A look At Some Of The Deadliest School Shootings In The United States
The shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, which killed 19 children and two adults, is the 27th this year. Texas Governor Greg Abbott confirmed that the shooter in Tuesday’s tragic incident was killed. The horrific mass murder compelled us to dig through the data and bring you some of the deadliest school shootings in the United States.
There have been dozens of shootings and other attacks in US schools and colleges throughout the years, but the number of fatalities tended to be in the single digits until the murder at Colorado’s Columbine High School in 1999. Since then, the number of school-related shootings that have killed ten or more people has increased. The most recent two occurred in Texas.
May 2022, Robb Elementary School
An 18-year-old gunman opened fire at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, killing 19 children and two adults. The 18-year-old attacker was killed by police.
May 2018, Santa Fe High School
A 17-year-old opened fire at a high school in the Houston region, killing ten people, the majority of whom were students. The defendant has been charged with first-degree murder.
February 2018, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
A school shooting in Parkland, Florida, killed 14 students and three staff members and injured many others. The suspect, a 20-year-old man, was charged with murder.
October 2015, Umpqua Community College
A man killed nine people and injured nine more at a school in Roseburg, Oregon, before killing himself.
December 2012, Sandy Hook Elementary School
A 19-year-old man murdered his mother at their Newtown, Connecticut, home before going to Sandy Hook Elementary School and killing 20 first-graders and six educators. He committed suicide.
April 2007, Virginia Tech
In April 2007, a 23-year-old student at the University of Blacksburg, Virginia, killed 32 people and injured more than two dozen people. The gunman then killed himself.
March 2005, Red Lake High School
A 16-year-old student murdered his grandfather and the man’s companion at their Minnesota home before going to nearby Red Lake High School and killing five students, a teacher, and a security officer. He later shot himself.
April 1999, Columbine High School
At the school in Littleton, Colorado, two adolescents killed 12 of their classmates and one teacher before killing themselves.
This year itself, the United States has seen more than 200 mass shootings
As of Tuesday, the Gun Violence Archive, an independent data collection organisation, had tallied 212 mass shootings this year. A mass shooting is defined as an incident in which four or more persons are shot or killed, excluding the shooter.
Data on the mass shootings that have occurred so far this year can be found here.
The U.S. ended 2021 with 693 mass shootings, per the Gun Violence Archive. The year before saw 611. And 2019 had 417.
Since 2018, Education Week has been tracking school shootings. Since then, 119 such events have occurred, according to its database.
This year alone, there were 27 school shootings in the United States with injuries or deaths.
Read: Texas School Shooting: 19 Children Killed
