A school shooting is an armed attack at an educational institution, such as a primary school, secondary school, high school or university, involving the use of a firearm. Many school shootings are also categorized as mass shootings due to multiple casualties. The phenomenon is most widespread in the United States, which has the highest number of school-related shootings, although school shootings take place elsewhere in the world. Especially in the United States, school shootings have sparked a political debate over gun violence, zero tolerance policies, gun rights and gun control.
The Hungerford massacre was a spree shooting in Wiltshire and Berkshire, United Kingdom, which occurred on 19 August 1987 when 27-year-old Michael Ryan shot and killed sixteen people, including an unarmed police officer and his own mother, before killing himself. No firm motive for the killings has been established.
In the United Kingdom, gun ownership is considered a privilege, not a right, and access by the general public to firearms is subject to strict control measures. Members of the public may own certain firearms for the purposes of sport shooting, recreation, hunting or occupational purposes. Possession is subject to licensing.
The San Ysidro McDonald's massacre was a mass murder, which occurred at a McDonald's restaurant in the San Ysidro neighborhood of San Diego, California, on July 18, 1984. The perpetrator, 41-year-old James Huberty, fatally shot 21 people and wounded 19 others before being killed by a police sniper approximately 77 minutes after he had first opened fire.
Moulton is a village in the civil parish of The Moultons, in the South Holland district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated on the A151 and B1537 roads, 5 miles (8.0 km) east from the centre of Spalding and 3.5 miles (5.6 km) west from Holbeach.
An active shooter is the perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting. The term is primarily used to characterize shooters who are targeting victims indiscriminately and at a large scale, who oftentimes, will either commit suicide or intend to be killed by police. More generally, an active perpetrator of a mass murder may be referred to as an active killer.
The Cumbria shootings were a shooting spree that occurred on 2 June 2010 when a lone gunman, taxi driver Derrick Bird, killed twelve people and injured eleven others in Cumbria, England, United Kingdom. Along with the 1987 Hungerford massacre and the 1996 Dunblane school massacre, it is one of the worst criminal acts involving firearms in British history. The shootings ended when Bird killed himself in a wooded area after abandoning his car in the village of Boot.
The 2011 Hectorville siege took place between the hours of 2:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. on Friday, 29 April 2011, at the small suburb of Hectorville, east of Adelaide in the state of South Australia, Australia. It began after a 39-year-old resident of the suburb, later identified as Donato Anthony Corbo, entered his neighbours' property and shot four people, killing three and severely wounding one. An eight-hour stand-off with police followed, during which time he shot and wounded two officers. The stand-off culminated in his arrest by members of the Special Tasks and Rescue unit of South Australia Police.
A mass shooting is a violent crime in which one or more attackers use a firearm to kill or injure multiple individuals in rapid succession. There is no widely accepted specific definition, and different organizations tracking such incidents use different criteria. Mass shootings are generally characterized by the targeting of victims in a non-combat setting, and thus the term generally excludes gang violence, shootouts and warfare. Mass shootings may be done for personal or psychological reasons, such as by individuals who are deeply disgruntled, seeking notoriety, or are intensely angry at a perceived grievance; though they have also been used as a terrorist tactic, such as when members of an ethnic or religious minority are targeted. The perpetrator of an ongoing mass shooting may be referred to as an active shooter.
On October 21, 2012, a shooting occurred at the Azana Spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, a suburb of Milwaukee. Four people, including the shooter by suicide, died in the incident; four others were injured. The shooter was identified as 45-year-old Radcliffe Franklin Haughton, the estranged husband of a spa worker killed in the shooting.
In the early morning of December 24, 2012, William Spengler, a 62-year-old man living in West Webster, New York, a suburb of Rochester, deliberately set his home and vehicle on fire. He then perpetrated a mass shooting, firing upon first responders. Spengler killed two firefighters, and injured two more and a police officer, before committing suicide. The badly burnt corpse of his sister was later found in his home.
The Moncton shootings were a string of shootings that took place on June 4, 2014, in Moncton, in the Canadian province of New Brunswick. The perpetrator, Justin Bourque, a 24-year-old Moncton resident, walked around the northern area of the city and shot five officers from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), killing three and severely injuring two. A manhunt for Bourque was launched and continued overnight and into June 5. On June 6, Bourque was found and taken into custody, ending a manhunt that lasted over 28 hours. The shooting was both Moncton's first homicide since 2010 and the deadliest attack on the RCMP since the Mayerthorpe tragedy in 2005, which left four RCMP officers dead. Bourque intended for the shootings to trigger a rebellion against the Canadian government. He was sentenced to 75 years in prison, with no eligibility for parole until after serving 25 years.
Mass shootings are incidents involving multiple victims of firearm related violence. Definitions vary, with no single, broadly accepted definition. One definition is an act of public firearm violence—excluding gang killings, domestic violence, or terrorist acts sponsored by an organization—in which a shooter kills at least four victims.
On 18 July 2016, Ruslan Kulikbayev, a 26-year-old Salafi jihadist and ex-convict, shot and killed 10 people—8 police officers and 2 civilians—in the city of Almaty, Kazakhstan before being apprehended in a chase and shootout with law enforcement. In addition to Kulikbayev, police arrested five other suspects involved in the attack, while officers shot and killed a sixth suspect. While in custody, Kulikbayev confessed to the attack, claiming he perpetrated it due to a hatred of law enforcement.
On 5 June 2017, Yacqub Khayre, a 29-year-old Somali-born Australian, murdered a receptionist and held a sex worker hostage at the Buckingham International Serviced Apartments, located in Brighton, a suburb of Melbourne, Australia. In a subsequent shoot-out with a police tactical unit, Khayre was killed and three police officers were wounded. Police consider the siege an act of terrorism.
On July 28, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at the Gilroy Garlic Festival in Gilroy, California. The gunman killed three people and wounded 17 others before killing himself after a shootout with responding police officers.
The Ostrava hospital attack was a mass shooting that occurred on 10 December 2019 at the Ostrava University Hospital in Ostrava, Czech Republic. A total of seven people were killed in the attack, and two others were injured. The illegally armed perpetrator, 42-year-old Ctirad Vitásek, left the scene before the police arrived and committed suicide as police closed in on him later during the day. The perpetrator had three previous criminal convictions, including one for a violent crime, and a previous hospitalization in a psychiatric ward.
On 12 August 2021, a mass shooting occurred in Keyham, Plymouth, England. The gunman, 22-year-old Jake Davison from Plymouth, shot and killed five people, including his mother and a 3-year-old girl. Davison also injured two others before fatally shooting himself. The inquest jury returned a verdict of unlawful killing of all of the victims.
The Heidelberg University shooting occurred on 24 January 2022, when an 18-year-old male student, Nikolai G., opened fire on a crowd during an ongoing lecture in Heidelberg University in Baden-Württemberg, Germany, killing one student and injuring three others. The shooter then fled the scene and later committed suicide by shooting himself.
