The Columbine High School massacre, commonly referred to as Columbine, was a school shooting and attempted bombing that occurred on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School in Columbine, Colorado, United States. The perpetrators, twelfth-grade students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, murdered twelve students and one teacher. Ten of the twelve students killed were in the school library, where Harris and Klebold subsequently died by suicide. Twenty-one additional people were injured by gunshots, and gunfire was also exchanged with the police. Another three people were injured trying to escape. The Columbine massacre was the deadliest mass shooting at a K-12 school in U.S. history, until it was surpassed by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in December 2012, and later the Uvalde school shooting in May 2022, and the deadliest mass shooting at a high school in U.S. history until the Parkland high school shooting in February 2018. Columbine still remains both the deadliest mass shooting and the deadliest school shooting to occur in the U.S. state of Colorado.
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 have taken place elsewhere in the world.
The Ma'alot massacre was a Palestinian terrorist attack that occurred on 14–15 May 1974 and involved the hostage-taking of 115 Israelis, chiefly school children, which ended in the murder of 25 hostages and six other civilians. It began when three armed members of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) infiltrated Israel from Lebanon. Soon afterwards they attacked a van, killing two Israeli Arab women while injuring a third, and entered an apartment building in the town of Ma'alot, where they killed a couple and their four-year-old son. From there, they headed for the Netiv Meir Elementary School in Ma'alot, where in the early hours of 15 May 1974 they took hostage more than 115 people including 105 children. Most of the hostages were 14- to 16-years-old students from a high school in Safad on a pre-military Gadna field trip spending the night in Ma'alot. The hostage-takers soon issued demands for the release of 23 Palestinian militants and 3 others from Israeli prisons, or else they would kill the students. The Israeli side agreed, but the hostage-takers failed to get an expected coded message from Damascus. On 15 May, minutes before the 18:00 deadline set by the DFLP for killing the hostages, the Sayeret Matkal commandoes stormed the building. During the takeover, the hostage-takers killed children with grenades and automatic weapons. Ultimately, 25 hostages, including 22 children, were killed and 68 more were injured.
A shootout, also called a firefight, gunfight, or gun battle, is a combat situation between armed parties using guns. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used in a non-military context or to describe combat situations primarily using firearms.
The East Carter High School shooting occurred on January 18, 1993, in Grayson, Kentucky, United States. The incident occurred when 17-year-old Gary Scott Pennington walked into an English classroom and fatally shot his teacher Deanna McDavid and head custodian Marvin Hicks, and held classmates hostage for 15 minutes before surrendering to police.
The Winnenden school shooting occurred on the morning of 11 March 2009 at the Albertville-Realschule, a secondary school in Winnenden, southwestern Germany, followed by a shootout at a car dealership in nearby Wendlingen. The shooting spree resulted in 16 deaths, including the suicide of the perpetrator, 17-year-old Tim Kretschmer, who had graduated from the school a year earlier. Nine people were injured during the incident.
A series of uncoordinated mass stabbings, hammer attacks, and cleaver attacks in the People's Republic of China began in March 2010. The spate of attacks left at least 90 dead and some 473 injured. As most cases had no known motive, analysts have blamed mental health problems caused by rapid social change for the rise in these kinds of mass murder and murder-suicide incidents.
The Raumanmeri school shooting was a school shooting that occurred on 25 January 1989 at the Raumanmeri secondary school in Rauma, Finland. It was the first school shooting in the history of Finland. A 14-year-old student at the Raumanmeri secondary school fatally shot two of his classmates using a pistol that belonged to his father. The shooter had claimed to be a victim of bullying. Due to the perpetrator being under the age of 15, he never faced any criminal charges for the attack.
The Franklin Regional High School stabbing was a mass stabbing that occurred on April 9, 2014, at Franklin Regional High School in Murrysville, Pennsylvania. Alex Hribal, a 16-year-old sophomore at the school, used a pair of eight-inch kitchen knives to stab and slash 20 students and a security guard. Four students sustained life-threatening injuries, but all survived.
On January 18, 2017, 15-year-old high school student Federico Guevara opened fire with a .22 caliber handgun inside a classroom at Colegio Americano del Noreste in Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico. Guevara then attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself but missed, then ran out of ammunition. Students Ana Cecilia Ramos and Luis Fernando Martínez, both 14 years old, and 24-year-old teacher Cecilia Cristina Solís, suffered critical head injuries. They were listed in critical condition. After two months, Cecilia died in the hospital. 14-year-old Mariel Chávez suffered an arm injury but was declared stable. Guevara had psychological problems.
On April 10, 2017, a shooting occurred inside a special education classroom at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California. The shooting was an apparent murder–suicide and an act of domestic violence. Three people—the gunman; his wife, who taught at the school; and a student standing behind her—died from their wounds. Another student was wounded and hospitalized.
In the morning of October 20, 2017, an unnamed 14-year-old student of the private school Goyases, in Goiânia, Brazil opened fire against his classmates with a .40-caliber Taurus PT100 pistol, leaving two dead, and four injured. He tried to commit suicide but was convinced not to by a school teacher, being arrested minutes after the incident.
The Aztec High School shooting was a school shooting and murder–suicide that occurred on December 7, 2017, at Aztec High School in Aztec, New Mexico, United States. The perpetrator, William Atchison, a 21-year-old former student, entered the school in the morning disguised as a student and hid in the school restroom. He was discovered before he could launch a major attack, but fatally shot two students before killing himself. Investigators believe that the quick actions of the teachers in barricading doors to the classrooms helped prevent mass casualties.
On January 10, 2020, an 11-year-old student identified as José Ángel Ramos Betts, armed with two guns, opened fire at the facilities of Colegio Cervantes Campus Bosque, a private school in Torreón, Coahuila, Mexico, killing a teacher and wounding multiple teachers and classmates shortly before turning the gun on himself. The assailant wore a white t-shirt that read "Natural selection" and pants with black suspenders, which were reported as referring to Eric Harris, one of the perpetrators of the Columbine High School massacre.
On 11 May 2021, a school shooting and bomb attack occurred in Kazan, Tatarstan, in the western part of Russia. Nine people were murdered, and 23 others were injured. The 19-year-old shooter, Ilnaz Galyaviev, was identified as a former student. He pleaded guilty to the murder of two or more persons on 12 May and was sentenced to life imprisonment in April 2023.
On January 6, 2023, American school teacher Abby Zwerner was seriously injured when a six-year-old male student shot her while she was teaching in her classroom at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, Virginia. The boy had brought from home, in his backpack, a 9mm semi-automatic pistol belonging to his mother.
On September 28, 2023, a stabbing occurred at Elena García Armada Institute in Jerez de la Frontera, Andalusia, Spain, when a teenage student stabbed 3 teachers and 2 pupils, injuring them using 2 knives, the suspect was later found in the school and arrested.
