School shootings

A school shooting is an incident in which gun violence occurs at an educational institution.

Definition
The term school shooting is most commonly used to describe 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 South Carolina State, Kent State and Jackson State universities 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.

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.

Profiling
School shooting is a topic of intense interest in the United States. Though companies like MOSAIC Threat Assessment Systems 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, instead of looking for traits, the Secret Service urges adults to ask about behavior:

1. What has this child said? 2. Do they have grievances? 3. What do their friends know? 4. Do they have access to weapons? 5. Are they depressed or despondent?

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.

1700s
The earliest known United States shooting to happen on school property was the Pontiac's Rebellion school massacre on July 26, 1764, where four Lenape American Indians entered the schoolhouse near present-day Greencastle, Pennsylvania, shot and killed schoolmaster Enoch Brown, and killed nine or ten children (reports vary). Only three children survived.

1800s

 * November 2, 1853: Louisville, Kentucky 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 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 one 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 at 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 crowded 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.

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, Illinois 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 attempt 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 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, Ohio 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, Illinois 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 Carolina 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, California 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, Illinois 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, Michigan 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 York Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed dean J. Herman Wharton in his office at Syracuse University before committing suicide.
 * May 18, 1927: Bath, Michigan School treasurer Andrew Kehoe, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew up the Bath Consolidated School 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 set off a truck bomb, 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, California 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, Massachusetts. 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, Nebraska, 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, Pennsylvania, 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, Ohio 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 6, 1940: South Pasadena, California. 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 York 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, Pennsylvania, 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 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 City 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 City 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 City 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, Ohio, Ohio State University freshman James Heer grabbed a .45 caliber handgun from the room of a Delta Tau Delta 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 Society at Columbia University 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, Illinois 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.
 * May 15, 1954: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Putnam Davis Jr. was shot and killed during a fraternity house carnival at the Phi Delta Theta house at the University of North Carolina. 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, Pennsylvania 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.
 * May 4, 1956: in Prince George's County, Maryland, 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 York 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 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, Indiana 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, Minnesota 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.
 * October 17, 1961: Denver, Colorado 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 Massacre Charles Whitman 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, Arizona 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, Florida 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 Carolina In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, about 200 mostly student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University, 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, Florida 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, 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, Wisconsin 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 killings in May 1970, where police opened fire on the campus of Jackson State University and the Kent State shootings also in May 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 16-year-old Brenda Ann Spencer opened fire with a rifle, a gift from her father, killing 2 and wounding 9.

1980s
The early 1980s continued much as the 1970s had been, many single shootings;


 * April 7, 1982: Littleton, Colorado Deer Creek Jr. High School, The gunman, 14-year-old Jason Rocha, was a student at Deer Creek. Rocha shot and killed 13 year-old Scott Darwin Michael.

The early 1980s saw only a few multi-victim school shootings including;


 * 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):


 * 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, " 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 30 wounded by a single gunman firing over 100 rounds into a schoolyard from an AK-47, in which the perpetrator later took his life.

1990s
From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in guns and gun violence in the schools. According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health "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):


 * 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 1990s started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings including;


 * January 12, 1995: Seattle Washington A student left school during the day and returned with his grandfather's 9mm. He wounded two students. The incident is portrayed in the documentary Cease Fire.


 * October 12, 1995: Blackville, South Carolina A suspended student shot two math teachers with a .32 caliber revolver.


 * November 15, 1995: Lynnville, Tennessee A 17-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.

14-year-old John Kamel was fatally shot in the chest at 8:40 a.m. outside school on a sidewalk by 14-year-old Tronneal Mangum, after an argument over an Adidas watch that Mangum had taken from Kamel.
 * November 27, 1997: West Palm Beach, Florida Conniston Middle School


 * 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, shot to death by their son


 * 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 14 students (including shooters) and one teacher killed, 27 others wounded at Columbine High School. 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

2000s

 * May 26, 2000: Lake Worth, Florida Lake Worth Middle School Barry Grunow was fatally shot by his student, 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, who had returned to school after being sent home at 1 p.m. by the assistant principal for throwing water balloons. Brazill returned to school on his bike with a 5 inch Raven, and four bullets stolen from his grandfather the week before. Brazill was an honor student. Grunow was a popular teacher and Brazill's favorite.


 * 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 (38 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.)

2010s - Present

 * February 27, 2012: Chardon, Ohio Chardon High School, T.J. Lane, 17, took a .22-caliber pistol and a knife to Chardon High and firing 10 shots at a group of students sitting at a cafeteria table resulting in the death of 3 and wounding 2.


 * 2009–2010 (5 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
 * 2010-2011 (12 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
 * 2011-2012 (11 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)

Political impact
School shootings have had a political impact, spurring some to press for more stringent gun control 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.

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 District 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. In addition to Utah, Wisconsin and Mississippi each have legislation that allow students, faculty and employees with the proper permit, to carry concealed weapons on their public university's campuses. Colorado and Oregon state courts have ruled in favor of Campus Carry laws by denying University's proposals to ban guns on campus. Ruling that the UC Board of Regents and the Oregon University System did not have the authority to ban weapons on campus. A selective ban was then re-instated, wherein Oregon state universities enacted a ban on guns in school building and sporting events or by anyone contracted with the university in question.

Michigan State University as of June 2009, allows students to carry firearms on campus,the university still prohibits knives and other non-firearm weapons however.

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.

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
 * School Violence