a pistol loaded and capped, without the knowledge of his parents or school-teachers, and shot and injured a fellow classmate.
• December 22, 1868 Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga, Tennessee
Chattanooga is the fourth-largest city in the US state of Tennessee , with a population of 169,887. It is the seat of Hamilton County...
A boy who refused to be whipped and left school, returned with his brother and a friend, the next day to seek revenge on his teacher. Not finding the teacher at the school, they continued to his house, where a gun battle rang out, leaving three dead. Only the brother survived.
• March 9, 1873 Salisbury, Maryland
Salisbury, Maryland
-Demographics:Salisbury is the principal city of the Salisbury-Ocean Pines CSA, a Combined Statistical Area that includes the Salisbury metropolitan area and the Ocean Pines micropolitan area , which had a combined population of 176,657 at the 2010 census.As of the census of 2000, there were...
After school as Miss Shockley was walking with four small children, she was approached by a Mr. Hall and shot. The Schoolmaster ran out, but she was dead instantly. Hall threw himself under a train that night.
• May 24, 1879 Lancaster, New York
Lancaster, New York
Lancaster, New York may refer to the following locations in Erie County, New York:*Lancaster , New York*Lancaster , New York...
As the carriage loaded with female students was pulling out of the school's stables, Frank Shugart a telegraph operator shot and severely injured Mr. Carr, Superintendent of the stables.
• March 6, 1884 Boston, Massachusetts As news of Jesse James
Jesse James
Jesse Woodson James was an American outlaw, gang leader, bank robber, train robber, and murderer from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger Gang. He also faked his own death and was known as J.M James. Already a celebrity when he was alive, he became a legendary...
reached the east coast, young kids started to act in the same manner. An article from the New York Times reads, "Another "Jesse James" Gang - "Word was brought to the Fifth Police Station to-night that a number of boys were using the Concord-street School-house for some unknown purpose, and a posse of officers was sent to investigate. The gang scattered at the approach of the police, and in their flight on drew a revolver and fired at Officer Rowan, without effect, however. William Nangle, age 14, and Sidney Duncan, age 12, were captured, but the other five or six escaped, among them the one who who did the shooting. The boys refused to disclose the object of their meeting, but it is thought that another "Jesse James" organization has been broken up."
• March 15, 1884 Gainsville, Georgia In the middle of the day, a group of very drunk Jackson County farmers left the Jug Tavern drinking and shooting their revolvers as they headed down the street driving people into their homes. As they approached the female academy, the girls fled the schoolyard into the school where the gang followed swearing and shooting, firing several rounds into the front door. No one was hurt.
• July 4, 1886 Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston, South Carolina
Charleston is the second largest city in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was made the county seat of Charleston County in 1901 when Charleston County was founded. The city's original name was Charles Towne in 1670, and it moved to its present location from a location on the west bank of the...
During Sunday school, Emma Connelly shot and killed John Steedley for "circulating slanderous reports" about her, even though her brother publicly whipped him a few days earlier.
• April 12, 1887 Watertown, New York Edwin Bush, a student a the Potsdam Normal School committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
• June 12,1887 Cleveland, Tennessee
Cleveland, Tennessee
Cleveland is a city in Bradley County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 41,285 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Bradley County...
Will Guess went to the school and fatally shot Miss Irene Fann, his little sister's teacher, for whipping her the day before.
• June 13, 1889 New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick, New Jersey
New Brunswick is a city in Middlesex County, New Jersey, USA. It is the county seat and the home of Rutgers University. The city is located on the Northeast Corridor rail line, southwest of Manhattan, on the southern bank of the Raritan River. At the 2010 United States Census, the population of...
Charles Crawford upset over an argument with a school Trustee, went up to the window and fired a pistol into a crowed school room. The bullet lodged in the wall just above the teacher's head.
The first known mass shooting in the U.S. where students were shot, was on April 9, 1891, when 70 year old, James Foster fired a shotgun
Shotgun
A shotgun is a firearm that is usually designed to be fired from the shoulder, which uses the energy of a fixed shell to fire a number of small spherical pellets called shot, or a solid projectile called a slug...
at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, Newburgh, New York, causing minor injuries to several of the students. The majority of attacks during this time period by students on other students or teacher, usually involved stabbing with knives, or hitting with stones.
1900 –1930s
There are very seldom reports of mass or multiple school shootings during the first three decades of the 20th Century, with the three most violent attacks on schools involving either arson or explosions.- February 26, 1902 Camargo, IllinoisCamargo, IllinoisCamargo is a village in Douglas County, Illinois. The population was 445 at the 2010 census. Camargo is at the intersection of Illinois Route 130 and U.S. Highway 36. Camargo is the oldest township in Douglas County. In 2006, the first annual Camargo Woolly Worm Festival was launched during the...
teacher Fletcher R. Barnett shot and killed another teacher, Eva C. Wiseman, in front of her class at a school near Camargo, Illinois. After shooting at a pupil who came to help Miss Wiseman and wounding himself in a failed suicide attemptFailed suicide attemptFailed suicide attempts comprise a large portion of suicide attempts. Some are regarded as not true attempts at all, but rather parasuicide. The usual attempt may be a wish to affect another person by the behaviour. Consequently, it occurs in a social context and may represent a request for help....
he waited in the classroom until a group of farmers came to lynch him. He then ran out of the school building, grabbed a shotgun from one of the farmers and shot himself, before running away and leaping into a well where he finally drowned. The incident was likely sparked by Wiseman's refusal to marry Barnett. - February 24, 1903 Inman, South CarolinaInman, South CarolinaInman is a city in Spartanburg County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,321 at the 2010 census.Inman is a small community located in the Upstate region of South Carolina...
Edward Foster, a 17-year-old student at Inman High school, was shot and fatally wounded by his teacher Reuben Pitts after he had jerked a rod from Pitts' hands to resist punishment. According to the teacher, Foster struck the pistol Pitts had drawn to defend himself, thus causing its discharge. Pitts was later acquitted of murder. - October 10, 1906 Cleveland, OhioCleveland, OhioCleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border...
Harry Smith shot and killed 22-year-old teacher Mary Shepard at South Euclid School after she had rejected him. Smith escaped and committed suicide in a barn near his home two hours later. - March 23, 1907 Carmi, IllinoisCarmi, IllinoisCarmi is a city in White County, Illinois, along the Little Wabash River. The population was 5,240 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of White County.-Demographics:...
George Nicholson shot and killed John Kurd at a schoolhouse outside of Carmi, Illinois during a school rehearsal. The motive for the shooting was Kurd making a disparaging remark about Nicholson's daughter during her recital. - March 11, 1908 Boston, Massachusetts Elizabeth Bailey Hardee was shot to death by Sarah Chamberlain Weed at the Laurens School, a finishing school in Boston. Weed then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.
- April 15, 1908 Asheville, North CarolinaAsheville, North CarolinaAsheville is a city in and the county seat of Buncombe County, North Carolina, United States. It is the largest city in Western North Carolina, and the 11th largest city in North Carolina. The City is home to the United States National Climatic Data Center , which is the world's largest active...
Dr. C. O. Swinney shot and fatally wounded his 16-year-old daughter Nellie in a reception room at Normal and Collegiate Institute. He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head. - February 12, 1909 San Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco, CaliforniaSan Francisco , officially the City and County of San Francisco, is the financial, cultural, and transportation center of the San Francisco Bay Area, a region of 7.15 million people which includes San Jose and Oakland...
10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. Tereaschinko then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt. Tereaschinko was reportedly upset that Malakanoff refused to elope with him. - January 10, 1912 Warrenville, IllinoisWarrenville, IllinoisWarrenville is a city in DuPage County, Illinois, United States. The population was 13,363 at the 2000 census. It is a part of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Illinois Technology and Research Corridor.-History:...
Sylvester E. Adams shot and killed teacher Edith Smith after she rejected his advances. Adams then shot and killed himself. The incident took place in a schoolhouse about a mile outside of Warrenville after the students had been dismissed for the day. - March 27, 1919 Lodi Township, MichiganLodi Township, MichiganLodi Township is a civil township of Washtenaw County in the U.S. state of Michigan, located southwest of Ann Arbor. The population was 5,710 at the 2000 census.-Geography:...
19-year-old teacher Irma Casler was shot and killed in her classroom at Rentschler school in Lodi Township, Michigan by Robert Warner, apparently because she had rejected his advances. - April 2, 1921 Syracuse, New YorkSyracuse, New YorkSyracuse is a city in and the county seat of Onondaga County, New York, United States, the largest U.S. city with the name "Syracuse", and the fifth most populous city in the state. At the 2010 census, the city population was 145,170, and its metropolitan area had a population of 742,603...
Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed dean J. Herman Wharton in his office at Syracuse University before committing suicide. - May 18, 1927 Bath, MichiganBath, MichiganBath is an unincorporated community in Bath Township, Clinton County in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is situated just north of exit 92 off Interstate 69, about north of East Lansing....
School treasurer Andrew KehoeAndrew KehoeAndrew Philip Kehoe was an American suicide bomber and murderer who perpetrated the Bath School Disaster on May 18, 1927.- Early life :...
, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew upBath School disasterThe Bath School disaster is the name given to three bombings in Bath Township, Michigan, on May 18, 1927, which killed 38 elementary school children, two teachers, four other adults and the bomber himself; at least 58 people were injured. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth...
the Bath Consolidated SchoolBath Consolidated SchoolBath Community School was a school in Bath Township, Michigan, USA. It was the subject of the Bath School bombing on May 18, 1927, which killed 45 people and injured 58. Most of the victims were children in the second to sixth grades attending the school. This was the deadliest act of mass murder...
by detonating dynamite in the basement of the school, killing 38 people, mostly children. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then blew the car up, killing himself and four others. Only one shot was fired in order to detonate dynamite in the car. This was deadliest act of mass murder at a school in the United States. - February 15, 1933 Downey, CaliforniaDowney, CaliforniaDowney is a city located in southeast Los Angeles County, California, United States, southeast of downtown Los Angeles. The city is best known as the birthplace of the Apollo space program, and is the city where folk singer Karen Carpenter lived and died...
Dr. Vernon Blythe shot and killed his wife Eleanor, as well as his 8-year old son Robert at Gallatin grammar school and committed suicide after firing three more shots at his other son Vernon. His wife, who had been a teacher at the school, had filed for divorce the week before. - September 14, 1934 Gill, MassachusettsGill, MassachusettsGill is a town in Franklin County, Massachusetts, USA. The population was 1,363 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area...
. Headmaster Elliott Speer was murdered by a shotgun blast through the window of his study at Northfield Mount Hermon School. The crime was never solved. - December 12, 1935 New York City, New York, Victor Koussow, a Russian laboratory worker at the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, shot Prof. Arthur Taylor Rowe, Prof. Paul B. Wiberg, and wounded Dr. William H. Crawford at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, before committing suicide.
- April 27, 1936 Lincoln, NebraskaLincoln, NebraskaThe City of Lincoln is the capital and the second-most populous city of the US state of Nebraska. Lincoln is also the county seat of Lancaster County and the home of the University of Nebraska. Lincoln's 2010 Census population was 258,379....
, Prof. John Weller shot and wounded Prof. Harry Kurz in a corridor of the University of Nebraska, apparently because of his impending dismissal at the end of the semester. After shooting Kurz Weller tried to escape, but was surrounded by police on the campus, whereupon he killed himself with a shot in the chest. - June 4, 1936 Bethlehem, PennsylvaniaBethlehem, PennsylvaniaBethlehem is a city in Lehigh and Northampton Counties in the Lehigh Valley region of eastern Pennsylvania, in the United States. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 74,982, making it the seventh largest city in Pennsylvania, after Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Allentown, Erie,...
, Wesley Crow shot and killed his Lehigh University English instructor, C. Wesley Phy. Crow went to Phy's office and demanded that Mr. Phy change his grade to a passing mark. Crow committed suicide after shooting Phy. - September 24, 1937 Toledo, OhioToledo, OhioToledo is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Lucas County. Toledo is in northwest Ohio, on the western end of Lake Erie, and borders the State of Michigan...
12-year-old Robert Snyder shot and wounded his principal, June Mapes, in her office at Arlington public school when she declined his request to call a classmate. He then fled the school grounds and shot and wounded himself.
1940s
- May 5, 1940 Dallas, TexasDallas, TexasDallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
. Two youths shot and killed 38 students and seriously injuried 3 teachers when they were suspended from school for using inapporiate language toward a teacher. - May 6, 1940 South Pasadena, CaliforniaSouth Pasadena, CaliforniaSouth Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 25,619, up from 24,292 at the 2000 census. It is located in in the West San Gabriel Valley...
. After being removed as principal of South Pasadena Junior High School, Verlin Spencer shot six school officials, killing five, before attempting to commit suicide by shooting himself in the stomach. - May 23, 1940: New York City, New York Infuriated by a grievance, Matthew Gillespie, 62-year-old janitor at the junior school of the Dwight School for Girls, shot and critically wounded Mrs. Marshall Coxe, secretary of the junior school.
- July 4, 1940: Valhalla, New YorkValhalla, New YorkValhalla is an unincorporated hamlet and census-designated place that is located within the town of Mount Pleasant, New York, in Westchester County. Its population was 3,162 at the 2010 U.S. Census...
Angered by the refusal of his daughter, Melba, 15 years old, to leave a boarding school and return to his home, Joseph Moshell, 47, visited the school and shot and killed the girl. - September 12, 1940 Uniontown, PennsylvaniaUniontown, PennsylvaniaUniontown is a city in Fayette County, Pennsylvania, southeast of Pittsburgh and part of the Pittsburgh Metro Area. Population in 1900, 7,344; in 1910, 13,344; in 1920, 15,692; and in 1940, 21,819. The population was 10,372 at the 2010 census...
, 29-year-old teacher Carolyn Dellamea is shot to death inside her third grade classroom by 35-year-old William Kuhns. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. Kuhns had reportedly been courting Dellamea for over a year but the relationship was ended when Dellamea discovered that Kuhns was already married. - October 2, 1942: New York City, New York “Erwin Goodman, 36-year-old mathematics teacher of William J. Gaynor Junior High School, was shot and killed in the school corridor by a youth...
- February 23, 1943: Port Chester, NY Harry Wyman, 13-year-old, shot himself dead at the Harvey School, a boys’ preparatory school.
- June 26, 1946: Brooklyn, New York A 15-year-old schoolboy who balked at turning over his pocket money to a gang of seven Negro youths was shot in the chest at 11:30 A.M. yesterday in the basement of the Public School 147 annex of the Brooklyn High School for Automotive Trades.
- November 24, 1946: New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
A 13-year-old student at St. Benedict’s Parochial School, shot and fatally wounded himself while sitting in an audience watching a school play. - December 24, 1948: New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
A 14-year-old boy was wounded fatally by an accidental shot from the .22-caliber rifle of a fellow-student … the youth was shot in the head when he chanced into range where Robert Ross, 17, of Brooklyn, was shooting at a target near a lake on the school property. - March 11, 1949: New York CityNew York CityNew York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
A 16-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School was accidentally shot in the arm by a fellow student who was ‘showing off’ with a pistol in a classroom. - November 13, 1949 Columbus, OhioColumbus, OhioColumbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city...
, Ohio State UniversityOhio State UniversityThe Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...
freshman James Heer grabbed a .45 caliber handgun from the room of a Delta Tau DeltaDelta Tau DeltaDelta Tau Delta is a U.S.-based international secret letter college fraternity. Delta Tau Delta was founded in 1858 at Bethany College, Bethany, Virginia, . It currently has around 125 student chapters nationwide, as well as more than 25 regional alumni groups. Its national community service...
fraternity brother and shot and killed his fraternity brother Jack McKeown, 21, an Ohio State senior.
1950s
- July 22, 1950 New York City, New York A 16-year-old boy was shot in the wrist and abdomen at the Public School 141 dance… during an argument with a former classmate.
- November 27, 1951 New York City, New York David Brooks, a 15-year-old student, was fatally shot as fellow-pupils looked on in a grade school.
- April 9, 1952 New York City, New York A 15-year-old boarding-school student shot a dean rather than relinquish pin-up pictures of girls in bathing suits.
- July 14, 1952 New York City, New York Bayard Peakes walked in to the offices of the American Physical SocietyAmerican Physical SocietyThe American Physical Society is the world's second largest organization of physicists, behind the Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft. The Society publishes more than a dozen scientific journals, including the world renowned Physical Review and Physical Review Letters, and organizes more than 20...
at Columbia UniversityColumbia UniversityColumbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
and shot and killed secretary Eileen Fahey with a .22 caliber pistol. Peakes was reportedly upset that the APS had rejected a pamphlet he had written. - September 3, 1952 in Lawrenceville, IllinoisLawrenceville, IllinoisLawrenceville is a city in Lawrence County, Illinois, along the Embarras River. The population was 4,745 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Lawrence County...
After 25-year-old Georgine Lyon ended her engagement with Charles Petrach, Petrach shot and killed Lyon in a classroom at Lawrenceville High School where she worked as a librarian. - November 20, 1952 New York City, New York “Rear Admiral E. E. Herrmann, 56 years old, superintendent of the Naval Post-Graduate School, was found dead in his office with a bullet in his head. A service revolver was found by his side.
- October 2, 1953 Chicago, Illinois 14-year-old Patrick Colletta was shot to death by 14-year-old Bernice Turner in a classroom of Kelly High School in Chicago. It was reported that after Turner refused to date Colletta he handed her the gun and dared her to pull the trigger, telling her that the gun was “only a toy.” A coroner’s jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident.
- October 8, 1953: New York City, New York Larry Licitra, 17-year-old student at the Machine and Metal Trades High School, was shot and slightly wounded in the right shoulder in the lobby of the school while inspecting a handmade pistol owned by one of several students.
- December 8, 1953 Aledo, IllinoisAledo, IllinoisAledo is a city in Mercer County, Illinois, United States. The population was 3,613 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Mercer County.-Geography:Aledo is located at ....
26-year-old track coach George Marich was stabbed to death by 17-year-old student James Gipson in a hallway of Aledo High School. The stabbing occurred after Marich had removed Gipson and two other seniors from a study hall for creating a disturbance. - May 15, 1954 Chapel Hill, North CarolinaChapel Hill, North CarolinaChapel Hill is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States and the home of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and UNC Health Care...
, Putnam Davis Jr. was shot and killed during a fraternity house carnival at the Phi Delta ThetaPhi Delta ThetaPhi Delta Theta , also known as Phi Delt, is an international fraternity founded at Miami University in 1848 and headquartered in Oxford, Ohio. Phi Delta Theta, Beta Theta Pi, and Sigma Chi form the Miami Triad. The fraternity has about 169 active chapters and colonies in over 43 U.S...
house at the University of North CarolinaUniversity of North CarolinaChartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
. William Joyner and Allen Long were shot and wounded during the exchange of gunfire in their fraternity bedroom. The incident took place after an all-night beer party. Mr. Long reported to the police that, while the three were drinking beer at 7 a.m., Davis pulled out a gun and started shooting with a gun he had obtained from the car of a former roommate. - January 11, 1955 Swarthmore, PennsylvaniaSwarthmore, PennsylvaniaSwarthmore is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Swarthmore was originally named Westdale in honor of noted painter Benjamin West, who was one of the early residents of the town. The name was changed to Swarthmore after the establishment of Swarthmore College...
After some of his dorm mates urinated on his mattress Bob Bechtel, a 20-year-old student at Swarthmore College, returned to his dorm with a shotgun and used it to shoot and kill fellow student Holmes Strozier. - April 17, 1956 New York City, New York 18-year-old Henry Smith, a student at a Bronx vocational high school, is stabbed to death by 16-year-old Randolph Lawrence, a fellow student. The stabbing was reportedly sparked over a dispute about a basketball game.
- May 4, 1956 in Prince George's County, MarylandPrince George's County, MarylandPrince George's County is a county located in the U.S. state of Maryland, immediately north, east, and south of Washington, DC. As of 2010, it has a population of 863,420 and is the wealthiest African-American majority county in the nation....
, 15-year-old student Billy Prevatte fatally shot one teacher and injured two others at Maryland Park Junior High School in Prince George's County after he had been reprimanded from the school. - October 20, 1956: New York City, New York A junior high school student was wounded in the forearm yesterday by another student armed with a home-made weapon at Booker T. Washington Junior High School.
- October 2, 1957: New York City, New York “A 16-year old student was shot in the leg yesterday by a 15-year old classmate at a city high school.”
- March 4, 1958: New York City, New York “A 17-year-old student shot a boy in the Manual Training High School.”
- May 1, 1958: Massapequa, New YorkMassapequa, New YorkMassapequa is a hamlet located in the suburban Nassau County, New York. As of the 2010 census, the CDP had a total population of 21,685.Massapequa is located on the South Shore of Long Island....
A 15-year-old high school freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom of the Massapequa High School. - September 24, 1959: New York City, New York Twenty-seven men and boys and an arsenal were seized in the Bronx last night as the police headed off a gang war resulting from the fatal shooting of a teenager Monday at Morris High School.
1960s
- February 2, 1960 Hartford City, IndianaHartford City, IndianaHartford City is a city in the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Blackford County. Located in the northeast central portion of the state, the small farming community experienced a 15-year “boom” beginning in the late 1880s...
Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School in Hartford City, Indiana, before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide. - June 7, 1960 Blaine, MinnesotaBlaine, MinnesotaAs of the census of 2000, there were 44,942 people, 15,898 households, and 12,177 families residing in the city. The population density is 1,330 people per square mile . There are 16,169 housing units at an average density of 477.6 per square mile...
Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun. - April 20, 1961 Chicago, Illinois Teacher Josephine Keane, 45, is sexually assaulted and stabbed to death inside a storeroom at Lewis-Champlin elementary school in Chicago. Lee Arthur Hester, a 14-year-old student, is later convicted of the murder and sentenced to 55 years in prison.
- October 17, 1961 Denver, ColoradoDenver, ColoradoThe City and County of Denver is the capital and the most populous city of the U.S. state of Colorado. Denver is a consolidated city-county, located in the South Platte River Valley on the western edge of the High Plains just east of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains...
Tennyson Beard, 14, got into an argument with William Hachmeister, 15, at Morey Junior High School. During the argument Beard pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot at Hachmeister, wounding him. A stray bullet also struck Deborah Faith Humphrey, 14, who died from her gunshot wound. - August 1, 1966 University of Texas MassacreCharles WhitmanCharles Joseph Whitman was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine who killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on August 1, 1966....
climbs atop the observation deck at the University of Texas-Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31 during a 96-minute shooting rampage. - November 12, 1966 Mesa, ArizonaMesa, ArizonaAccording to the 2010 Census, the racial composition of Mesa was as follows:* White: 77.1% * Hispanic or Latino : 26.54%* Black or African American: 3.5%* Two or more races: 3.4%* Native American: 2.4%...
Bob Smith, 18, took seven people hostage at Rose-Mar College of Beauty, a school for training beauticians. Smith ordered the hostages to lie down on the floor in a circle. He then proceeded to shoot them in the head with a 22-caliber pistol. Four women and a three-year-old girl died, one woman and a baby were injured but survived. Police arrested Smith after the massacre. Smith had reportedly admired Richard Speck and Charles Whitman. - January 30, 1968 Miami, FloridaMiami, FloridaMiami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
16-year-old Blanche Ward shot and killed fellow student Linda Lipscomb, 16, with a .22-caliber pistol at Miami Jackson High School. According to Ward, she was threatened with a razor by Lipscomb during an argument over a fountain pen, and in the ensuing struggle the gun went off. - February 8, 1968 Orangeburg, South CarolinaOrangeburg, South CarolinaOrangeburg, also known as "The Garden City," is the principal city in and the county seat of Orangeburg County, South Carolina, United States. The city is also the fifth oldest city in the state of South Carolina. The city population was 12,765 at the 2000 census, within a Greater Orangeburg...
In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, about 200 mostly student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State UniversitySouth Carolina State UniversitySouth Carolina State University is a historically black university located in Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States. It is the only state funded, historically black land-grant institution in South Carolina and is a member school of the Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund.- Colleges, departments,...
, located in the city of Orangeburg, to protest the segregation of the All Star Bowling Lane. The bowling alley was owned by the late Harry K. Floyd. That night, students started a bonfire. As police attempted to put out the fire, an officer was injured by a thrown piece of banister. The police said they believed they were under attack by small weapons fire. The officers fired into the crowd, killing three young men: Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding twenty-seven others. - May 22, 1968 Miami, FloridaMiami, FloridaMiami is a city located on the Atlantic coast in southeastern Florida and the county seat of Miami-Dade County, the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States with a population of 2,500,625...
Ernest Lee Grissom, a 15-year-old student at Drew Junior High School, shot and seriously wounded a teacher and a 13-year-old student after he had been reprimanded for causing a disturbance. - January 17, 1969 Los Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles, CaliforniaLos Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
Two student members of the Black Panther Party, Alprentice Carter and John Huggins, were fatally shot during a student meeting inside Campbell Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles. The motive of the shooting regarded who would own the school's African American Studies Center. The shooter, Claude Hubert, was never to be found but three other men were arrested in connection with the shooting. - November 19, 1969 Tomah, WisconsinTomah, WisconsinTomah is a city in Monroe County, Wisconsin, United States. As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 9,093. The city is located partially within the Town of Tomah.-Education:...
Principal Martin Mogensen is shot to death in his office by a 14-year-old boy armed with a 20 gauge shotgun.
1970s
The two most notable U.S. school shootings in the early 1970s were the Jackson State killingsJackson State killings
The Jackson State killings occurred on Thursday/Friday May 14–15, 1970, at Jackson State College in Jackson, Mississippi. A group of somewhat violent student protesters were confronted by city and state police. The police opened fire, killing two students and injuring twelve...
in May of 1970, where police opened fire on the campus of Jackson State University and the Kent State shootings
Kent State shootings
The Kent State shootings—also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre—occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed college students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970...
also in May of 1970 where the National Guard opened fire on the campus of Kent State University
Kent State University
Kent State University is a public research university located in Kent, Ohio, United States. The university has eight campuses around the northeast Ohio region with the main campus in Kent being the largest...
.
The mid to late 1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history with a series of school shootings, most notably were;
• December 30, 1974 Olean, New York
Olean, New York
Olean is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County, and serves as the financial, business, transportation and entertainment center of the county. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern Tier region of New York.The city is...
, Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old Regents scholar armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school.
• June 12, 1976 California State University, Fullerton massacre
California State University, Fullerton massacre
The California State University, Fullerton massacre was an incident of mass murder that occurred on Monday, July 12, 1976, at California State University, Fullerton, in Fullerton, California, United States....
, where the school's custodian opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle in the library on the California State University, Fullerton campus killing 7, and wounding 2.
• February 22, 1978 Lansing, Michigan
Lansing, Michigan
Lansing is the capital of the U.S. state of Michigan. It is located mostly in Ingham County, although small portions of the city extend into Eaton County. The 2010 Census places the city's population at 114,297, making it the fifth largest city in Michigan...
After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, kills one student and wounds a second with a Luger pistol.
• January 29, 1979 Grover Cleveland Elementary School Shootings
Brenda Ann Spencer
Brenda Ann Spencer is a convicted American murderer who carried out a shooting spree from her home in San Diego, California, on January 29, 1979. During the shooting spree, she killed two people and injured nine others at Cleveland Elementary School, which was located across the street from her home...
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
, where a 16yr old girl opened fire with the rifle, a gift from her father, killing 2 and wounding 9.
1980s
The early 1980's saw only a few multi-victim school shootings including;• January 20, 1983 St. Louis County, Missouri
St. Louis County, Missouri
St. Louis County is a county located in the U.S. state of Missouri. Its county seat is Clayton. St. Louis County is part of the St. Louis Metro Area wherein the independent City of St. Louis and its suburbs in St. Louis County, as well as the surrounding counties in both Missouri and Illinois all...
the Parkway South Middle School
Parkway South Middle School
Parkway South Middle School is a middle school in the Parkway School District in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The school mascot is the Patriot and the colors are red, white, and blue, just like Parkway South, the high school it feeds into...
, eighth grader brought a blue duffel bag containing two pistols, and a murder/suicide note that outlined his intention to kill the next person heard speaking ill of his older brother Ken. He entered a study hall classroom and opened fire, hitting two fellow students. The first victim, was fatally shot in the stomach, and the second victim received a non-fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. Then he said, "no one will ever call my brother a pussy again" then committed suicide.
According to the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence
Brady Campaign
The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence and the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence are affiliated non-profit organizations in the United States. They are named after James Brady who was permanently disabled as a result of an assassination attempt on U.S. President Ronald Reagan in 1981...
, in the United States, from September 1986 to September 1990 (four year period):
- At least 71 people (65 students and 6 school employees) had been killed with guns at school.
- 201 were severely wounded by gun fire.
- 242 individuals were held hostage at gunpoint.
According to a 1987 survey conducted by the American School Health Association
American School Health Association
The American School Health Association is a professional association. It claims a membership of 2,000 members in 56 nations, more than half of whom practice in K-12 schools or administer health education or health services programs in school districts or state departments of education.Founded in...
," 3% of the boys reported having carried a handgun to school at least once during the school year; 1% reported carrying a handgun on a daily basis."
The late 1980s began to see a major increase in school shootings including;
• September 4, 1985 Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
At the end of the second day of school from the East End Middle School a 12yr old boy shot a girl with his mother's gun.
• October 18, 1985 Detroit, Michigan
Detroit, Michigan
Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River...
During halftime of the homecoming football game between Northwestern High School and Murray-Wright High School. A boy who was in a fight earlier that day, pulled out a shotgun and opened fire injuring six students.
• November 26, 1985 Spanaway, Washington
Spanaway, Washington
Spanaway is a census-designated place in Pierce County, Washington, United States. The population was 27,227 at the 2010 census. Spanaway is an unincorporated area near Tacoma, and is often identified together with the more urban, less wealthy Parkland....
A 14yr old girl shot two boys dead then kills herself with a .22-caliber rifle at the Spanaway Junior High School.
• December 9, 1985 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
At the Archbishop Ryan High School for Boys, a 22yr old Mental health patient took 6 students hostage with what ended up being a starter pistol. No one was hurt in the ordeal.
• December 10, 1985 Portland, Connecticut
Portland, Connecticut
Portland is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,732 at the 2000 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place . It is situated across the Connecticut River from Middletown....
At the Portland Junior High School, the Principal was having a heated discussion with a 13-year-old male eighth-grader when he locked the boy inside an office. The student then pulled out a 9mm assault rifle and opened fire. The bullet shattered the glass door and struck the left forearm of the secretary and the glass injured the Principal. The boy fled for the 2nd floor, were he encountered the janitor, and he shot him in the head. The boy then took a seventh-grader hostage. The boy's father and another family member came to the school and talked to him over the intercom system. After 45 minutes, he tossed the gun out a school window and was taken into custody.
• May 16, 1986 The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis
Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis
The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis occurred on May 16, 1986, at Cokeville, Wyoming, United States, when former town marshal David Young, and his wife Doris Young, took 167 children and adults hostage at Cokeville Elementary School. Mr. Young entered the school with his wife transporting...
In a ransom scheme, David and Doris Young, both in their forties, took 150 students and teachers hostage on this spring day. Their demand for $300 million dollars came to an abrupt end when Doris accidentally set off a bomb, killing herself and injuring 78 students and teachers. David wounded John Miller, a teacher who was trying to flee, then killed himself.
• March 2, 1987 Missouri
Missouri
Missouri is a US state located in the Midwestern United States, bordered by Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. With a 2010 population of 5,988,927, Missouri is the 18th most populous state in the nation and the fifth most populous in the Midwest. It...
an honours student Nathan Ferris, 12, killed a classmate and then himself.
• May 20, 1988 Winnetka, Illinois
Winnetka, Illinois
Winnetka is an affluent North Shore village located approximately north of downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. Winnetka was featured on the list of America's 25 top-earning towns and "one of the best places to live" by CNN Money in 2011...
30yr old Laurie Dann
Laurie Dann
Laurie Dann was an American murderer who shot and killed a boy, and wounded two girls and three boys, in a Winnetka, Illinois, elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.-Early life:Dann was born into a Jewish family in Chicago and grew up in Glencoe, an...
shot and killed one boy, and wounded five other kids, in an elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.
• September 26, 1988 Greenwood, South Carolina
Greenwood, South Carolina
Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Greenwood County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 22,071 at the 2000 census and had slightly increased to 22,710 according to a 2009 estimate.-Geography:...
In the cafeteria of the Oakland Elementary School 19 year-old James William Wilson Jr., shot and killed Shequilla Bradley, 8 and wounded eight other children with a 9-round .22 caliber pistol. He went into the girls restroom to reload where he was attacked by Kat Finkbeiner, a Physical Education teacher. James shot her in the hand and mouth. He then entered 3rd grade classroom and wounded six more students.
• December 16, 1988 Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Virginia Beach is an independent city located in the Hampton Roads metropolitan area of Virginia, on the Atlantic Ocean at the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay...
Nicholas Elliott, 15, opened fire with a SWD Cobray M-11 semiautomatic pistol on his teachers at the Atlantic Shores Christian School. His first shots struck teacher Karen Farley in the arm; when she went down he killed her at point blank range. Nicholas then injured Sam Marino. He turned the Cobray toward his classmates, but the gun jammed and he was quickly subdued by M. Hutchinson Matteson, a teacher, before he could fire another round.
• January 17, 1989 Cleveland School massacre of Stockton, California
Stockton, California
Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city...
where 5 school children were killed and 29 wounded by a single gunman firing over 100 rounds into a schoolyard from an AK-47
AK-47
The AK-47 is a selective-fire, gas-operated 7.62×39mm assault rifle, first developed in the Soviet Union by Mikhail Kalashnikov. It is officially known as Avtomat Kalashnikova . It is also known as a Kalashnikov, an "AK", or in Russian slang, Kalash.Design work on the AK-47 began in the last year...
1990s
From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in gun and gun violence in the schools. According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public HealthHarvard School of Public Health
The Harvard School of Public Health is one of the professional graduate schools of Harvard University, located in the Longwood Area of the Boston, Massachusetts neighborhood of Mission Hill, which is next to Harvard Medical School. HSPH is considered a significant school focusing on health in the...
"15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier. By 1993, the United States saw some of the most violent time is school shooting incidences.
• May 1, 1992 Olivehurst, California
Olivehurst, California
Olivehurst is a census-designated place in Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 13,656 at the 2010 census, up from 11,061 at the 2000 census...
Eric Houston, 20, killed four people and wounded 10 in an armed siege at his former high school. Prosecutors said the attack was in retribution for a failing grade.
According to the National School Safety Center, since the 1992-1993 U.S. school year there has been a significant decline in school-associated violent deaths (deaths on private or public school property for kindergarten through grade 12 and resulting from schools functions or activities):
- 1992–1993 (44 Homicides and 55 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1993–1994 (42 Homicides and 51 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1994–1995 (17 Homicides and 20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1995–1996 (29 Homicides and 35 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1996–1997 (23 Homicides and 25 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1997–1998 (35 Homicides and 40 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1998–1999 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 1999–2000 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.)
According to the U.S. Department of Education, in the 1998-1999 School Year, 3,523 Students (57% High School, 33% Junior High, 10% Elementary) were expelled for bringing a firearm to school.
The late 1990's started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings including;
• October 12, 1995 Blackville, South Carolina
Blackville, South Carolina
Blackville is a town in Barnwell County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,973 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Blackville is located at ....
A suspended student shot two math teachers with a .32 caliber revolver.
• November 15, 1995 Lynnville, Tennessee
Lynnville, Tennessee
Lynnville is a town in Giles County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 287 at the 2010 census. The name is from a local creek.-Geography:Lynnville is located at ....
A seventeen-year-old boy shot and killed a student and teacher with a .22 rifle.
• February 2, 1996 Moses Lake, Washington
Moses Lake, Washington
Moses Lake is a city in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 20,366 as of the 2010 census. Moses Lake is the largest city in Grant County.-Background:...
Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.
• February 19, 1997 Bethel, Alaska
Bethel, Alaska
Bethel is a city located near the west coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, west of Anchorage. Accessible only by air and river, Bethel is the main port on the Kuskokwim River and is an administrative and transportation hub for the 56 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.Bethel is the largest...
Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.
• October 1, 1997 Pearl, Mississippi
Pearl, Mississippi
Pearl is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 21,961 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area....
Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.
• December 1, 1997 West Paducah, Kentucky
West Paducah, Kentucky
West Paducah is an unincorporated community in McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. Its elevation is 361 feet .-History:The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah on Monday, December 1, 1997...
Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.
• December 15, 1997 Stamps, Arkansas
Stamps, Arkansas
Stamps is a city in Lafayette County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 2,131 at the 2000 census.Stamps was the shop headquarters for the former Louisiana and Arkansas Railway until the relocation in the early 1920s to Minden, Louisiana....
Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot
• March 24, 1998 Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro, Arkansas
Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state...
Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods
• April 24, 1998 Edinboro, Pennsylvania
Edinboro, Pennsylvania
Edinboro is a borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area. As home to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, it is a small college town, as well as a "resort community"...
One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.
• May 21, 1998 Springfield, Oregon
Springfield, Oregon
Springfield is a city in Lane County, Oregon, United States. Located in the Southern Willamette Valley, it is within the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. Separated from Eugene to the west, mainly by Interstate 5, Springfield is the second-most populous city in the metropolitan area...
Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home
• June 15, 1998 Richmond, Virginia
Richmond, Virginia
Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...
One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway
• April 20, 1999 Littleton, Colorado
Littleton, Colorado
Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of...
15 students (including shooters) and one teacher killed, 27 others wounded at Columbine High School in the nation's deadliest school shooting. Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, had plotted for a year to kill at least 500 and blow up their school. At the end of their hour-long rampage, they turned their guns on themselves.
• May 20, 1999 Conyers, Georgia
Conyers, Georgia
Conyers is the only city in Rockdale County, Georgia, USA. It is twenty-four miles east of Atlanta. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 10,689. Census estimates of 2005 indicate a population of 12,205. The city is the county seat of Rockdale County. By 2009, the reported population was...
Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend
2000s - Present
- 2000–2001 (19 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2001–2002 (4 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2002–2003 (14 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2003–2004 (29 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2004–2005 (20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2005–2006 (5 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2006–2007 (16 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2007–2008 (3 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2008–2009 (10 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
- 2009–2010 (5 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
Notable school shootings
United States
| Name | Location | Date | Year | Number of Victims |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| University of Texas Massacre Charles Whitman Charles Joseph Whitman was a student at the University of Texas at Austin and a former Marine who killed 16 people and wounded 32 others during a shooting rampage on and around the university's campus on August 1, 1966.... |
Austin, Texas Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in... |
August 1 | 1966 | 16 |
| Olean High School shooting Olean High School shooting The Olean High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on December 30, 1974 at Olean High School in Olean, New York, United States. The gunman, 17-year-old Anthony Barbaro, an honor student and member of the school's rifle team, indiscriminately shot at people on the street from windows... |
Olean, New York Olean, New York Olean is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County, and serves as the financial, business, transportation and entertainment center of the county. It is one of the principal cities of the Southern Tier region of New York.The city is... |
December 30 | 1974 | 3 |
| St. James Grammar School | Penns Grove, New Jersey Penns Grove, New Jersey Penns Grove is a Borough in Salem County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2000 United States Census, the borough population was 4,886.Penns Grove was incorporated as a borough by an Act of the New Jersey Legislature on March 8, 1894, from portions of Upper Penns Neck Township Penns Grove is a... |
February 24 | 1975 | 1killed 2 wounded |
| Princeton Day School Princeton Day School Princeton Day School is a private coeducational day school located in Princeton Township, New Jersey, serving students in grades pre kindergarten - 12. The largest division is the Upper School , with an enrollment of approximately 400... |
Princeton, New Jersey Princeton, New Jersey Princeton is a community located in Mercer County, New Jersey, United States. It is best known as the location of Princeton University, which has been sited in the community since 1756... |
April 3 | 1975 | 1 wounded |
| California State University, Fullerton massacre California State University, Fullerton massacre The California State University, Fullerton massacre was an incident of mass murder that occurred on Monday, July 12, 1976, at California State University, Fullerton, in Fullerton, California, United States.... |
Fullerton, California Fullerton, California Fullerton is a city located in northern Orange County, California. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 135,161.It was founded in 1887 by George and Edward Amerige and named for George H. Fullerton, who secured the land on behalf of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway... |
July 12 | 1976 | 7 |
| University of Arizona Nursing School shooting | Tucson, Arizona Tucson, Arizona Tucson is a city in and the county seat of Pima County, Arizona, United States. The city is located 118 miles southeast of Phoenix and 60 miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border. The 2010 United States Census puts the city's population at 520,116 with a metropolitan area population at 1,020,200... |
October, 28 | 2002 | 4 |
| Cleveland Elementary School shooting Brenda Ann Spencer Brenda Ann Spencer is a convicted American murderer who carried out a shooting spree from her home in San Diego, California, on January 29, 1979. During the shooting spree, she killed two people and injured nine others at Cleveland Elementary School, which was located across the street from her home... |
San Diego, California San Diego, California San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round... |
January 29 | 1979 | 2 |
| Deer Creek Middle School shooting | Littleton, Colorado Littleton, Colorado Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of... |
April 7 | 1982 | 1 |
| Parkway South Middle School shooting | Manchester, Missouri Manchester, Missouri Manchester is a city in St. Louis County, Missouri, United States. The population was 18,094 at the 2010 census. The mayor is David Willson.-Geography:Manchester is located at .... |
January 20 | 1983 | 2 |
| Goddard Middle School shooting | Goddard, Kansas Goddard, Kansas Goddard is a city in Sedgwick County, Kansas, United States. Part of the Wichita metropolitan area, it is a suburb of Wichita, Kansas. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 4,344.-History:... |
January 21 | 1985 | 1 |
| Portland Junior High School shooting | Portland, Connecticut Portland, Connecticut Portland is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The population was 8,732 at the 2000 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place . It is situated across the Connecticut River from Middletown.... |
December 10 | 1985 | 1 |
| Pine Forest Senior High School | Fayetteville, North Carolina Fayetteville, North Carolina Fayetteville is a city located in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Cumberland County, and is best known as the home of Fort Bragg, a U.S. Army post located northwest of the city.... |
May 6 | 1986 | 0 |
| Pinellas Park High School | Largo, Florida Largo, Florida Largo is the third largest city in Pinellas County, Florida, USA and is part of the Tampa Bay Area. Centrally located, it is the crossroads of the county. As of the 2000 census, the City had a total population of 69,371. As of 2004, the population estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau was... |
February 11 | 1988 | 1 |
| Hubbard Woods School shooting Laurie Dann Laurie Dann was an American murderer who shot and killed a boy, and wounded two girls and three boys, in a Winnetka, Illinois, elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.-Early life:Dann was born into a Jewish family in Chicago and grew up in Glencoe, an... |
Winnetka, Illinois Winnetka, Illinois Winnetka is an affluent North Shore village located approximately north of downtown Chicago in Cook County, Illinois. Winnetka was featured on the list of America's 25 top-earning towns and "one of the best places to live" by CNN Money in 2011... |
May 20 | 1988 | 1 |
| Atlantic Shores Christian School shooting | Chesapeake, Virginia Chesapeake, Virginia As of the census of 2000, there were 199,184 people, 69,900 households, and 54,172 families residing in the city. The population density was 584.6 people per square mile . There were 72,672 housing units at an average density of 213.3 per square mile... |
December 16 | 1988 | 1 |
| Cleveland School massacre | Stockton, California Stockton, California Stockton, California, the seat of San Joaquin County, is the fourth-largest city in the Central Valley of the U.S. state of California. With a population of 291,707 at the 2010 census, Stockton ranks as this state's 13th largest city... |
January 17 | 1989 | 6 |
| University of Iowa shooting | Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City, Iowa Iowa City is a city in Johnson County, State of Iowa. As of the 2010 Census, the city had a total population of about 67,862, making it the sixth-largest city in the state. Iowa City is the county seat of Johnson County and home to the University of Iowa... |
November 1 | 1991 | 6 |
| Lindhurst High School shooting Lindhurst High School shooting The Lindhurst High School shooting was a school shooting and subsequent siege that occurred on May 1, 1992 at Lindhurst High School in Olivehurst, California, United States. The gunman, 22-year-old Eric Houston, was a former student at Lindhurst High School. Houston killed three students and one... |
Olivehurst, California Olivehurst, California Olivehurst is a census-designated place in Yuba County, California, United States. The population was 13,656 at the 2010 census, up from 11,061 at the 2000 census... |
May 1 | 1992 | 4 |
| Palo Duro High School shooting Palo Duro High School |name = Palo Duro High School|image = |imagesize =|motto =|established = 1955|type = Public|affiliation =|district = Amarillo Independent School District|grades = 9-12|president =... |
Amarillo, Texas Amarillo, Texas Amarillo is the 14th-largest city, by population, in the state of Texas, the largest in the Texas Panhandle, and the seat of Potter County. A portion of the city extends into Randall County. The population was 190,695 at the 2010 census... |
September 11 | 1992 | 0 |
| Berkner High School shooting | Richardson, Texas Richardson, Texas Richardson is a city in Dallas and Collin Counties in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 99,223. In 2011 the population was estimated to be 107,684. Richardson is an affluent inner suburb of Dallas and home of the Telecom Corridor with a high... |
November 6 | 1992 | 1 |
| Edward Tilden High School shooting | Chicago, Illinois | November 20 | 1992 | 1 |
| Simon's Rock College of Bard shooting Wayne Lo Wayne Lo is a Taiwanese-American murderer who perpetrated the shooting at Simon's Rock College of Bard on December 14, 1992 in Great Barrington, Massachusetts. He killed one student and a professor, and wounded four people before he surrendered to police... |
Great Barrington, Massachusetts Great Barrington, Massachusetts Great Barrington is a town in Berkshire County, Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Pittsfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 7,104 at the 2010 census. Both a summer resort and home to Ski Butternut, Great Barrington includes the villages of Van... |
December 14 | 1992 | 2 |
| East Carter High School shooting East Carter High School shooting The East Carter High School shooting occurred on January 18, 1993 in Grayson, Kentucky, United States. The incident was when 17-year-old Gary Scott Pennington walked into an English classroom and fatally shot his teacher Deanna McDavid and head custodian Marvin Hicks, and held classmates hostage... |
Grayson, Kentucky Grayson, Kentucky As of the census of 2000, there were 3,877 people, 1,415 households, and 938 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,549.1 people per square mile . There were 1,538 housing units at an average density of 614.5 per square mile... |
January 18 | 1993 | 2 |
| Fairfax High School shooting Fairfax High School (Los Angeles) Fairfax High School is a Los Angeles Unified School District high school located in Los Angeles, USA, near the border of West Hollywood in the Fairfax District of Los Angeles... |
Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, California Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California... |
January 21 | 1993 | 1 |
| Amityville High School shooting | Amityville, New York Amityville, New York Amityville is a village in the town of Babylon in Suffolk County, New York, in the United States. The population was 9,441 at the 2000 census.-History:... |
February 1 | 1993 | 1 |
| Reseda High School shooting Reseda High School Reseda High School, established in 1955, is located in the Reseda section of the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, California.The school currently is home to the Reseda High School Science Magnet HS and the Reseda Police Academy Magnet HS, in addition to Reseda High's four small learning... |
Reseda, California | February 22 | 1993 | 1 |
| Wauwatosa West High School shooting | Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Wauwatosa, Wisconsin Wauwatosa is a city in Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, United States, and was incorporated on May 27, 1897. As of the 2006 census estimate, the city's population was 44,798. Wauwatosa is located immediately west of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is a part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area... |
December 1 | 1993 | 1 |
| Central Middle School shooting | Sheridan, Wyoming Sheridan, Wyoming Sheridan is a city in Sheridan County, Wyoming, United States. The 2010 census put the population at 17,444 and a Micropolitan Statistical Area of 29,116... |
September 17 | 1993 | 1 |
| Margaret Leary Elementary School shooting | Butte, Montana Butte, Montana Butte is a city in Montana and the county seat of Silver Bow County, United States. In 1977, the city and county governments consolidated to form the sole entity of Butte-Silver Bow. As of the 2010 census, Butte's population was 34,200... |
April 12 | 1994 | 1 |
| Grimsley High School shooting Grimsley High School Grimsley Senior High School is a public high school in Greensboro, North Carolina. Formerly known as "Greensboro Senior High School," It is part of the Guilford County Schools system. The school has an enrollment of around 2,000 students in grades 9-12... |
Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S... |
October 12 | 1994 | 1 |
| Wickliffe Middle School shooting Wickliffe Middle School shooting The Wickliffe Middle School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 1994 at Wickliffe Middle School in Wickliffe, Ohio, United States. The gunman, 37-year-old Keith A. Ledeger, was a former student at Wickliffe Middle School... |
Wickliffe, Ohio Wickliffe, Ohio As of the census of 2000, there are 13,484 people, 5,604 households, 3,754 families residing in the city. The population density is 2,898.2 people per square mile . There are 5,787 housing units at an average density of 1,243.8 per square mile... |
November 7 | 1994 | 1 |
| Blackville-Hilda High School shooting | Blackville, South Carolina Blackville, South Carolina Blackville is a town in Barnwell County, South Carolina, United States. The population was 2,973 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Blackville is located at .... |
October 12 | 1995 | 2 |
| Richland High School shooting Richland High School shooting The Richland High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on Wednesday, November 15, 1995, in Lynnville, Tennessee, a small community located in Giles County... |
Lynnville, Tennessee Lynnville, Tennessee Lynnville is a town in Giles County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 287 at the 2010 census. The name is from a local creek.-Geography:Lynnville is located at .... |
November 15 | 1995 | 2 |
| Frontier Middle School shooting | Moses Lake, Washington Moses Lake, Washington Moses Lake is a city in Grant County, Washington, United States. The population was 20,366 as of the 2010 census. Moses Lake is the largest city in Grant County.-Background:... |
February 2 | 1996 | 3 |
| Hamilton High School shooting | Scottdale, Georgia Scottdale, Georgia Scottdale is a census-designated place in DeKalb County, Georgia, United States. The population was 10,631 at the 2010 census.-Geography:... |
February 2 | 1996 | 1 |
| San Diego State University shooting San Diego State University shooting The San Diego State University shooting was a school shooting that occurred at the San Diego State University engineering building on August 15, 1996 in San Diego, California, United States. Three professors were killed by masters degree student Frederick Martin Davidson... |
San Diego, California San Diego, California San Diego is the eighth-largest city in the United States and second-largest city in California. The city is located on the coast of the Pacific Ocean in Southern California, immediately adjacent to the Mexican border. The birthplace of California, San Diego is known for its mild year-round... |
August 15 | 1996 | 3 |
| Hetzel Union Building shooting Hetzel Union Building shooting The Hetzel Union Building shooting refers to an incident at the Pennsylvania State University where two students were shot, one fatally. At the time of the incident, it was the first murder on the Penn State campus in over 25 years.- The incident :... |
State College, Pennsylvania State College, Pennsylvania State College is the largest borough in Centre County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. It is the principal city of the State College, Pennsylvania Metropolitan Statistical Area which encompasses all of Centre County. As of the 2010 census, the borough population was 42,034, and roughly double... |
September 17 | 1996 | 1 |
| Bethel Regional High School shooting | Bethel, Alaska Bethel, Alaska Bethel is a city located near the west coast of the U.S. state of Alaska, west of Anchorage. Accessible only by air and river, Bethel is the main port on the Kuskokwim River and is an administrative and transportation hub for the 56 villages in the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta.Bethel is the largest... |
February 19 | 1997 | 2 |
| Pearl High School shooting Pearl High School shooting The Pearl High School shooting was a school shooting that took place on October 1, 1997 at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi. The gunman, 16-year-old Luke Woodham , killed two students and injured seven others at his high school... |
Pearl, Mississippi Pearl, Mississippi Pearl is a city in Rankin County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 21,961 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Jackson Metropolitan Statistical Area.... |
October 1 | 1997 | 2 |
| Heath High School shooting Heath High School shooting The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, United States, on Monday, December 1, 1997. Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of praying students, killing three and injuring five more.... |
Paducah, Kentucky Paducah, Kentucky Paducah is the largest city in Kentucky's Jackson Purchase Region and the county seat of McCracken County, Kentucky, United States. It is located at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River, halfway between the metropolitan areas of St. Louis, Missouri, to the west and Nashville,... |
December 1 | 1997 | 3 |
| Westside Middle School shooting | Jonesboro Jonesboro, Arkansas Jonesboro is a city in and one of the two county seats of Craighead County, Arkansas, United States. According to the 2010 US Census, the population of the city was 67,263. A college town, Jonesboro is the largest city in northeastern Arkansas and the fifth most populous city in the state... , Arkansas Arkansas Arkansas is a state located in the southern region of the United States. Its name is an Algonquian name of the Quapaw Indians. Arkansas shares borders with six states , and its eastern border is largely defined by the Mississippi River... |
March 24 | 1998 | 5 |
| Parker Middle School dance shooting | Edinboro Edinboro, Pennsylvania Edinboro is a borough in Erie County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is part of the Erie Metropolitan Statistical Area. As home to Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, it is a small college town, as well as a "resort community"... , Pennsylvania Pennsylvania The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to... |
April 24 | 1998 | 1 |
| Thurston High School shooting | Springfield Springfield, Oregon Springfield is a city in Lane County, Oregon, United States. Located in the Southern Willamette Valley, it is within the Eugene-Springfield Metropolitan Statistical Area. Separated from Eugene to the west, mainly by Interstate 5, Springfield is the second-most populous city in the metropolitan area... , Oregon Oregon Oregon is a state in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. It is located on the Pacific coast, with Washington to the north, California to the south, Nevada on the southeast and Idaho to the east. The Columbia and Snake rivers delineate much of Oregon's northern and eastern... |
May 21 | 1998 | 2 |
| Columbine High School massacre Columbine High School massacre The Columbine High School massacre occurred on Tuesday, April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, an unincorporated area of Jefferson County, Colorado, United States, near Denver and Littleton. Two senior students, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, embarked on a massacre, killing 12... |
Littleton, Colorado Littleton, Colorado Littleton is a Home Rule Municipality contained in Arapahoe, Douglas, and Jefferson counties in the U.S. state of Colorado. Littleton is a suburb of the Denver-Aurora Metropolitan Statistical Area. Littleton is the county seat of Arapahoe County and the 20th most populous city in the state of... |
April 20 | 1999 | 13 |
| Heritage High School shooting Heritage High School shooting The Heritage High School shooting occurred May 20, 1999, at Heritage High School located in Conyers, Georgia. The gunman was 15-year-old, high school sophomore, Thomas Solomon, Jr. He shot six students in the school's common area before getting subdued.... |
Conyers Conyers, Georgia Conyers is the only city in Rockdale County, Georgia, USA. It is twenty-four miles east of Atlanta. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 10,689. Census estimates of 2005 indicate a population of 12,205. The city is the county seat of Rockdale County. By 2009, the reported population was... , Georgia Georgia (U.S. state) Georgia is a state located in the southeastern United States. It was established in 1732, the last of the original Thirteen Colonies. The state is named after King George II of Great Britain. Georgia was the fourth state to ratify the United States Constitution, on January 2, 1788... |
May 20 | 1999 | 0 |
| Fort Gibson Middle School shooting | Fort Gibson, Oklahoma Fort Gibson, Oklahoma Fort Gibson is a town in Cherokee and Muskogee counties in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. The population was 4,054 at the 2000 census. It is the location of Fort Gibson National Cemetery and is located near at the end of the Cherokees' Trail of Tears at Tahlequah, Oklahoma.Colonel Matthew Arbuckle of... |
December 6 | 1999 | 0 |
| Buell Elementary School shooting | Mount Morris Township, Michigan Mount Morris Township, Michigan Mount Morris Charter Township is a charter township of Genesee County in the U.S. state of Michigan. The population was 23,725 as of the 2000 census.-Communities:... |
February 29 | 2000 | 1 |
| Lake Worth Middle School shooting | Lake Worth, Florida Lake Worth, Florida Lake Worth is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, which takes its name from the body of water along its eastern border, originally called "Lake Worth", and now generally known as the Lake Worth Lagoon. The lake itself was named for General William J. Worth, who led U.S. forces during the last... |
May 26 | 2000 | 1 |
| University of Arkansas shooting University of Arkansas The University of Arkansas is a public, co-educational, land-grant, space-grant, research university. It is classified by the Carnegie Foundation as a research university with very high research activity. It is the flagship campus of the University of Arkansas System and is located in... |
Fayetteville, Arkansas Fayetteville, Arkansas Fayetteville is the county seat of Washington County, and the third largest city in Arkansas. The city is centrally located within the county and is home to the University of Arkansas. Fayetteville is also deep in the Boston Mountains, a subset of The Ozarks... |
August 28 | 2000 | 2 |
| Santana High School shooting | Santee, California Santee, California Santee is a suburban city in San Diego County, California with a population of 53,413 at the 2010 census. Although it is a part of the East County region, Santee is located just from the Pacific Ocean. The city is connected to the coastline by State Route 52, a six-lane freeway that runs from... |
March 5 | 2001 | 2 |
| Granite Hills High School shooting Granite Hills High School (El Cajon, California) Granite Hills High School is a public, comprehensive high school located in El Cajon, California and serves students in grades nine through twelve. Opened in 1960, Granite Hills is one of thirteen high schools in the Grossmont Union High School District. GHHS is the home of the Eagles... |
El Cajon, California El Cajon, California -History:El Cajon is located on the Rancho El Cajon Mexican land grant made in 1845 to María Antonia Estudillo, wife of Miguel Pedrorena. In 1876 Amaziah Lord Knox , a New Englander who had recently moved to California, established a hotel there to serve the growing number of people traveling... |
March 22 | 2001 | 0 |
| Martin Luther King, Jr. High School shooting Martin Luther King, Jr. High School (New York) The Martin Luther King, Jr. Educational Campus is a five-story public school facility at 122 Amsterdam Avenue between West 65th and 66th Streets in the Lincoln Square neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City, near Lincoln Center. The campus is faced on Amsterdam Avenue by a wide elevated plaza... |
Manhattan, New York | January 15 | 2002 | 0 |
| Appalachian School of Law shooting Appalachian School of Law shooting The Appalachian School of Law shooting was a school shooting that occurred on January 16, 2002, at the Appalachian School of Law, an American Bar Association accredited private law school in Grundy, Virginia, United States... |
Grundy, Virginia Grundy, Virginia Grundy is a town in Buchanan County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,105 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Buchanan County. The town is noted for its educational institutions and their role in the town's economic rebirth. In the past, the town served as a stopover for Union... |
January 16 | 2002 | 3 |
| John McDonogh High School shooting | New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans, Louisiana New Orleans is a major United States port and the largest city and metropolitan area in the state of Louisiana. The New Orleans metropolitan area has a population of 1,235,650 as of 2009, the 46th largest in the USA. The New Orleans – Metairie – Bogalusa combined statistical area has a population... |
April 14 | 2003 | 1 |
| Red Lion Area Junior High School shootings | Red Lion, Pennsylvania Red Lion, Pennsylvania Red Lion is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, settled in 1852 and incorporated on January 16, 1880. The population was 6,373 at the 2010 census.-History:Red Lion, settled in 1852, was named after one of the first pubs in town, the Red Lion Tavern.... |
April 24 | 2003 | 2 |
| Case Western Reserve University shooting | Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border... |
May 9 | 2003 | 1 |
| Rocori High School shooting Rocori High School shooting The Rocori High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred at Rocori High School on September 24, 2003 in Cold Spring, Minnesota, United States... |
Cold Spring, Minnesota Cold Spring, Minnesota As of the census of 2000, there were 2,975 people, 1,116 households, and 785 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,431.1 people per square mile . There were 1,145 housing units at an average density of 550.8 per square mile... |
September 24 | 2003 | 2 |
| Columbia High School shooting Columbia High School (New York) Columbia High School is a public high school located on Luther Road in East Greenbush, New York, USA. It is the only high school for the East Greenbush Central School District and educates around 1,501 students in grades 9-12. The school has a thirteen to one student to teacher ratio that is... |
East Greenbush, New York | February 9 | 2004 | 0 |
| Fairleigh Dickinson University shooting | Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park, New Jersey Florham Park is a borough in Morris County, New Jersey, United States. As of the United States 2000 Census, the borough population was 8,857, which had grown to 12,389 as of the Bureau's 2008 estimate.... |
April 4 | 2004 | 2 |
| Randallstown High School shooting | Randallstown, Maryland Randallstown, Maryland Randallstown is an unincorporated community and a census-designated place in Baltimore County, Maryland, United States. It is named after Christopher and Thomas Randall, two 18th-century tavern-keepers. At that time, Randallstown was a tollgate crossroads on the Liberty Turnpike, a major east-west... |
May 7 | 2004 | 0 |
| Red Lake Senior High School massacre | Red Lake, Minnesota Red Lake, Minnesota There is also a Red Lake County in Minnesota.Red Lake is a census-designated place within the Lower Red Lake unorganized territory located in Beltrami County, Minnesota, United States. As of the 2000 census, Red Lake had a total population of 1,436... |
March 21 | 2005 | 8 |
| Campbell County High School shooting | Jacksboro, Tennessee Jacksboro, Tennessee Jacksboro is a town in Campbell County, Tennessee, United States. The population was 1,887 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Campbell County.-Geography:Jacksboro is located at... |
November 8 | 2005 | 1 |
| Pine Middle School shooting Pine Middle School shooting The Pine Middle School shooting was a school shooting that occurred in Reno, Nevada, United States, on March 14, 2006. The shooting was perpetrated by then fourteen-year-old student James Scott Newman who shot and injured two 14-year-old eighth grade classmates with a .38-caliber revolver that had... |
Reno, Nevada Reno, Nevada Reno is the county seat of Washoe County, Nevada, United States. The city has a population of about 220,500 and is the most populous Nevada city outside of the Las Vegas metropolitan area... |
March 14 | 2006 | 0 |
| Essex Elementary School shooting | Essex, Vermont Essex, Vermont Essex is a town in Chittenden County, Vermont, United States. The population was 19,587 at the 2010 census.By population, Essex is the largest town in Vermont, and the second-largest municipality .-Government:... |
August 24 | 2006 | 2 |
| Orange High School shooting | Hillsborough, North Carolina Hillsborough, North Carolina Hillsborough is a town in Orange County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 5,653 at the 2008 census. It is the county seat of Orange County.... |
August 30 | 2006 | 1 |
| Platte Canyon High School shooting Platte Canyon High School shooting The Platte Canyon High School hostage crisis was an incident of a hostage taking and shooting that occurred at Platte Canyon High School in Bailey, Colorado, on September 27, 2006. The gunman, 53-year-old Duane Roger Morrison entered the school building, claiming to be carrying a bomb... |
Bailey, Colorado Bailey, Colorado Bailey is an unincorporated town and U.S. Post Office in northeastern Park County, Colorado, United States.The ZIP Code of the Bailey Post Office is 80421. Bailey is in the Mountain Time Zone. The community is located along U.S... |
September 27 | 2006 | 2 |
| Weston High School shooting Weston High School shooting The Weston High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on September 29, 2006, in Weston High School in Cazenovia, Wisconsin, United States. The gunman, 15-year-old Eric Hainstock, that day entered the school's main hallway and fatally shot principal John Klang... |
Cazenovia, Wisconsin Cazenovia, Wisconsin Cazenovia is a village in Richland and Sauk Counties in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. The population was 326 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Cazenovia is located at .... |
September 29 | 2006 | 1 |
| Amish school shooting Amish school shooting The Amish school shooting was a shooting at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 2006... |
Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania is a hamlet in Bart Township, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, USA.The nickel mines that give the town its name were worked in a deposit of sulfide ore, principally millerite. The mines were originally opened in the early 18th century for copper, but were given up as... |
October 2 | 2006 | 6 |
| Henry Foss High School shooting Henry Foss High School Henry Foss High School is a high school in Tacoma, Washington. It opened in 1973. It is a part of the Tacoma Public School District. The school is named after Henry Foss, a civic leader and tugboat tycoon in Tacoma.-History:... |
Tacoma, Washington Tacoma, Washington Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to... |
January 3 | 2007 | 1 |
| Herbert Henry Dow High School Herbert Henry Dow High School Herbert Henry Dow High School is a public high school located in Midland, Michigan. The school, a part of Midland Public Schools, is a National Blue Ribbon School of Excellence and in 2008 was named one of the top 20 High Schools in Michigan in a study commissioned by US News & World... |
Midland, Michigan Midland, Michigan Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan in the Tri-Cities region of the state. It is the county seat of Midland County. The city's population was 41,863 as of the 2010 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area.... |
March 8 | 2007 | 1 |
| University of North Carolina at Greensboro University of North Carolina at Greensboro The University of North Carolina at Greensboro , also known as UNC Greensboro, is a public university in Greensboro, North Carolina, United States and is a constituent institution of the University of North Carolina system. The university offers more than 100 undergraduate, 61 master's and 26... |
Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro, North Carolina Greensboro is a city in the U.S. state of North Carolina. It is the third-largest city by population in North Carolina and the largest city in Guilford County and the surrounding Piedmont Triad metropolitan region. According to the 2010 U.S... |
March 24 | 2007 | 0 |
| University of Washington shooting | Seattle, Washington Seattle, Washington Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country... |
April 2 | 2007 | 2 |
| Virginia Tech massacre Virginia Tech massacre The Virginia Tech massacre was a school shooting that took place on April 16, 2007, on the campus of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, United States. In two separate attacks, approximately two hours apart, the perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, killed 32 people... |
Blacksburg, Virginia Blacksburg, Virginia Blacksburg is an incorporated town located in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States, with a population of 42,620 at the 2010 census. Blacksburg, Christiansburg, and Radford are the three principal jurisdictions of the Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Radford Metropolitan Statistical Area which... |
April 16 | 2007 | 32 |
| Delaware State University shooting Delaware State University shooting The Delaware State University shooting occurred on September 21, 2007 when 18-year-old student Loyer D. Braden shot two 17-year-old Delaware State University students from the Washington, D.C. area.... |
Dover, Delaware Dover, Delaware The city of Dover is the capital and second largest city in the U.S. state of Delaware. It is also the county seat of Kent County, and the principal city of the Dover, Delaware Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses all of Kent County. It is located on the St. Jones River in the Delaware... |
September 21 | 2007 | 1 |
| SuccessTech Academy shooting SuccessTech Academy shooting The SuccessTech Academy shooting was a school shooting that occurred on October 10, 2007, at the SuccessTech alternative high school in Cleveland, Ohio, United States. 14-year-old freshman Asa H. Coon shot two students and two teachers before committing suicide in the fourth floor of the... |
Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland, Ohio Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and is the county seat of Cuyahoga County, the most populous county in the state. The city is located in northeastern Ohio on the southern shore of Lake Erie, approximately west of the Pennsylvania border... |
October 10 | 2007 | 1 |
| Louisiana Technical College shooting | Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge, Louisiana Baton Rouge is the capital of the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is located in East Baton Rouge Parish and is the second-largest city in the state.Baton Rouge is a major industrial, petrochemical, medical, and research center of the American South... |
February 8 | 2008 | 3 |
| Mitchell High School shooting Mitchell High School (Tennessee) Mitchell High School, also known as Mitchell Road High School, is a public 9-12 school in Memphis, Tennessee, located at 658 W. Mitchell Road. Its enrollment of 1074 students is 99.4% Black, 0.4% White and 0.2% Hispanic. The school is secured by metal detectors and a posted police officer.School... |
Memphis, Tennessee Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the southwestern corner of the U.S. state of Tennessee, and the county seat of Shelby County. The city is located on the 4th Chickasaw Bluff, south of the confluence of the Wolf and Mississippi rivers.... |
February 11 | 2008 | 0 |
| E.O. Green School shooting E.O. Green School shooting The E.O. Green School shooting was the February 12, 2008, killing of Lawrence "Larry" Fobes King who was a 15-year-old gay student at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, California, United States... |
Oxnard, California Oxnard, California Oxnard is the 113th largest city in the United States, 19th largest city in California and largest city in Ventura County, California, by way of population. It is located at the western edge of the fertile Oxnard Plain, and is an important agricultural center, with its distinction as the... |
February 12 | 2008 | 1 |
| Northern Illinois University massacre | DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb, Illinois DeKalb is a city in DeKalb County, Illinois, United States. The population was 43,862 at the 2010 census, up from 39,018 at the 2000 census. The city is named after decorated German war hero Johann De Kalb, who died during the American Revolutionary War.... |
February 14 | 2008 | 6 |
| Davidson High School Shooting | Mobile, Alabama Mobile, Alabama Mobile is the third most populous city in the Southern US state of Alabama and is the county seat of Mobile County. It is located on the Mobile River and the central Gulf Coast of the United States. The population within the city limits was 195,111 during the 2010 census. It is the largest... |
March 9 | 2008 | 1 |
| Central High School shooting | Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville, Tennessee Founded in 1786, Knoxville is the third-largest city in the U.S. state of Tennessee, U.S.A., behind Memphis and Nashville, and is the county seat of Knox County. It is the largest city in East Tennessee, and the second-largest city in the Appalachia region... |
August 21 | 2008 | 1 |
| Henry Ford High School shooting | Detroit, Michigan Detroit, Michigan Detroit is the major city among the primary cultural, financial, and transportation centers in the Metro Detroit area, a region of 5.2 million people. As the seat of Wayne County, the city of Detroit is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan and serves as a major port on the Detroit River... |
October 16 | 2008 | 1 |
| 2008 University of Central Arkansas shootings 2008 University of Central Arkansas shootings The 2008 University of Central Arkansas shootings was a school shooting that took place on the 12,500-student campus of the University of Central Arkansas in Conway, Arkansas on Sunday, October 26, 2008.... |
Conway, Arkansas Conway, Arkansas Conway is the county seat of Faulkner County, Arkansas, United States. The population was 58,908 at the 2010 census, making Conway the seventh most populous city in Arkansas. It is a principal city of the Little Rock–North Little Rock–Conway Metropolitan Statistical Area which had... |
October 27 | 2008 | 2 |
| Dillard High School shooting Dillard High School Dillard High School is a historic public high school located in Fort Lauderdale of Broward County, Florida. Dillard is available to all of Broward County. This school was established in 1907... |
Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale, Florida Fort Lauderdale is a city in the U.S. state of Florida, on the Atlantic coast. It is the county seat of Broward County. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 165,521. It is a principal city of the South Florida metropolitan area, which was home to 5,564,635 people at the 2010... |
November 12 | 2008 | 1 |
| Henry Ford Community College shooting Henry Ford Community College Henry Ford Community College is a public two-year college located in Dearborn, Michigan. The school, established in 1938, is accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and the Michigan Commission on College Accreditation. The school was originally named Fordson Junior College... |
Dearborn, Michigan Dearborn, Michigan -Economy:Ford Motor Company has its world headquarters in Dearborn. In addition its Dearborn campus contains many research, testing, finance and some production facilities. Ford Land controls the numerous properties owned by Ford including sales and leasing to unrelated businesses such as the... |
April 10 | 2009 | 2 |
| Hampton University Hampton University Hampton University is a historically black university located in Hampton, Virginia, United States. It was founded by black and white leaders of the American Missionary Association after the American Civil War to provide education to freedmen.-History:... |
Hampton, Virginia Hampton, Virginia Hampton is an independent city that is not part of any county in Southeast Virginia. Its population is 137,436. As one of the seven major cities that compose the Hampton Roads metropolitan area, it is on the southeastern end of the Virginia Peninsula. Located on the Hampton Roads Beltway, it hosts... |
April 26 | 2009 | 0 |
| Covina High School shooting Covina High School Covina High School, commonly known as Covina High or CHS to the students, is a public high school located in Covina, California, United States. Covina High School is one of three comprehensive high schools within the Covina-Valley Unified School District. Established in 1897, Covina High is... |
Covina, California Covina, California Covina is a small city in Los Angeles County, California about east of downtown Los Angeles, in the San Gabriel Valley region. The population was 47,796 at the 2010 census, up from 46,837 at the 2000 census... |
April 30 | 2009 | 0 |
| Wesleyan University Wesleyan University Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and... |
Middletown, Connecticut Middletown, Connecticut Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central... |
May 1 | 2009 | 1 |
| Canandaigua Academy shooting Canandaigua Academy Canandaigua Academy is the name of a high school located in Canandaigua, New York which is part of the Canandaigua City School District. The school was named a national Blue Ribbon School of Excellence by the U.S. Department of Education in 1996. Donald Raw, Jr. is the Superintendent of Schools... |
Canandaigua, New York Canandaigua (city), New York Canandaigua is a city in Ontario County, New York, USA, of which it is the county seat. The population was 11,264 at the 2000 census... |
May 5 | 2009 | 1 |
| Harvard University Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country... |
Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States, in the Greater Boston area. It was named in honor of the University of Cambridge in England, an important center of the Puritan theology embraced by the town's founders. Cambridge is home to two of the world's most prominent... |
May 18 | 2009 | 1 |
| Larose-Cut Off Middle School shooting | Larose, Louisiana Larose, Louisiana Larose is a census-designated place in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, United States. The population was 7,306 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Houma–Bayou Cane–Thibodaux Metropolitan Statistical Area.-Geography:... |
May 18 | 2009 | 1 |
| Skyline College shooting Skyline College Skyline College is a community college that is located in San Mateo County, California, within the limits of the city of San Bruno, California, south of San Francisco... |
San Bruno, California San Bruno, California San Bruno is a city in San Mateo County, California, United States. The population was 41,114 at the 2010 census.The city is adjacent to San Francisco International Airport and Golden Gate National Cemetery.-Geography:San Bruno is located at... |
September 2 | 2009 | 0 |
| Atlanta University Center Atlanta University Center The Atlanta University Center Consortium is the largest contiguous consortium of African Americans in higher education in the United States. The center consists of four historically black colleges and universities in southwest Atlanta, Georgia... |
Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta, Georgia Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in... |
September 3 | 2009 | 1 |
| Deer Valley High School shooting | Antioch, California Antioch, California Antioch is a city in Contra Costa County, California. Located in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Bay Area along the San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta, it is a suburb of San Francisco and Oakland. The city's population was 102,372 at the U.S... |
September 16 | 2009 | 0 |
| Northern Virginia Community College Northern Virginia Community College Northern Virginia Community College, often abbreviated NVCC and colloquially as NOVA, comprises several locations in the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., and is both the second largest multi-campus community college in the United States and the largest educational institution in the... |
Woodbridge, Virginia Woodbridge, Virginia -Demographics:As of the census of 2000, there were 31,941 people, 10,687 households, and 7,769 families residing in the CDP. The population density was 3,047.8 people per square mile . There were 11,026 housing units at an average density of 1,052.1/sq mi... |
December 8 | 2009 | 0 |
| Discovery Middle School | Madison, Alabama Madison, Alabama As of the census of 2000, there were 29,329 people, 11,143 households, and 8,067 families residing in the city. The population density was 1,266.5 people per square mile . There were 12,121 housing units at an average density of 523.4 per square mile... |
February 5 | 2010 | 1 |
| University of Alabama in Huntsville 2010 University of Alabama in Huntsville shooting At the University of Alabama in Huntsville in Huntsville, Alabama, three people were killed and three others wounded in a shooting on February 12, 2010. During the course of a routine meeting of the biology department attended by approximately 12 individuals, a professor stood up and began shooting... |
Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city located primarily in Madison County in the central part of the far northern region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Huntsville is the county seat of Madison County. The city extends west into neighboring Limestone County. Huntsville's population was 180,105 as of the 2010 Census.... |
February 12 | 2010 | 3 |
| Deer Creek Middle School Deer Creek Middle School Deer Creek Middle School is a public middle school located in Littleton, Colorado. The school is notable for two school shootings that having taken place, the first in 1982 and the second in 2010... |
Jefferson County, Colorado Jefferson County, Colorado Jefferson County , whose slogan is the "Gateway to the Rocky Mountains", is the fourth most populous of the 64 counties of the State of Colorado of the United States. Located along the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains, Jefferson County is adjacent to the west side of the state capital, Denver.... |
February 23 | 2010 | 0 |
| Birney Elementary School? | Tacoma, Washington Tacoma, Washington Tacoma is a mid-sized urban port city and the county seat of Pierce County, Washington, United States. The city is on Washington's Puget Sound, southwest of Seattle, northeast of the state capital, Olympia, and northwest of Mount Rainier National Park. The population was 198,397, according to... |
February 26 | 2010 | |
| Ohio State University Ohio State University The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States... |
Columbus, Ohio Columbus, Ohio Columbus is the capital of and the largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio. The broader metropolitan area encompasses several counties and is the third largest in Ohio behind those of Cleveland and Cincinnati. Columbus is the third largest city in the American Midwest, and the fifteenth largest city... |
March 9 | 2010 | 2 |
| Belleville Township HS East | Belleville, Illinois Belleville, Illinois Belleville is a city in St. Clair County, Illinois, United States. As of the 2010 census, the city has a population of 44,478. It is the eighth-most populated city outside of the Chicago Metropolitan Area and the most populated city south of Springfield in the state of Illinois. It is the county... |
August 17 | 2010 | 1 |
| University of Texas at Austin | Austin, Texas Austin, Texas Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in... |
September 28 | 2010 | 1 |
| Alisal High School Alisal High School Alisal High School is an American public high school opened in 1965 and located on the east side of Salinas, California. Alisal's school colors are green, black and white. Their mascot is Tommy the Trojan.-External links:*... |
Salinas, California Salinas, California Salinas is the county seat and the largest municipality of Monterey County, California. Salinas is located east-southeast of the mouth of the Salinas River, at an elevation of about 52 feet above sea level. The population was 150,441 at the 2010 census... |
October 1 | 2010 | 1 |
| Mid-Atlantic Christian University | Elizabeth City, North Carolina Elizabeth City, North Carolina Elizabeth City is a city in Pasquotank County and Camden County in the State of North Carolina. With a population of 18,683 at the 2010 census, Elizabeth City is the county seat of Pasquotank County.... |
October 3 | 2010 | 1 |
| Kelly Elementary School | Carlsbad, California Carlsbad, California -2010:The 2010 United States Census reported that Carlsbad had a population of 105,328. The population density was 2,693.1 people per square mile . The racial makeup of Carlsbad was 87,205 White, 1,379 African American, 514 Native American, 7,460 Asian, 198 Pacific Islander, 4,189 from other... |
October 8 | 2010 | 0 |
| Marinette High School Marinette High School Marinette High School is a public high school in the city of Marinette, Wisconsin. It is part of the School District of Marinette, and averages an enrollment of 750 students.... |
Marinette, Wisconsin Marinette, Wisconsin Marinette is a city in and the county seat of Marinette County, Wisconsin, United States. The population was 11,749 at the 2000 census.Marinette is the principal city of the Marinette, WI–MI Micropolitan Statistical Area, which includes all of Marinette County, Wisconsin and Menominee... |
November 29 | 2010 | 1 |
| Millard South High School shooting | Omaha, Nebraska Omaha, Nebraska Omaha is the largest city in the state of Nebraska, United States, and is the county seat of Douglas County. It is located in the Midwestern United States on the Missouri River, about 20 miles north of the mouth of the Platte River... , United States |
January 5 | 2011 | 2 |
| Martinsville West Middle School | Martinsville, Indiana Martinsville, Indiana Martinsville is a city in and the county seat of Morgan County, Indiana, United States; the population was 11,828 at the 2010 census.-History:... |
March 25 | 2011 | 0 |
| Worthing High School | Houston, Texas Houston, Texas Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ... |
March 30 | 2011 | 1 |
| Ross Elementary School | Houston, Texas Houston, Texas Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ... |
April 19 | 2011 | 0 |
| San Jose State University San José State University San Jose State University is a public university located in San Jose, California, United States... |
San Jose, California San Jose, California San Jose is the third-largest city in California, the tenth-largest in the U.S., and the county seat of Santa Clara County which is located at the southern end of San Francisco Bay... |
May 10 | 2011 | 3 |
| Pearl City Middle School | Pearl City, Hawaii Pearl City, Hawaii Pearl City is a census-designated place located in the Ewa District and City & County of Honolulu on the Island of Oahu. As of the 2010 Census, the CDP had a total population of 47,698. Pearl City is located along the north shore of Pearl Harbor. ʻAiea borders Pearl City to the east, while Waipahu... |
May 23 | 2011 | 1 |
| Eagle Ridge Middle School | Rio Rancho, New Mexico Rio Rancho, New Mexico There were 18,995 households out of which 40.3% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 59.4% were married couples living together, 10.3% had a female householder with no husband present, and 25.7% were non-families. 20.8% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.9% had... |
February 21 | 2011 | 0 |
| Cape Fear High School shooting | Fayetteville, North Carolina Fayetteville, North Carolina Fayetteville is a city located in Cumberland County, North Carolina, United States. It is the county seat of Cumberland County, and is best known as the home of Fort Bragg, a U.S. Army post located northwest of the city.... |
October 24 | 2011 | 0 |
not a "school shooting" in the contemporary sense
Canada
| Name | Location | Date | Year | Death toll | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Altona schoolhouse shooting | Altona, Manitoba Altona, Manitoba Altona is a predominantly Mennonite town in southern Manitoba about 100 km south-west of Winnipeg and 133 km north of Grand Forks, North Dakota. It is surrounded by the Rural Municipality of Rhineland. Much of the surrounding area is devoted to farming and agriculture-based business. Its... |
October 10 | 1902 | 2 | |
| Centennial Secondary School shooting | Brampton, Ontario Brampton, Ontario Brampton is the third-largest city in the Greater Toronto Area of Ontario, Canada and the seat of Peel Region. As of the 2006 census, Brampton's population stood at 433,806, making it the 11th largest city in Canada. It is also one of Canada's fastest growing municipalities, with an average... |
May 28 | 1975 | 2 | |
| St Pius X High School School | Ottawa Ottawa Ottawa is the capital of Canada, the second largest city in the Province of Ontario, and the fourth largest city in the country. The city is located on the south bank of the Ottawa River in the eastern portion of Southern Ontario... , Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa.... |
October 27 | 1975 | 1 | |
| École Polytechnique Massacre École Polytechnique massacre The École Polytechnique Massacre, also known as the Montreal Massacre, was a hate crime perpetrated on December 6, 1989 at the École Polytechnique in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Twenty-five-year-old Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi, who had changed his name to Marc Lépine, armed with a legally obtained... |
Montreal Montreal Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America... , Quebec Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.... |
December 6 | 1989 | 14 | |
| Concordia University massacre Concordia University massacre The Concordia University massacre was a school shooting on August 24, 1992 in which Dr. Valery I. Fabrikant, an associate professor of mechanical engineering, killed four colleagues and wounded a staff member at Concordia University in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He was convicted of murder and... |
Montreal Montreal Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America... , Quebec Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.... |
August 24 | 1992 | 4 | |
| W. R. Myers High School shooting W. R. Myers High School shooting The W. R. Myers High School shooting was a school shooting that occurred on April 28, 1999, at W. R. Myers High School in Taber, Alberta, Canada. The gunman, 14-year-old Todd Cameron Smith, walked into his school and began firing at three students in a hallway, killing one student and wounding... |
Taber, Alberta Alberta Alberta is a province of Canada. It had an estimated population of 3.7 million in 2010 making it the most populous of Canada's three prairie provinces... |
April 28 | 1999 | 1 | |
| Dawson College shooting Dawson College shooting The Dawson College shooting occurred on September 13, 2006 at Dawson College, a CEGEP in Westmount near downtown Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The perpetrator, Kimveer Gill, began shooting outside the de Maisonneuve Boulevard entrance to the school, and moved towards the atrium by the cafeteria on the... |
Montreal Montreal Montreal is a city in Canada. It is the largest city in the province of Quebec, the second-largest city in Canada and the seventh largest in North America... , Quebec Quebec Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level.... |
September 13 | 2006 | 1 | |
| C. W. Jefferys Collegiate Institute shooting | Toronto, Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa.... |
May 23 | 2007 | 1 | |
| Bendale Business and Technical Institute shooting | Toronto, Ontario Ontario Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa.... |
September 16 | 2008 | 0 | |
| Central Technical School shooting Central Technical School Central Technical School is a composite high school located at 725 Bathurst Street at Harbord Street in Toronto, Canada.C.T.S. offers a wide range of programs, including all core academic courses, as well as concentration and specialization in visual arts and technical studies. C.T.S... |
Toronto, Ontario | September 30 | 2010 | 0 |
Europe
| Name | Location | Date | Year | Death toll | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bremen school shooting Bremen school shooting The Bremen school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on June 20, 1913 at St. Mary's Catholic School in Walle, a quarter of Bremen, Germany... |
Bremen Bremen The City Municipality of Bremen is a Hanseatic city in northwestern Germany. A commercial and industrial city with a major port on the river Weser, Bremen is part of the Bremen-Oldenburg metropolitan area . Bremen is the second most populous city in North Germany and tenth in Germany.Bremen is... , Germany |
June 20 | 1913 | 5 | |
| Cologne school massacre Cologne School Massacre The Cologne school massacre occurred in a Catholic elementary school located at Volkhovener Weg 209 in the suburb of Volkhoven in Cologne, Germany on June 11, 1964. Walter Seifert, born on June 11, 1922, killed eight students and two teachers.... |
Cologne Cologne Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the... , Germany |
June 11 | 1964 | 10 | |
| Eppstein school shooting Eppstein school shooting The Eppstein school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on June 3, 1983, at the Freiherr-vom-Stein Gesamtschule in Eppstein-Vockenhausen, Germany. The gunman, 34-year-old Czech refugee Karel Charva, fatally shot three students, a teacher and a police officer and injured another 14 people... |
Eppstein Eppstein Eppstein is a town in the Main-Taunus-Kreis, in Hesse, Germany.-Geographical situation:Eppstein lies west of Frankfurt am Main, around 12 km north east of the state capital Wiesbaden, and is at the edge of the Taunus mountains.... , Germany |
June 3 | 1983 | 6 | |
| Jokela school shooting Jokela school shooting The Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed... |
Rauma Rauma, Finland Rauma is a town and municipality of ca. inhabitants on the west coast of Finland, north of Turku, and south of Pori. Granted town privileges on May 17, 1442 , Rauma is known of its high quality lace , and of the old wooden architecture of its centre , which is a Unesco world heritage... , Finland |
January 24 | 1989 | 2 | |
| Aarhus University Shooting Aarhus University Shooting On Tuesday, 5 April 1994 35-year-old Flemming Nielsen of Silkeborg shot four people, two of them fatally, at Aarhus University in Denmark. Nielsen had been a student at the university since 1986. He opened fire with a sawed-off shotgun in a university cafeteria where he killed his first victim,... |
Aarhus Aarhus Aarhus or Århus is the second-largest city in Denmark. The principal port of Denmark, Aarhus is on the east side of the peninsula of Jutland in the geographical center of Denmark... , Denmark |
April 5 | 1994 | 3 | |
| Dunblane massacre Dunblane massacre The Dunblane massacre was a multiple murder-suicide which occurred at Dunblane Primary School in the Scottish town of Dunblane on 13 March 1996. Sixteen children and one adult were killed by Thomas Hamilton before he committed suicide.-Timeline of events:... |
Dunblane Dunblane Dunblane is a small cathedral city and former burgh north of Stirling in the Stirling council area of Scotland. The town is situated off the A9 road, on the way north to Perth. Its main landmark is Dunblane Cathedral and the Allan Water runs through the town centre, with the Cathedral and the High... , United Kingdom |
March 13 | 1996 | 18 | |
| Erfurt massacre Erfurt massacre The Erfurt massacre was a school massacre that occurred on April 26, 2002 at the Gutenberg-Gymnasium in Erfurt, Germany. The gunman, 19-year-old expelled student Robert Steinhäuser, shot and killed sixteen people; comprising 13 faculty members, 2 students, and one police officer, before committing... |
Erfurt Erfurt Erfurt is the capital city of Thuringia and the main city nearest to the geographical centre of Germany, located 100 km SW of Leipzig, 150 km N of Nuremberg and 180 km SE of Hannover. Erfurt Airport can be reached by plane via Munich. It lies in the southern part of the Thuringian... , Germany |
April 26 | 2002 | 17 | |
| Coburg shooting Coburg shooting The Coburg shooting was an attempted school killing at Realschule II in Coburg, Germany during the morning of July 2, 2003.- History :He shot a school psychologist in the thigh when she attempted to take the gun from him. According to police reports, he then committed suicide by shooting himself in... |
Coburg Coburg Coburg is a town located on the Itz River in Bavaria, Germany. Its 2005 population was 42,015. Long one of the Thuringian states of the Wettin line, it joined with Bavaria by popular vote in 1920... , Germany |
July 3 | 2003 | 1 | |
| Terra College | The Hague The Hague The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam... , Netherlands |
January | 2004 | 1 | |
| Grund- und Hauptschule von Rötz shooting | Rötz (Oberpfalz), Germany | March 7 | 2005 | 0 | |
| Geschwister Scholl School attack | Emsdetten Emsdetten Emsdetten is a town in the district of Steinfurt, in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany.- Geography :Emsdetten is situated on the river Ems, approx... , Germany |
November 20 | 2006 | 1 | |
| Jokela school shooting Jokela school shooting The Jokela school massacre was a school shooting that occurred on November 7, 2007, at Jokela High School in Jokela, a town in the municipality of Tuusula, Finland. The gunman, 18-year-old student Pekka-Eric Auvinen, entered the school on that morning armed with a semi-automatic pistol. He killed... |
Tuusula Tuusula Tuusula is a municipality of Finland. It belongs to the Helsinki sub-region of the Uusimaa region. The municipality has a population of .-Geography:... , Finland |
November 7 | 2007 | 9 | |
| Kauhajoki school shooting Kauhajoki school shooting The Kauhajoki school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on 23 September 2008, at Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences in Kauhajoki, a city in Western Finland. The gunman, 22-year-old culinary arts student Matti Juhani Saari, shot and fatally injured ten people with a semi-automatic... |
Kauhajoki Kauhajoki Kauhajoki is a town and municipality of Finland. The city is unilingually Finnish.It is located in the province of Western Finland and is part of the Southern Ostrobothnia region. The population of Kauhajoki is and the municipality covers an area of of which is inland water... , Finland |
September 23 | 2008 | 11 | |
| Winnenden school shooting Winnenden school shooting The Winnenden school shooting occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at a secondary school in Winnenden, Baden-Württemberg, in southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator,... |
Winnenden Winnenden Winnenden is a small town in the Rems-Murr district of the Stuttgart Region in Baden-Württemberg in southwest Germany. It lies in a wine-growing area approx. northeast of Stuttgart and has a population of less than 28,000... , Germany |
March 11 | 2009 | 16 | |
| OAED Vocational College shooting OAED Vocational College shooting The OAED Vocational College shooting was a school shooting that occurred on April 10, 2009, at the Manpower Employment Organisation of Greece vocational college in Agios Ioannis Rentis, Athens, Greece, during which a gunman shot one student and two civilians before fatally shooting himself in a... |
Athens Athens Athens , is the capital and largest city of Greece. Athens dominates the Attica region and is one of the world's oldest cities, as its recorded history spans around 3,400 years. Classical Athens was a powerful city-state... , Greece |
April 10 | 2009 | 1 | |
| Kanebogen elementary school shooting | Harstad Harstad is the second largest city and municipality by population, in Troms county, Norway – the city is also the third largest in North Norway. Thus Harstad is the natural centre for its district. Situated approximately north of the Arctic Circle, the city celebrated its 100th anniversary in... , Norway |
April 28 | 2009 | 0 | |
| University of Pécs shooting University of Pécs The University of Pécs is the Hungarian university with the largest number of students and faculties.-History:... |
Pécs Pécs Pécs is the fifth largest city of Hungary, located on the slopes of the Mecsek mountains in the south-west of the country, close to its border with Croatia. It is the administrative and economical centre of Baranya county... , Hungary |
November 26 | 2009 | 1 | |
South America, Asia and Australia
| Name | Location | Date/Year | Death toll | Notes | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ma'alot massacre Ma'alot massacre The Ma'alot massacre was a terrorist attack which included a two-day hostage-taking of 115 people which ended in the deaths of over 25 hostages. It began when three armed Palestinian terrorists of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine entered Israel from Lebanon... |
Ma'alot, Israel | May 15, 1974 | 25 | |||||
| Tasmania, Australia | April 28, 1996 | 35 dead, 22 injured | Sanaa massacre Sanaa massacre The Sana'a school shooting was a school shooting that occurred in Sana'a, Yemen, on March 30, 1997. 48-year-old Mohammad Ahman al-Nazari – who had fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan – began his rampage at Tala'i Private School in the Asbahi township. Armed with an illegally obtained... |
Sana'a Sana'a -Districts:*Al Wahdah District*As Sabain District*Assafi'yah District*At Tahrir District*Ath'thaorah District*Az'zal District*Bani Al Harith District*Ma'ain District*Old City District*Shu'aub District-Old City:... , Yemen Yemen The Republic of Yemen , commonly known as Yemen , is a country located in the Middle East, occupying the southwestern to southern end of the Arabian Peninsula. It is bordered by Saudi Arabia to the north, the Red Sea to the west, and Oman to the east.... |
March 30, 1997 | 6 | ||
| University of the Philippines shooting | Quezon City Quezon City Quezon City is the former capital and the most populous city in the Philippines. Located on the island of Luzon, Quezon City is one of the cities and municipalities that make up Metro Manila, the National Capital Region. The city was named after Manuel L... , Philippines |
February 19, 1999 | 1 | |||||
| La Trobe University shooting La Trobe University shooting The La Trobe University shooting was a shooting that took place in the Eagle Bar at La Trobe University Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 3 August 1999 in which one man was killed and a woman was seriously injured.... |
Melbourne Melbourne Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater... , Australia |
August 3, 1999 | 1 | |||||
| Monash University shooting Monash University shooting The Monash University shooting refers to a shooting in which a student shot his classmates and teacher, killing two and injuring five. It took place at Monash University in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia on 21 October 2002. The gunman, Huan Yun Xiang, was acquitted of crimes related to the... |
Melbourne Melbourne Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater... , Australia |
October 21, 2002 | 2 | |||||
| Pak Phanang school shooting | Nakhon Si Thammarat Nakhon Si Thammarat Nakhon Si Thammarat is a town in southern Thailand, capital of the Nakhon Si Thammarat Province and the Nakhon Si Thammarat district. It is about south of Bangkok, on the east coast of the Malay Peninsula. The city was the administrative center of southern Thailand during most of its history. ... , Thailand Thailand Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the... |
June 6, 2003 | 2 | |||||
| Islas Malvinas School shooting | Carmen de Patagones Carmen de Patagones - Geography :It is located 937 km from the city of Buenos Aires, on the north bank of the Río Negro , near the Atlantic Ocean, and opposite Viedma, capital of the province of Río Negro... , Argentina Argentina Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires... |
September 28, 2004 | 4 | |||||
| Beirut Arab University shooting Beirut Arab University shooting The Beirut Arab University shooting happened on January 25, 2007 in the Beirut Arab University in the Lebanese capital. -Incident:Four people were shot dead in clashes between pro- and anti-government activists on Thursday and about 200 were hurt in the violence that flared after a scuffle between... |
Beirut Beirut Beirut is the capital and largest city of Lebanon, with a population ranging from 1 million to more than 2 million . Located on a peninsula at the midpoint of Lebanon's Mediterranean coastline, it serves as the country's largest and main seaport, and also forms the Beirut Metropolitan... , Lebanon Lebanon Lebanon , officially the Republic of LebanonRepublic of Lebanon is the most common term used by Lebanese government agencies. The term Lebanese Republic, a literal translation of the official Arabic and French names that is not used in today's world. Arabic is the most common language spoken among... |
January 25, 2007 | 4 | |||||
| Euro International school shooting Euro International school shooting The Euro International school shooting occurred on December 12, 2007 at Euro International, a private secondary school in Gurgaon, Haryana, India... |
Gurgaon Gurgaon Gurgaon is the second largest city in the Indian state of Haryana. Gurgaon is the industrial and financial center of Haryana. It is located 30 km south of national capital New Delhi, about 10 kilometers from Dwarka Sub City and 268 km south of Chandigarh, the state capital... , India |
December 12, 2007 | 1 | |||||
| Mercaz HaRav shooting | Jerusalem, Israel Israel The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea... |
March 6, 2008 | 9 | |||||
| Azerbaijan State Oil Academy shooting | Baku Baku Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal... , Azerbaijan |
April 30, 2009 | 13 | |||||
| Realengo massacre | Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th... , Brazil Brazil Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people... |
April 7, 2011 | 13 | |||||
| Port Arthur Massacre Port Arthur massacre The Port Arthur massacre of 28 April 1996 was a killing spree which claimed the lives of 35 people and wounded 21 others mainly at the historic Port Arthur prison colony, a popular tourist site in south-eastern Tasmania, Australia... |
Tasmania Tasmania Tasmania is an Australian island and state. It is south of the continent, separated by Bass Strait. The state includes the island of Tasmania—the 26th largest island in the world—and the surrounding islands. The state has a population of 507,626 , of whom almost half reside in the greater Hobart... , Australia Australia Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area... |
April 28, 1996 | 35 | | | ||||
Political impact
School shootings have had a political impact, spurring some to press for more stringent gun controlGun control
Gun control is any law, policy, practice, or proposal designed to restrict or limit the possession, production, importation, shipment, sale, and/or use of guns or other firearms by private citizens...
laws. The National Rifle Association
National Rifle Association
The National Rifle Association of America is an American non-profit 501 civil rights organization which advocates for the protection of the Second Amendment of the United States Bill of Rights and the promotion of firearm ownership rights as well as marksmanship, firearm safety, and the protection...
is opposed to such laws, and some groups have called for fewer gun control laws, citing cases of armed students ending shootings and halting further loss of life, and claiming that the prohibitions against carrying a gun in schools do not deter the gunmen. One such example is the Mercaz HaRav Massacre
Mercaz HaRav massacre
The Mercaz HaRav massacre, also called the Mercaz HaRav shooting, was an attack that occurred on 6 March 2008, in which a lone Palestinian gunman shot multiple students at the Mercaz HaRav yeshiva, a religious school in Jerusalem, Israel, after which the gunman himself was shot dead. Eight students...
, where the attacker was not stopped by police but rather a student, Yitzhak Dadon, who stopped the attacker by shooting him with his personal firearm which he lawfully carried concealed. At a Virginia law school
Appalachian School of Law shooting
The Appalachian School of Law shooting was a school shooting that occurred on January 16, 2002, at the Appalachian School of Law, an American Bar Association accredited private law school in Grundy, Virginia, United States...
, there is a disputed claim that two students retrieved pistols from their cars and stopped the attacker without firing a shot. Also, at a Mississippi high school
Pearl High School shooting
The Pearl High School shooting was a school shooting that took place on October 1, 1997 at Pearl High School in Pearl, Mississippi. The gunman, 16-year-old Luke Woodham , killed two students and injured seven others at his high school...
, the Vice Principal retrieved a firearm from his vehicle and then eventually stopped the attacker as he was driving away from the school. In other cases, such as shootings at Columbine and Red Lake High Schools, the presence of an armed police officer did nothing to prevent or shorten the shootings.
A ban
Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997
-Reaction to the ban:The pistol ban makes very few exceptions for people to own a cartridge handgun legally. This has resulted in the near complete cessation of recreational and competitive target shooting with handguns in Great Britain; Britons who wish to participate in these activities must now...
on the ownership of handguns was introduced in the United Kingdom (with the exception of Northern Ireland) following the Dunblane massacre
Dunblane massacre
The Dunblane massacre was a multiple murder-suicide which occurred at Dunblane Primary School in the Scottish town of Dunblane on 13 March 1996. Sixteen children and one adult were killed by Thomas Hamilton before he committed suicide.-Timeline of events:...
.
Armed classrooms
For years, some areas in the US have allowed "armed classrooms" to deter (or truncate) future attacks, presumably by changing helpless victims into armed defenders. In 2008, Harrold Independent School DistrictHarrold Independent School District
Harrold Independent School District is a public school district based in the community of Harrold, Texas located in far eastern Wilbarger County...
in Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
became the first public school district in the U.S. to allow teachers with state-issued firearm-carry permits to carry their arms in the classroom; special additional training and ricochet-resistant ammunition were required for participating teachers. Students at the University of Utah
University of Utah
The University of Utah, also known as the U or the U of U, is a public, coeducational research university in Salt Lake City, Utah, United States. The university was established in 1850 as the University of Deseret by the General Assembly of the provisional State of Deseret, making it Utah's oldest...
have been allowed to carry concealed pistols
Concealed carry
Concealed carry, or CCW , refers to the practice of carrying a handgun or other weapon in public in a concealed manner, either on one's person or in proximity.-In Canada:...
(so long as they possess the appropriate state license) since a State Supreme Court
State supreme court
In the United States, the state supreme court is the highest state court in the state court system ....
decision in 2006.
A commentary in the conservative National Review Online
National Review
National Review is a biweekly magazine founded by the late author William F. Buckley, Jr., in 1955 and based in New York City. It describes itself as "America's most widely read and influential magazine and web site for conservative news, commentary, and opinion."Although the print version of the...
argues that the armed school approach for preventing school attacks, while new in the US, has been used successfully for many years in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
and Thailand
Thailand
Thailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
. Teachers and school officials in Israel are allowed and encouraged to carry firearms if they have former military experience in the IDF
Israel Defense Forces
The Israel Defense Forces , commonly known in Israel by the Hebrew acronym Tzahal , are the military forces of the State of Israel. They consist of the ground forces, air force and navy. It is the sole military wing of the Israeli security forces, and has no civilian jurisdiction within Israel...
, which almost all do. However, statistics on what percentage of teachers are actually armed are unavailable.
See also
- List of school-related attacks
- School violenceSchool violenceSchool violence is widely held to have become a serious problem in recent decades in many countries, especially where weapons such as guns or knives are involved...
- Bullying
- School bullyingSchool bullyingSchool bullying is a type of bullying that occurs in connection with education, either inside or outside of school. Bullying can be physical, verbal, or emotional and is usually repeated over a period of time.In schools, bullying occurs in all areas...
- Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and ExplosivesBureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and ExplosivesThe Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is a federal law enforcement organization within the United States Department of Justice...
- Chencholai bombing, Sri LankaChencholai bombingChencholai bombing took place on August 14, 2006 when the Sri Lankan Air Force bombed what they stated was a rebel LTTE training camp killing at least 61 children between the ages of 16 and 18, all of them girls...
- Counter-terrorismCounter-terrorismCounter-terrorism is the practices, tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, militaries, police departments and corporations adopt to prevent or in response to terrorist threats and/or acts, both real and imputed.The tactic of terrorism is available to insurgents and governments...
- Federal Bureau of InvestigationFederal Bureau of InvestigationThe Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
- Incendiary deviceIncendiary deviceIncendiary weapons, incendiary devices or incendiary bombs are bombs designed to start fires or destroy sensitive equipment using materials such as napalm, thermite, chlorine trifluoride, or white phosphorus....
- Mass murderMass murderMass murder is the act of murdering a large number of people , typically at the same time or over a relatively short period of time. According to the FBI, mass murder is defined as four or more murders occurring during a particular event with no cooling-off period between the murders...
- Nagerkovil school bombing, Sri Lanka
- Social rejectionSocial rejectionSocial rejection occurs when an individual is deliberately excluded from a social relationship or social interaction. The topic includes both interpersonal rejection and romantic rejection. A person can be rejected on an individual basis or by an entire group of people...
- Suicide bombing
- SWATSWATA SWAT team is an elite tactical unit in various national law enforcement departments. They are trained to perform high-risk operations that fall outside of the abilities of regular officers...
- TerrorismTerrorismTerrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
- Youth subcultureYouth subcultureA youth subculture is a youth-based subculture with distinct styles, behaviors, and interests. Youth subcultures offer participants an identity outside of that ascribed by social institutions such as family, work, home and school...
External links
- "Are U.S. Schools Safe?" - CNNCNNCable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
In-Depth Special - "School Killers." - Crime LibraryCrime LibraryThe Crime Library is a website documenting major crimes, criminals, and trials, forensics, and criminal profiling from books, police reports, crime television shows, and writers...
- SchoolShooting.org - Map of school shootings in the US and related info.
- The Depressive and the Psychopath: The FBI's analysis of the Columbine killers' motives
- Schoolboy killing stuns Canada (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
) - BBC timeline of US school shootings
- Identity annihilation as explanation for school shootings
- Indianapolis Star: School violence around the world (November 2004)
- The Scene of the Crime Was the Cause of the Crime - Excerpt from Going Postal: Rage, Murder, and Rebellion—From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond by Mark AmesMark AmesMark Ames is a writer known for his work as a Moscow-based expatriate American journalist and editor. He is the founding editor of the satirical biweekly the eXile in Moscow, to which he regularly contributed before he returned to America...
. - Dreading Columbine - Sociological exploration of suburban school shootings.
- Deadly Lessons: Understanding Lethal School Violence
- Teaching Kids to Kill
- Chronology of School Shootings
- Held Hostage at Case Western
- Student Threat Assessment and Management System Guide
- Causes of school shootings. Reviewing the social interaction of pupils
- Horrific School Shootings - slideshow by Life magazine
- SchoolShooters.Info
Reports
- Mass Shootings at Virginia Tech Report of the Review Panel
- U.S. study of school shootings, "The Final Report and Findings of the Safe School Initiative"
- Advice for safe schools, Threat assessment in schools: A Guide to managing threatening situations and to creating safe school climates
- http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/Home.portal?_nfpb=true&ERICExtSearch_Operator_2=and&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=ti&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_2=&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_1=schonfeld&ERICExtSearch_Operator_1=and&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_1=au&ERICExtSearch_PubDate_To=2008&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=school+violence&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_2=kw&ERICExtSearch_SearchCount=2&ERICExtSearch_PubDate_From=0&_pageLabel=ERICSearchResult&newSearch=true&rnd=1202006730465&searchtype=advancedSchool Violence]