The response to a school shooting that occurred at the Seinäjoki University of Applied Sciences in Kauhajoki, a city in Western Finland, on 23 September 2008 was widespread. In the shooting, 22-year-old culinary arts student Matti Juhani Saari shot and killed ten people before committing suicide. Eight people had been killed ten months before in the Jokela school shooting in southern Finland.
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.
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 October 1, 2017, a mass shooting occurred when 64-year-old Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada from his 32nd-floor suites in the Mandalay Bay hotel. He fired more than 1,000 rounds, killing 60 people and wounding at least 413. The ensuing panic brought the total number of injured to approximately 867. About an hour later, he was found dead in his room from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The motive for the shooting is officially undetermined.
On November 13–14, 2017, a series of shootings occurred in Rancho Tehama, an unincorporated community in Tehama County, California, U.S. The gunman, 44-year-old Kevin Janson Neal, died by suicide after a Corning police officer rammed and stopped his stolen vehicle. During the shooting spree, five people were killed and eighteen others were injured at eight separate crime scenes, including an elementary school. Ten people suffered bullet wounds and eight were cut by flying glass caused by the gunfire. The injured victims were transported to several area clinics and hospitals.
On November 19, 2018, a mass shooting took place at the Mercy Hospital and Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois. An attending physician at the hospital, a police officer, and a pharmacy resident were killed. The gunman, later identified as Juan Lopez, the ex-fiancé of one of the victims, later died in a shootout with other responding officers.
On May 31, 2019, a mass shooting occurred at a municipal building in the Princess Anne area of Virginia Beach, Virginia. The gunman, DeWayne Craddock, who was a disgruntled city employee, fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others before he was killed by responding police officers. It is the second-deadliest workplace shooting in U.S. history after the 1986 Edmond post office shooting and the deadliest mass shooting in Virginia since the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting.
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.
On August 4, 2019, 24-year-old Connor Betts shot and killed nine people, including his brother, and wounded 17 others near the entrance of the Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon District of Dayton, Ohio. Betts was fatally shot by responding police officers 32 seconds after the first shots were fired. A total of 27 people were taken to area hospitals. It is the deadliest mass shooting to occur in Ohio since the 1975 Easter Sunday Massacre.
On August 31, 2019, a spree shooting occurred in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa, involving a gunman shooting multiple people from a vehicle. Eight people were killed, including the perpetrator, and twenty-five people were injured, including three police officers. It was the third major mass shooting to take place in the United States in August 2019, following the El Paso Walmart shooting and the Dayton shooting.
On November 14, 2019, at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, California, United States, a school shooting occurred when a student with a pistol, identified as 16-year-old Nathaniel Berhow, shot five schoolmates, killing two, before killing himself.
On April 18 and 19, 2020, 51-year-old Gabriel Wortman committed multiple shootings and set fires at sixteen locations in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia, killing twenty-two people and injuring three others before he was shot and killed by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) in the community of Enfield. The attacks are the deadliest shooting rampage in Canadian history, exceeding the 1989 École Polytechnique massacre in Montreal, where fourteen women were killed.
On March 22, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a King Soopers supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, United States. Ten people were killed, including a local on-duty police officer. The shooter, 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Al-Issa, was arrested after being shot in the right leg. He was temporarily hospitalized before being moved to the county jail. After undergoing mental evaluations during the legal proceedings, Al-Issa was found mentally incompetent to stand trial in December 2021 and in April 2022. On August 23, 2023, prosecutors announced that Al-Issa was mentally competent to stand trial; a judge ruled as such on October 6 of that same year. On September 23, 2024, Al-Issa was found guilty in the shooting and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
On April 15, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis, Indiana, United States. Nine people were killed, including the gunman, 19-year-old former employee Brandon Scott Hole, who committed suicide. Seven others were injured, including four by gunfire. It is the deadliest workplace shooting in the history of Indiana.
On May 26, 2021, a mass shooting occurred at a Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) rail yard in San Jose, California, United States. A 57-year-old VTA employee, Samuel James Cassidy, shot and killed nine VTA employees before committing suicide. It is the deadliest mass shooting in the history of the San Francisco Bay Area.
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.
On 12 August 2022, a spree shooting occurred in Cetinje, Montenegro. Ten people were killed, including two children, and six others were wounded. The gunman, identified as 33-year-old Vučko Borilović, was shot and killed after engaging in a gun battle with police officers.
On October 13, 2022, a mass shooting took place in the Hedingham neighborhood of Raleigh, North Carolina, United States. Five people were killed, and two others were injured. The accused, a male juvenile named Austin Thompson, was detained after being cornered by police at a nearby residence and was in critical condition from a gunshot wound to the head sustained during the incident. Thompson survived his head injury and has begun to receive physical rehabilitation. He was transferred from a hospital to the medical unit of a juvenile correctional facility.
On October 24, 2022, a mass shooting occurred at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in the Southwest Garden neighborhood of St. Louis, Missouri, United States when a 19-year-old former student opened fire on students and staff, killing two and injuring seven before being fatally shot by police.
