Friday, April 20, 2012

The Columbine Anniversary
- an overview of the history of school shootings
in the United States

April 20, 1999 two teenage boys with guns killed 12 students, 1 teacher, and themselves.  They injured an additional 21 students. Even this long afterwards, it is unclear if the students were mentally deranged, or just bloody-minded nasty people who were capable of right and wrong.  Today is the 13th anniverssary.
Their mass shooting was at least partially the inspiration for the Virginia Tech shooting on April 16th, 2007.  Reporting on his rambling raving mailed to NBC, noted that [shooter], :
Cho discussed "martyrs like Eric and Dylan" on the tapes, an apparent reference to Columbine High School gunmen Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, who killed 13 people and themselves on April 20, 1999 in Littleton, Colorado. 
 A brief overview of mass shootings at schools in the United States dates back to the 1700s, where as a continuation of the French and Indian War, four indians killed a school teacher and ten children; one child who had been scalped survived.  The good citizens of Pennsylvania had, on their side, offered a bounty on the scalps of Indians, including women, and children over the age of 10.  The school raid was in retaliation for the large number of attacks killing Indians for the bounty.  At least their fellow Indian tribe members protested the killing of the school children, which is more than it appears the Pennsylvania settlers did over the killing of Indian children.
The following provides both an interesting context to earlier school shootings in the United States, and to the odd pattern of stand your ground laws prior to the NRA and ALEC driven iteration.
In the 1800s - from the Wikipedia article on School Shootings (U.S.):
    1800s
  • November 2, 1853: Louisville, Kentucky A student, Matthew Ward, bought a self-cocking pistol in the morning, went to school and killed Schoolmaster Mr. Butler for excessively punishing his brother the day before. Even though he shot the Schoolmaster point blank in front of his classmates, he was acquitted.[19]
  • An April 30, 1866 editorial in the New York Times argued against students carrying pistols, citing "...pistols being dropped on the floor at balls or being exploded in very inconvenient ways. A boy of 12 has his pantaloons made with a pistol pocket; and this at a boarding-school filled with boys, who, we suppose, do or wish to do the same thing. We would advise parents to look into it, and learn whether shooting is to be a part of the scholastic course which may be practiced on their boys; or else we advise them to see that their own boys are properly armed with the most approved and deadly-pistol, and that there may be an equal chance at least of their shooting as of being shot."[20]
  • June 8, 1867: New York City At Public School No. 18, a 13 year old lad brought a pistol loaded and capped, without the knowledge of his parents or school-teachers, and shot and injured a classmate.[21]
  • December 22, 1868: Chattanooga, Tennessee A boy who refused to be whipped and left school, returned with his brother and a friend, the next day to seek revenge on his teacher. Not finding the teacher at the school, they continued to his house, where a gun battle rang out, leaving three dead. Only the brother survived.[22]
  • March 9, 1873: Salisbury, Maryland After school as Miss Shockley was walking with four small children, she was approached by a Mr. Hall and shot. The Schoolmaster ran out, but she was dead instantly. Hall threw himself under a train that night.[23]
  • May 24, 1879: Lancaster, New York As the carriage loaded with female students was pulling out of the school's stables, Frank Shugart a telegraph operator shot and severely injured Mr. Carr, Superintendent of the stables.[24]
  • March 6, 1884: Boston, Massachusetts As news of Jesse James reached the east coast, young kids started to act in the same manner. An article from the New York Times reads, "Another "Jesse James" Gang - "Word was brought to the Fifth Police Station to-night that a number of boys were using the Concord-street School-house for some unknown purpose, and a posse of officers was sent to investigate. The gang scattered at the approach of the police, and in their flight on drew a revolver and fired at Officer Rowan, without effect, however. William Nangle, age 14, and Sidney Duncan, age 12, were captured, but the other five or six escaped, among them the one who who did the shooting. The boys refused to disclose the object of their meeting, but it is thought that another "Jesse James" organization has been broken up."[25]
  • March 15, 1884: Gainsville, Georgia In the middle of the day, a group of very drunk Jackson County farmers left the Jug Tavern drinking and shooting their revolvers as they headed down the street driving people into their homes. As they approached the female academy, the girls fled the schoolyard into the school where the gang followed swearing and shooting, firing several rounds into the front door. No one was hurt.[26]
  • July 4, 1886: Charleston, South Carolina During Sunday school, Emma Connelly shot and killed John Steedley for "circulating slanderous reports" about her, even though her brother publicly whipped him a few days earlier.[27]
  • April 12, 1887: Watertown, New York Edwin Bush, a student at the Potsdam Normal School committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.[28]
  • June 12, 1887: Cleveland, Tennessee Will Guess went to the school and fatally shot Miss Irene Fann, his little sister's teacher, for whipping her the day before.[29]
  • June 13, 1889: New Brunswick, New Jersey Charles Crawford upset over an argument with a school Trustee, went up to the window and fired a pistol into a crowded school room. The bullet lodged in the wall just above the teacher's head.[30]
The first known mass shooting in the U.S. where students were shot, was on April 9, 1891, when 70 year old, James Foster fired a shotgun at a group of students in the playground of St. Mary's Parochial School, Newburgh, New York, causing minor injuries to several of the students.[31] The majority of attacks during this time period by students on other students or teacher, usually involved stabbing with knives, or hitting with stones.
Then we get into the 20th century, where both the frequency and number of shootings at U.S. schools increases, beginning to rise sharply from the 1980s onward.
1900–1930s
There are very seldom reports of mass or multiple school shootings during the first three decades of the 20th Century, with the three most violent attacks on schools involving either arson or explosions.
  • February 26, 1902: Camargo, Illinois teacher Fletcher R. Barnett shot and killed another teacher, Eva C. Wiseman, in front of her class at a school near Camargo, Illinois. After shooting at a pupil who came to help Miss Wiseman and wounding himself in a failed suicide attempt he waited in the classroom until a group of farmers came to lynch him. He then ran out of the school building, grabbed a shotgun from one of the farmers and shot himself, before running away and leaping into a well where he finally drowned. The incident was likely sparked by Wiseman's refusal to marry Barnett.
  • February 24, 1903: Inman, South Carolina Edward Foster, a 17-year-old student at Inman High school, was shot and fatally wounded by his teacher Reuben Pitts after he had jerked a rod from Pitts' hands to resist punishment. According to the teacher, Foster struck the pistol Pitts had drawn to defend himself, thus causing its discharge. Pitts was later acquitted of murder.
  • October 10, 1906: Cleveland, Ohio Harry Smith shot and killed 22-year-old teacher Mary Shepard at South Euclid School after she had rejected him. Smith escaped and committed suicide in a barn near his home two hours later.
  • March 23, 1907: Carmi, Illinois George Nicholson shot and killed John Kurd at a schoolhouse outside of Carmi, Illinois during a school rehearsal. The motive for the shooting was Kurd making a disparaging remark about Nicholson's daughter during her recital.
  • March 11, 1908: Boston, Massachusetts Elizabeth Bailey Hardee was shot to death by Sarah Chamberlain Weed at the Laurens School, a finishing school in Boston. Weed then turned the gun on herself and committed suicide.
  • April 15, 1908: Asheville, North Carolina Dr. C. O. Swinney shot and fatally wounded his 16-year-old daughter Nellie in a reception room at Normal and Collegiate Institute. He then committed suicide by shooting himself in the head.
  • February 12, 1909: San Francisco, California 10-year-old Dorothy Malakanoff was shot and killed by 49-year-old Demetri Tereaschinko as she arrived at her school in San Francisco. Tereaschinko then shot himself in a failed suicide attempt. Tereaschinko was reportedly upset that Malakanoff refused to elope with him.
  • January 10, 1912: Warrenville, Illinois Sylvester E. Adams shot and killed teacher Edith Smith after she rejected his advances. Adams then shot and killed himself. The incident took place in a schoolhouse about a mile outside of Warrenville after the students had been dismissed for the day.
  • March 27, 1919: Lodi Township, Michigan 19-year-old teacher Irma Casler was shot and killed in her classroom at Rentschler school in Lodi Township, Michigan by Robert Warner, apparently because she had rejected his advances.
  • April 2, 1921: Syracuse, New York Professor Holmes Beckwith shot and killed dean J. Herman Wharton in his office at Syracuse University before committing suicide.
  • May 18, 1927: Bath, Michigan School treasurer Andrew Kehoe, after killing his wife and destroying his house and farm, blew up the Bath Consolidated School by detonating dynamite in the basement of the school, killing 38 people, mostly children. He then pulled up to the school in his Ford car, then blew the car up, killing himself and four others. Only one shot was fired in order to detonate dynamite in the car. This was deadliest act of mass murder at a school in the United States.
  • February 15, 1933: Downey, California Dr. Vernon Blythe shot and killed his wife Eleanor, as well as his 8-year old son Robert at Gallatin grammar school and committed suicide after firing three more shots at his other son Vernon. His wife, who had been a teacher at the school, had filed for divorce the week before.
  • September 14, 1934: Gill, Massachusetts. Headmaster Elliott Speer was murdered by a shotgun blast through the window of his study at Northfield Mount Hermon School. The crime was never solved.
  • December 12, 1935: New York City, New York, Victor Koussow, a Russian laboratory worker at the School of Dental and Oral Surgery, shot Prof. Arthur Taylor Rowe, Prof. Paul B. Wiberg, and wounded Dr. William H. Crawford at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, before committing suicide.
  • April 27, 1936: Lincoln, Nebraska, Prof. John Weller shot and wounded Prof. Harry Kurz in a corridor of the University of Nebraska, apparently because of his impending dismissal at the end of the semester. After shooting Kurz Weller tried to escape, but was surrounded by police on the campus, whereupon he killed himself with a shot in the chest.
  • June 4, 1936: Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, Wesley Crow shot and killed his Lehigh University English instructor, C. Wesley Phy. Crow went to Phy's office and demanded that Mr. Phy change his grade to a passing mark. Crow committed suicide after shooting Phy.
  • September 24, 1937: Toledo, Ohio 12-year-old Robert Snyder shot and wounded his principal, June Mapes, in her office at Arlington public school when she declined his request to call a classmate. He then fled the school grounds and shot and wounded himself.

       1940s

  • May 6, 1940: South Pasadena, California. After being removed as principal of South Pasadena Junior High School, Verlin Spencer shot six school officials, killing five, before attempting to commit suicide by shooting himself in the stomach.
  • May 23, 1940: New York City, New York Infuriated by a grievance, Matthew Gillespie, 62-year-old janitor at the junior school of the Dwight School for Girls, shot and critically wounded Mrs. Marshall Coxe, secretary of the junior school.
  • July 4, 1940: Valhalla, New York Angered by the refusal of his daughter, Melba, 15 years old, to leave a boarding school and return to his home, Joseph Moshell, 47, visited the school and shot and killed the girl.
  • September 12, 1940: Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 29-year-old teacher Carolyn Dellamea is shot to death inside her third grade classroom by 35-year-old William Kuhns. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. Kuhns had reportedly been courting Dellamea for over a year but the relationship was ended when Dellamea discovered that Kuhns was already married.
  • October 2, 1942: New York City, New York “Erwin Goodman, 36-year-old mathematics teacher of William J. Gaynor Junior High School, was shot and killed in the school corridor by a youth...
  • February 23, 1943: Port Chester, NY Harry Wyman, 13-year-old, shot himself dead at the Harvey School, a boys’ preparatory school.
  • June 26, 1946: Brooklyn, New York A 15-year-old schoolboy who balked at turning over his pocket money to a gang of seven youths was shot in the chest at 11:30 A.M. yesterday in the basement of the Public School 147 annex of the Brooklyn High School for Automotive Trades.
  • November 24, 1946: New York City A 13-year-old student at St. Benedict’s Parochial School, shot and fatally wounded himself while sitting in an audience watching a school play.
  • December 24, 1948: New York City A 14-year-old boy was wounded fatally by an accidental shot from the .22-caliber rifle of a fellow-student … the youth was shot in the head when he chanced into range where Robert Ross, 17, of Brooklyn, was shooting at a target near a lake on the school property.
  • March 11, 1949: New York City A 16-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School was accidentally shot in the arm by a fellow student who was ‘showing off’ with a pistol in a classroom.
  • November 13, 1949: Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State University freshman James Heer grabbed a .45 caliber handgun from the room of a Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother and shot and killed his fraternity brother Jack McKeown, 21, an Ohio State senior.

      1950s

  • July 22, 1950: New York City, New York A 16-year-old boy was shot in the wrist and abdomen at the Public School 141 dance… during an argument with a former classmate.
  • November 27, 1951: New York City, New York David Brooks, a 15-year-old student, was fatally shot as fellow-pupils looked on in a grade school.
  • April 9, 1952: New York City, New York A 15-year-old boarding-school student shot a dean rather than relinquish pin-up pictures of girls in bathing suits.
  • July 14, 1952: New York City, New York Bayard Peakes walked in to the offices of the American Physical Society at Columbia University and shot and killed secretary Eileen Fahey with a .22 caliber pistol. Peakes was reportedly upset that the APS had rejected a pamphlet he had written.
  • September 3, 1952: in Lawrenceville, Illinois After 25-year-old Georgine Lyon ended her engagement with Charles Petrach, Petrach shot and killed Lyon in a classroom at Lawrenceville High School where she worked as a librarian.
  • November 20, 1952: New York City, New York “Rear Admiral E. E. Herrmann, 56 years old, superintendent of the Naval Post-Graduate School, was found dead in his office with a bullet in his head. A service revolver was found by his side.
  • October 2, 1953: Chicago, Illinois 14-year-old Patrick Colletta was shot to death by 14-year-old Bernice Turner in a classroom of Kelly High School in Chicago. It was reported that after Turner refused to date Colletta he handed her the gun and dared her to pull the trigger, telling her that the gun was “only a toy.” A coroner’s jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident.
  • October 8, 1953: New York City, New York Larry Licitra, 17-year-old student at the Machine and Metal Trades High School, was shot and slightly wounded in the right shoulder in the lobby of the school while inspecting a handmade pistol owned by one of several students.
  • May 15, 1954: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Putnam Davis Jr. was shot and killed during a fraternity house carnival at the Phi Delta Theta house at the University of North Carolina. William Joyner and Allen Long were shot and wounded during the exchange of gunfire in their fraternity bedroom. The incident took place after an all-night beer party. Mr. Long reported to the police that, while the three were drinking beer at 7 a.m., Davis pulled out a gun and started shooting with a gun he had obtained from the car of a former roommate.
  • January 11, 1955: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania After some of his dorm mates urinated on his mattress Bob Bechtel, a 20-year-old student at Swarthmore College, returned to his dorm with a shotgun and used it to shoot and kill fellow student Holmes Strozier.
  • May 4, 1956: in Prince George's County, Maryland, 15-year-old student Billy Prevatte fatally shot one teacher and injured two others at Maryland Park Junior High School in Prince George's County after he had been reprimanded from the school.
  • October 20, 1956: New York City, New York A junior high school student was wounded in the forearm yesterday by another student armed with a home-made weapon at Booker T. Washington Junior High School.
  • October 2, 1957: New York City, New York “A 16-year old student was shot in the leg yesterday by a 15-year old classmate at a city high school.”
  • March 4, 1958: New York City, New York “A 17-year-old student shot a boy in the Manual Training High School.”
  • May 1, 1958: Massapequa, New York A 15-year-old high school freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom of the Massapequa High School.
  • September 24, 1959: New York City, New York Twenty-seven men and boys and an arsenal were seized in the Bronx as the police headed off a gang war resulting from the fatal shooting of a teenager Monday at Morris High School.

       1960s

  • February 2, 1960: Hartford City, Indiana Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School in Hartford City, Indiana, before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide.
  • June 7, 1960: Blaine, Minnesota Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun.
  • October 17, 1961: Denver, Colorado Tennyson Beard, 14, got into an argument with William Hachmeister, 15, at Morey Junior High School. During the argument Beard pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot at Hachmeister, wounding him. A stray bullet also struck Deborah Faith Humphrey, 14, who died from her gunshot wound.
  • August 1, 1966: University of Texas Massacre Charles Whitman climbs atop the observation deck at the University of Texas-Austin, killing 16 people and wounding 31 during a 96-minute shooting rampage.
  • November 12, 1966: Mesa, Arizona Bob Smith, 18, took seven people hostage at Rose-Mar College of Beauty, a school for training beauticians. Smith ordered the hostages to lie down on the floor in a circle. He then proceeded to shoot them in the head with a 22-caliber pistol. Four women and a three-year-old girl died, one woman and a baby were injured but survived. Police arrested Smith after the massacre. Smith had reportedly admired Richard Speck and Charles Whitman.
  • January 30, 1968: Miami, Florida 16-year-old Blanche Ward shot and killed fellow student Linda Lipscomb, 16, with a .22-caliber pistol at Miami Jackson High School. According to Ward, she was threatened with a razor by Lipscomb during an argument over a fountain pen, and in the ensuing struggle the gun went off.
  • February 8, 1968: Orangeburg, South Carolina In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, about 200 mostly student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University, located in the city of Orangeburg, to protest the segregation of the All Star Bowling Lane. The bowling alley was owned by the late Harry K. Floyd. That night, students started a bonfire. As police attempted to put out the fire, an officer was injured by a thrown piece of banister. The police said they believed they were under attack by small weapons fire. The officers fired into the crowd, killing three young men: Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding twenty-seven others.
  • May 22, 1968: Miami, Florida Ernest Lee Grissom, a 15-year-old student at Drew Junior High School, shot and seriously wounded a teacher and a 13-year-old student after he had been reprimanded for causing a disturbance.
  • January 17, 1969: Los Angeles, California Two student members of the Black Panther Party, Alprentice Carter and John Huggins, were fatally shot during a student meeting inside Campbell Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles. The motive of the shooting regarded who would own the school's African American Studies Center. The shooter, Claude Hubert, was never to be found but three other men were arrested in connection with the shooting.
  • November 19, 1969: Tomah, Wisconsin Principal Martin Mogensen is shot to death in his office by a 14-year-old boy armed with a 20 gauge shotgun.

     1970s

The two most notable U.S. school shootings in the early 1970s were the Jackson State killings in May 1970, where police opened fire on the campus of Jackson State University and the Kent State shootings also in May 1970 where the National Guard opened fire on the campus of Kent State University.
The mid to late 1970s is considered the second most violent period in U.S. school history with a series of school shootings, most notably were;
  • December 30, 1974: Olean, New York, Anthony Barbaro, a 17-year-old Regents scholar armed with a rifle and shotgun, kills three adults and wounds 11 others at his high school, which was closed for the Christmas holiday. Barbaro was reportedly a loner who kept a diary describing several "battle plans" for his attack on the school.[32]
  • February 22, 1978: Lansing, Michigan After being taunted for his beliefs, a 15-year-old self-proclaimed Nazi, kills one student and wounds a second with a Luger pistol.[32]

       1980s

        The early 1980s continued much as the 1970s had been, many single shootings;
  • April 7, 1982: Littleton, Colorado Deer Creek Jr. High School, The gunman, 14-year-old Jason Rocha, was a student at Deer Creek. Rocha shot and killed 13 year-old Scott Darwin Michael.[33]
       The early 1980s saw only a few multi-victim school shootings including;
  • January 20, 1983: St. Louis County, Missouri the Parkway South Middle School, eighth grader brought a blue duffel bag containing two pistols, and a murder/suicide note that outlined his intention to kill the next person heard speaking ill of his older brother Ken. He entered a study hall classroom and opened fire, hitting two fellow students. The first victim, was fatally shot in the stomach, and the second victim received a non-fatal gunshot wound to the abdomen. Then he said, "no one will ever call my brother a pussy again" then committed suicide.  
According to the Center to Prevent Handgun Violence, in the United States, from  September 1986 to September 1990 (four year period):[34]
  • At least 71 people (65 students and 6 school employees) had been killed with guns at school.
  • 201 were severely wounded by gun fire.
  • 242 individuals were held hostage at gunpoint.
According to a 1987 survey conducted by the American School Health Association,[35] " 3% of the boys reported having carried a handgun to school at least once during the school year; 1% reported carrying a handgun on a daily basis."  The late 1980s began to see a major increase in school shootings including;
  • September 4, 1985: Richmond, Virginia At the end of the second day of school from the East End Middle School a 12yr old boy shot a girl with his mother's gun.[36]
  • October 18, 1985: Detroit, Michigan During halftime of the homecoming football game between Northwestern High School and Murray-Wright High School. A boy who was in a fight earlier that day, pulled out a shotgun and opened fire injuring six students.[37]
  • November 26, 1985: Spanaway, Washington A 14yr old girl shot two boys dead then kills herself with a .22-caliber rifle at the Spanaway Junior High School.[38]
  • December 9, 1985: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania At the Archbishop Ryan High School for Boys, a 22yr old Mental health patient took 6 students hostage with what ended up being a starter pistol. No one was hurt in the ordeal.
  • December 10, 1985: Portland, Connecticut At the Portland Junior High School, the Principal was having a heated discussion with a 13-year-old male eighth-grader when he locked the boy inside an office. The student then pulled out a 9mm assault rifle and opened fire. The bullet shattered the glass door and struck the left forearm of the secretary and the glass injured the Principal. The boy fled for the 2nd floor, were he encountered the janitor, and he shot him in the head. The boy then took a seventh-grader hostage. The boy's father and another family member came to the school and talked to him over the intercom system. After 45 minutes, he tossed the gun out a school window and was taken into custody.[39]
  • May 16, 1986: The Cokeville Elementary School hostage crisis In a ransom scheme, David and Doris Young, both in their forties, took 150 students and teachers hostage on this spring day. Their demand for $300 million dollars came to an abrupt end when Doris accidentally set off a bomb, killing herself and injuring 78 students and teachers. David wounded John Miller, a teacher who was trying to flee, then killed himself.
  • March 2, 1987: Missouri an honours student Nathan Ferris, 12, killed a classmate and then himself.[40]
  • May 20, 1988: Winnetka, Illinois 30yr old Laurie Dann shot and killed one boy, and wounded five other kids, in an elementary school, then took a family hostage and shot a man before killing herself.
  • September 26, 1988: Greenwood, South Carolina In the cafeteria of the Oakland Elementary School 19 year-old James William Wilson Jr., shot and killed Shequilla Bradley, 8 and wounded eight other children with a 9-round .22 caliber pistol. He went into the girls restroom to reload where he was attacked by Kat Finkbeiner, a Physical Education teacher. James shot her in the hand and mouth. He then entered 3rd grade classroom and wounded six more students.
  • December 16, 1988: Virginia Beach, Virginia Nicholas Elliott, 15, opened fire with a SWD Cobray M-11 semiautomatic pistol on his teachers at the Atlantic Shores Christian School. His first shots struck teacher Karen Farley in the arm; when she went down he killed her at point blank range. Nicholas then injured Sam Marino. He turned the Cobray toward his classmates, but the gun jammed and he was quickly subdued by M. Hutchinson Matteson, a teacher, before he could fire another round.

      1990s

From the late 1980s to the early 1990s the United States saw a sharp increase in gun and gun violence in the schools. According to a survey conducted by The Harvard School of Public Health[42] "15% said that they had carried a handgun on their person in the past 30 days, and 4% said that they had taken a handgun to school in the past year." a sharp increase from just five years earlier. By 1993, the United States saw some of the most violent time is school shooting incidences.

  • May 1, 1992: Olivehurst, California Eric Houston, 20, killed four people and wounded 10 in an armed siege at his former high school. Prosecutors said the attack was in retribution for a failing grade.
According to the National School Safety Center, since the 1992-1993 U.S. school year there has been a significant decline in school-associated violent deaths (deaths on private or public school property for kindergarten through grade 12 and resulting from schools functions or activities):[43]((
  • 1992–1993 (44 Homicides and 55 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1993–1994 (42 Homicides and 51 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1994–1995 (17 Homicides and 20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1995–1996 (29 Homicides and 35 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1996–1997 (23 Homicides and 25 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1997–1998 (35 Homicides and 40 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1998–1999 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 1999–2000 (25 Homicides from school shootings in the U.S.)

According to the U.S. Department of Education, in the 1998-1999 School Year, 3,523 Students (57% High School, 33% Junior High, 10% Elementary) were expelled for bringing a firearm to school.[44]

The late 1990s started to see a major reduction in gun related school violence, but was still plagued with multiple victim shootings including;
  • January 12, 1995: Seattle Washington A student left school during the day and returned with his grandfather's 9mm. He wounded two students. The incident is portrayed in the documentary Cease Fire.
  • November 15, 1995: Lynnville, Tennessee A 17-year-old boy shot and killed a student and teacher with a .22 rifle.
  • February 2, 1996: Moses Lake, Washington Two students and one teacher killed, one other wounded when 14-year-old Barry Loukaitis opened fire on his algebra class.[45]
  • February 19, 1997: Bethel, Alaska Principal and one student killed, two others wounded by Evan Ramsey, 16.[45]
  • October 1, 1997: Pearl, Mississippi Two students killed and seven wounded by Luke Woodham, 16, who was also accused of killing his mother. He and his friends were said to be outcasts who worshiped Satan.[46]
14-year-old John Kamel was fatally shot in the chest at 8:40 a.m. outside school on a sidewalk by 14-year-old Tronneal Mangum, after an argument over an Adidas watch that Mangum had taken from Kamel.
  • December 1, 1997: West Paducah, Kentucky Three students killed, five wounded by Michael Carneal, 14, as they participated in a prayer circle at Heath High School.[47]
  • December 15, 1997: Stamps, Arkansas Two students wounded. Colt Todd, 14, was hiding in the woods when he shot the students as they stood in the parking lot[48]
  • March 24, 1998: Jonesboro, Arkansas Four students and one teacher killed, ten others wounded outside as Westside Middle School emptied during a false fire alarm. Mitchell Johnson, 13, and Andrew Golden, 11, shot at their classmates and teachers from the woods[49]
  • April 24, 1998: Edinboro, Pennsylvania One teacher, John Gillette, killed, two students wounded at a dance at James W. Parker Middle School. Andrew Wurst, 14, was charged.[50]
  • May 21, 1998: Springfield, Oregon Two students killed, 22 others wounded in the cafeteria at Thurston High School by 15-year-old Kip Kinkel. Kinkel had been arrested and released a day earlier for bringing a gun to school. His parents were later found dead at home, shot to death by their son[51]
  • June 15, 1998: Richmond, Virginia One teacher and one guidance counselor wounded by a 14-year-old boy in the school hallway[51]
  • May 20, 1999: Conyers, Georgia Six students injured at Heritage High School by Thomas Solomon, 15, who was reportedly depressed after breaking up with his girlfriend[52]
Barry Grunow was fatally shot by his student, 13-year-old Nathaniel Brazill, who had returned to school after being sent home at 1 p.m. by the assistant principal for throwing water balloons. Brazill returned to school on his bike with a 5 inch Raven, and four bullets stolen from his grandfather the week before. Brazill was an honor student. Grunow was a popular teacher and Brazill's favorite.

      2000s

  • 2000–2001 (19 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2001–2002 (4 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2002–2003 (14 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2003–2004 (29 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2004–2005 (20 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2005–2006 (5 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.
  • 2006–2007 (38 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2007–2008 (3 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2008–2009 (10 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)

2010s - Present

  • 2009–2010 (5 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2010-2011 (12 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
  • 2011-2012 (11 Deaths resulting from school shootings in the U.S.)
This one appears to be the most recent:
              February 27, 2012: Chardon, Ohio Chardon High School  T.J. Lane, 17, took a .22-              caliber  pistol and a knife to Chardon High and firing 10 shots at a group of students
             sitting at a cafeteria table resulting in the death of 3 and wounding 2.

But where it gets really interesting, as a comparison of the American 'gun culture' intersecting with schools and shootings is in the table of school shootings that compares and contrsasts American school shootings with shootings at schools in other parts of the world.  They do have them elsewhere, but just not nearly as many.  Canada for example, has 11 in the table of notable school shootings.  All of Europe has 21, including terrorist attacks, which arguably belong in a different category for fair comparison.  All of South America, Asia and Australia COMBINED have 12 incidents.  This is EVER, not simply in a given year or decade.  There was no list compiled for Africa, but a quick google search which was not by any means exhaustive did not come up with a large number.
The number of school and university or college shootings in the U.S. on their table of such 'notable' shootings - the criteria for being 'notable' is not defiend - provided some 118 school shootings in the United States between August 1966 and February 2012.  The most recent shooting in Oakland, California at Oikos University does not appear to have been included, presumably that update is pending.
A further note on the politics and practical aspects of guns in schools in the U.S. as well as guns in schools in other countries.  Per the wikipedia article on school shootings, it was noted that both students and teachers are allowed to carry guns in Israel, and Thailand; no where else in the world is this the practice.
The UK instituted far greater restrictions on gun ownership following the 1996 Dunblane massacre; they do not appear on any lists of school shootings after that date, or so far as I could determine any other mass shootings of large numbers of people.
Guns and gun violence is the perrenial chicken / egg controversy.  But it is clear that those countries where gun ownership is largest have the greatest gun violence.  There are many claims in the U.S. that our gun culture is part of our heritage; certainly it is part of our history.  But it is worth noting that the greatest numbers of instances of mass shootings, including but not limited to schools, has occurred well after any legitimate claim to a need to defend life and property in a frontier environment has passed.  We no longer have a justification for our 'gun culture' heritage or no heitage; we are a nation now of interstate highways and jet plane travel, not Conestoga wagons.  We transport kids to school on buses, not horseback or carriage.
It is time to end our gun culture by a deliberate choice.  It is time to choose between civilized freedom and uncivilized violent free-dumb.  It is time to end the violent mass shootings in our schools, on our streets, in our homes, churches, and places of business.  We need fewer guns, we need to restrict firearms to those who truly are safe.  We need to reduce who can shoot and where and when.
No one is free who is dead or injured or intimidated by firearm violence.  That should include all of us who are even minimally aware of the accounts of violence from firearms in our daily surroundings.
In the 18th century, and early 19th century through the mid 20th century, there were violent revolutions beginning in the U.S. but expanding to other countries, notably France and Russia.  That era has passed.  We are now in the era of largely non-violent revolutions, although certainly some of those have led to civil war involving segments of military units.  But for civilian revolution, the style of conflict of the American Revolution is over, ended, done.   The wild west has been replaced by largely old, white, crabby and flabby grandparents driving their golf carts around retirement communities in the sun belt, hitting a few rounds of golf and hanging out at their community centers.
With the exception of a few occupations, such as working ranchers, any PRACTICAL need to spend one's day armed is over.  We need to adapt and revise our gun culture to reflect that practical historic progress.  Not doing so, the outdated worship of guns and gun violence is literally killing us, daily rendering us a less civilized society,  The claim that this is freedom is ludicrous.  It is nothing more than an out of date affectation, a deadly one.
Or, we could keep updating our long, long, long list of school shootings, and other instances of mass murder.  It is a choice.  The solution to gun viollence is not more guns, or legalizing more acts of violence.  That reasoning is like asserting that the answer to a drinking problem is more episodes of binge drinking.
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