School Shootings In America: Deadliest US School Shootings

For decades, gun violence has been a concern in the United States, attracting condemnation and calls for stricter restrictions, particularly in the aftermath of school shootings.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), there were 19,350 firearm homicides in the United States in 2020, up nearly 35% from 2019.

The deadliest School Shooting in the United States occurred on April 16 2007 in Blacksburg, Virginia. Seung-Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student at Virginia Tech, killed 32 students and faculty members in two separate attacks before committing suicide.

He shot one student in a dorm room, then another who came to help; two hours later, he blocked the main door of a school building and opened fire in multiple classrooms, killing twenty-five students and five faculty members and wounding seventeen others.

The second deadliest occurred on December 14, 2021, in Newtown, Connecticut at  Sandy Hook Elementary School where 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed twenty-seven people and himself.

The Columbine High School massacre, in which 18-year-old Eric Harris and 17-year-old Dylan Klebold, both students at the school, killed twelve students and one teacher, was another of the deadliest school shootings.

After killing two students in the schoolyard and fatally wounding a teacher in the hallway, they killed the rest of their victims in the school library.