The deadliest school shooting in the United States as of August 11, 2025, was the Virginia Tech massacre, with 32 fatalities and 23 injuries. The next deadliest school shooting (based on fatalities) was the Sandy Hook Elementary massacre in Newtown, Connecticut, with 27 fatalities. School shootings in the U.S. Mass shootings in the United States have become a disturbingly common occurrence, and sadly, so have school shootings. The Columbine school shooting is perhaps the most famous in the country’s history, and since 1999 (when the shooting occurred), the number of school shootings has only increased. Many measures have been used to try to prevent school shootings, including security guards and metal detectors being deployed in schools, and even the suggestion that teachers be allowed to carry guns in schools. Gun control Gun control in the United States is a sticky issue, since gun ownership is enshrined in the Constitution. Some advocate for stricter gun control laws to try to prevent future mass shootings, while others say that this is unconstitutional. Gun ownership rates in the U.S. are high, with the share of American households owning at least one firearm remaining relatively steady since 1972.

As of June 19, 116 school shooting incidents were recorded in K-12 schools in the United States in 2025. Within the provided time period, the greatest number of K-12 school shootings was recorded in 2023, at 350. The source defines a school shooting as every time a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason, regardless of the number of victims (including zero), time, day or the week, or reason, including gang shootings, domestic violence, shootings at sports games and after hours school events, suicides, fights that escalate into shootings, and accidents.

As of March 19, ***** school shootings were recorded in the United States in 2025, impacting K-12 school grounds and college campuses nationwide. In comparison, there were ** school shooting incidents recorded in 2024. In addition to schools, gun-related violence occurs in many public places within the United States, including workplaces, churches, restaurants, and nightclubs. The source defines school shootings as incidents of gun violence which occurred on school property and at least one person was shot, not including the shooter. School property includes, but is not limited to, buildings, fields, parking lots, stadiums and buses. Accidental discharges of firearms are included, as long as at least one person is shot, but not if the sole shooter is law enforcement or school security.

As of August 11, 14 people were killed in mass shootings in the United States in 2025. A total of 1,173 victims were fatally injured during mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and August 11, 2025.

This dataset lists the number of well known school shootings by state. Some states have had more incidents than others. School shooting is a term popularized in American and Canadian media to describe gun violence at educational institutions, especially the mass murder or spree killing of people connected with an institution. A school shooting can be perpetrated by one or more students, expelled students, alumni, faculty members, or outsiders. Unlike acts of revenge against specific people, school shootings usually involve multiple intended or actual victims, often randomly targeted. Source: Wikipedia section on school shootings http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shootings#List_of_school_shootings

THIS DATASET WAS LAST UPDATED AT 8:11 AM EASTERN ON SEPT. 22

OVERVIEW

2019 had the most mass killings since at least the 1970s, according to the Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings Database.

In all, there were 45 mass killings, defined as when four or more people are killed excluding the perpetrator. Of those, 33 were mass shootings . This summer was especially violent, with three high-profile public mass shootings occurring in the span of just four weeks, leaving 38 killed and 66 injured.

A total of 229 people died in mass killings in 2019.

The AP's analysis found that more than 50% of the incidents were family annihilations, which is similar to prior years. Although they are far less common, the 9 public mass shootings during the year were the most deadly type of mass murder, resulting in 73 people's deaths, not including the assailants.

One-third of the offenders died at the scene of the killing or soon after, half from suicides.

About this Dataset

The Associated Press/USA TODAY/Northeastern University Mass Killings database tracks all U.S. homicides since 2006 involving four or more people killed (not including the offender) over a short period of time (24 hours) regardless of weapon, location, victim-offender relationship or motive. The database includes information on these and other characteristics concerning the incidents, offenders, and victims.

The AP/USA TODAY/Northeastern database represents the most complete tracking of mass murders by the above definition currently available. Other efforts, such as the Gun Violence Archive or Everytown for Gun Safety may include events that do not meet our criteria, but a review of these sites and others indicates that this database contains every event that matches the definition, including some not tracked by other organizations.

This data will be updated periodically and can be used as an ongoing resource to help cover these events.

Using this Dataset

To get basic counts of incidents of mass killings and mass shootings by year nationwide, use these queries:

Mass killings by year

Mass shootings by year

To get these counts just for your state:

Filter killings by state

Definition of "mass murder"

Mass murder is defined as the intentional killing of four or more victims by any means within a 24-hour period, excluding the deaths of unborn children and the offender(s). The standard of four or more dead was initially set by the FBI.

This definition does not exclude cases based on method (e.g., shootings only), type or motivation (e.g., public only), victim-offender relationship (e.g., strangers only), or number of locations (e.g., one). The time frame of 24 hours was chosen to eliminate conflation with spree killers, who kill multiple victims in quick succession in different locations or incidents, and to satisfy the traditional requirement of occurring in a “single incident.”

Offenders who commit mass murder during a spree (before or after committing additional homicides) are included in the database, and all victims within seven days of the mass murder are included in the victim count. Negligent homicides related to driving under the influence or accidental fires are excluded due to the lack of offender intent. Only incidents occurring within the 50 states and Washington D.C. are considered.

Methodology

Project researchers first identified potential incidents using the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Supplementary Homicide Reports (SHR). Homicide incidents in the SHR were flagged as potential mass murder cases if four or more victims were reported on the same record, and the type of death was murder or non-negligent manslaughter.

Cases were subsequently verified utilizing media accounts, court documents, academic journal articles, books, and local law enforcement records obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Each data point was corroborated by multiple sources, which were compiled into a single document to assess the quality of information.

In case(s) of contradiction among sources, official law enforcement or court records were used, when available, followed by the most recent media or academic source.

Case information was subsequently compared with every other known mass murder database to ensure reliability and validity. Incidents listed in the SHR that could not be independently verified were excluded from the database.

Project researchers also conducted extensive searches for incidents not reported in the SHR during the time period, utilizing internet search engines, Lexis-Nexis, and Newspapers.com. Search terms include: [number] dead, [number] killed, [number] slain, [number] murdered, [number] homicide, mass murder, mass shooting, massacre, rampage, family killing, familicide, and arson murder. Offender, victim, and location names were also directly searched when available.

This project started at USA TODAY in 2012.

Contacts

Contact AP Data Editor Justin Myers with questions, suggestions or comments about this dataset at jmyers@ap.org. The Northeastern University researcher working with AP and USA TODAY is Professor James Alan Fox, who can be reached at j.fox@northeastern.edu or 617-416-4400.

As of August 11, there were four mass shootings in the United States in 2025. This is compared to one mass shooting in 1982, one in 2000, and 12 mass shootings in 2022 and 2023. School shootings The United States sees the most school shootings in the world. Some motivations for school shootings included depression, seeking revenge, and bullying. As a result of the large amount of school shootings, gun control has become a central topic in U.S. politics. This widespread problem happens across the United States; however California saw the highest number of K-12 school shootings in the United States since 1970. However, the deadliest school shooting (as of October 2023) was the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. This tragedy left 33 dead and 23 injured. Mass shooting issues Mass shootings happen when there are several injuries or deaths from a firearm-related violence. Throughout the last century, mass shootings have become an epidemic in the United States. However, despite the increase in mass shootings and number of casualties, the U.S. government has done little to prevent future shootings from happening. As a result of the lack of cooperation in politics, mass shootings have become an important issue for Generation Z living in the United States. Furthermore, having the right to bear arms is a popular belief in the U.S. and the percentage of households in the United States owning at least one firearm has remained somewhat steady since 1972.

Teen Death Rate (deaths per 100,000 teens ages 1519) is the number of deaths from all causes to teens between ages 15 and 19, per 100,000 teens in this age group. The data are reported by place of residence, not the place where the death occurred. SOURCES: * Death Statistics: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. * Population Statistics: U.S. Census Bureau.

Child Death Rate (deaths per 100,000 children ages 114) is the number of deaths to children between ages 1 and 14, from all causes, per 100,000 children in this age range. The data are reported by place of residence, not place of death. SOURCES: * Death Statistics: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics. * Population Statistics: U.S. Census Bureau.

Context

To better understand the facts around school shootings a few years ago I went looking for data and found it difficult to come by - often embedded in other datasets or fragmented and unusable. I decided to create my own compilation based on a mashup of the Pah/Amaral/Hagan research on school shootings with the Wikipedia article from 1990 to present.

Content

pah_wikp file: A list of all school shooting incidents from 1990 to present.

Fields:

• Date: date of incident
• City: location of incident
• State: location of incident
• Area Type: urban or suburban (only in Pah dataset)
• School: C = college, HS = high school, MS = middle school, ES = elementary school, - = unknown
• Fatalities: # killed
• Wounded: # wounded (only in Wikipedia dataset)
• Dupe: whether this incident appears in both datasets. Note: only the "Pah" version of the incident is marked.
• Source: Pah or Wikp
• Desc: text description of incident (only in Wikipedia dataset)

cps file: US census data on school populations. Fields should be fairly self explanatory.

Acknowledgements

Thanks to the authors referenced above as well as the Wikipedia contributors!

Inspiration

• Why are school shootings (and death counts) increasing over time?
• How does the risk of being killed in a school shooting compare with other risks?
• Are some schools / cities / states at higher risk?
• Is there a correlation between countermeasures and a decrease in fatalities?
• What else correlates with school shooting risks? In addition to firearms and the people who wield them, is there any clear causality?

github version

Note: the master version of these datasets can be found at https://github.com/ecodan/school-shooting-data.git and is open for community contributions. I'll try to keep this data up-to-date with the github version on at least a monthly basis.

This dataset includes births, deaths and the ratio of births to deaths by metropolitan area for the years 2000-2006. The actual births and deaths for 2000 and estimates were taken from the U.S. Census Components of Population Change. Ratios were calculated based on that data.

Between 1966 and May 19, 2025, 872 victims were wounded while 260 victims were killed during K-12 school shootings resulting from an escalation of dispute, defined as a situation in which there was a physical or verbal altercation between the shooter and the victim(s) before the shooting or where shots were fired in retaliation for a previous attack, in the United States. Indiscriminate shootings, where the shooter intends to kill as many people as possible with no particular target, have also been highlighted as a significant source of harm in K-12 schools, with approximately 572 victims either wounded or killed within the provided time period. In comparison, school shootings attributed to anger over getting bad grades or facing disciplinary measures typically lead to a scenario in which teachers or school administrators are the primary targets of school shooters. Totaling less than 100 victims, this type of situation also encompasses shootings carried out by school employees against coworkers or superiors after poor performance evaluations, suspensions, or job losses.

This dataset gives the average annual number of deaths during a year per 1,000 population at midyear; also known as crude death rate. This information was found at the CIA's World Factbook 2007. The site had this to say about death rate, "The death rate, while only a rough indicator of the mortality situation in a country, accurately indicates the current mortality impact on population growth. This indicator is significantly affected by age distribution, and most countries will eventually show a rise in the overall death rate, in spite of continued decline in mortality at all ages, as declining fertility results in an aging population." Source: https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/docs/notesanddefs.html#2010 Accessed: 9.17.07

This data explores the state death tax revenue by year, collected by each state. The years 2001-2005 are accounted for here. Souce: U.S. Bureau of The Census, Government Tax Collections.

Infant Mortality Rate (deaths per 1,000 live births) is the number of deaths occurring to infants under 1 year of age per 1,000 live births. The data are reported by place of residence, not place of death. The rate as well as the rank figures are included in this data. SOURCE: * U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Health Statistics.

This dataset explores the death rate in Canada by province for 2002-2007. Note: From July 1 of one year to June 30 of the next year. Source: Statistics Canada, CANSIM, table (for fee) 051-0004 and Catalogue no. 91-213-X. Last modified: 2007-09-27.

As of June 2022, there were 153 school shootings in total in the United States in that year. Of these incidents, only two were active shooter incidents. The largest number of active shooter incidents in schools was in 2018, with 11 active shooters.

The source defines a shooting as any time a gun is brandished, fired, or a bullet hits school property for any reason.

This data reports crime statistics for 4-year public and private post-secondary schools. The source of the data is Department of Education, The Campus Security Data Analysis Cutting Tool: http://ope.ed.gov/security/

From 2008 to April 25, 2025, the District of Columbia had the highest rate of school shootings nationwide, totaling around **** school shootings per 100,000 residents. Louisiana, Delaware, Maryland, and Alabama rounded out the top five states with the highest school shooting rates relative to their populations. In contrast, there were no school shootings recorded in Montana, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island within the provided time period. In addition to K-12 schools and college campuses, gun-related violence in the United States often occurs at workplaces, places of worship, and restaurants and bars. The source defines school shootings as incidents of gun violence which occurred on school property, from kindergartens through colleges/universities, and at least one person was shot, not including the shooter. School property includes, but is not limited to, buildings, fields, parking lots, stadiums and buses. Accidental discharges of firearms are included, as long as at least one person is shot, but not if the sole shooter is law enforcement or school security.

Diseases of the Respiratory System: Effects are generally irritation and reduced lung function with increased incidence of respiratory disease, especially in more susceptible members of the population such as young children, the elderly and asthmatics. Diseases of the Respiratory System includes: ICD-9 BTL codes B31-B32, ICD-9 code CH08 for some ex-USSR countries, ICD-9 code C052 for China, ICD-10 codes J00-J99, European mortality indicator database (HFA-MDB), available at www.euro.who.int, for missing figures for some european countries: indicator "3250 Deaths, Diseases of the Respiratory System" The original dataset uses a value of -9999 to indicate no data available, i have substituted a value of 0. Online resource: http://geodata.grid.unep.ch URL original source: http://www3.who.int/whosis/mort/text/download.cfm?path=whosis,evidence,whsa,mort_download&language=english