A look at deadliest school shootings; Texas leads the way
An 18-year-old gunman massacred 21 people, including 19 children and two adults at an elementary school in Texas on Tuesday. This is the second mass shooting in the US in the past 10 days, prompting President Joe Biden to denounce the country's gun lobby. The motive of the gunman, identified as Salvador Ramos, is yet to be ascertained.
School shootings in the US are not rare occurrences and Tuesday's incident prompted the president to say, "These kinds of mass shootings rarely happen anywhere else in the world." There have been several such incidents in the US over the years, however, until the Colorado Columbine High School in 1999, the number of dead was always in the single digits, the Associated Press reported.
According to research by Everytown for Gun Safety, a non-profit organization that was formed after the deadly 2012 shooting at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Texas has had the highest school shooting incidents in the United States since 2013.
#1 Michigan's Oxford High School, December 2021: A fellow student at the school killed three students and injured several others at the Oxford High School in Michigan. #2 Santa Fe High School, May 2018: A 17-year-old opened fire at a Houston-area high school, killing 10 people, most of them students. The suspect was charged with murder.
#3 Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, February 2018: As many as 14 students and three staff members were killed at the school in Parkland, Florida by a 20-year-old, the suspect was charged with murder. #4 Umpqua Community College, October 2015: A man killed nine persons and injured nine others at the school in Roseburg, Oregon. He then killed himself.
#5 Sandy Hook Elementary School, December 2012: A 19-year-old man killed his mother in Newtown, Connecticut before killing 20 first-graders and six educators at the Sandy Hook Elementary School. He took his own life. #6 Virginia Tech, April 2007: A 23-year-old student killed 32 people on the campus in Virginia's Blacksburg in April 2007. The gunman killed himself after injuring 24 others.
#7 Red Lake High School, March 2005: A 16-year-old killed his grandfather and the man's companion in Minnesota before killing five students, a teacher, and a security guard at the school. He then shot himself. #8 Columbine High school, April 1999: Two students killed 12 of their peers and one teacher at the school in Colorado. They also injured many others before killing themselves.
