Deadliest School Shootings In U.S. History
Dec. 14 2012, Published 6:00 a.m. ET
By Amber Goodhand - Breaking Celebrity News News Editor
The mass shooting and bombing by two disturbed students at Columbine High School in 1999 lead to increased security in the United States school system, but senseless shootings have been happening at schools since the 60s and continue to happen, and Breaking Celebrity News has a roundup of the horrific and tragic shootings throughout the years.
The December 14 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. has left nearly 30 people dead, 20 of which are children, making it the second-deadliest school shooting in U.S. history. Read below from the San Francisco Chronicle to find out which shooting was the deadliest.
On August 1, 1966, Charles Whitman, 25, killed his mother and wife before heading to the University of Texas with a rifle, where he shot and killed 14 people in a 96-minute span before he was shot and killed by police officers.
National Guard troops on the campus of Kent State University in Ohio shot and killed four unarmed students who were protesting the U.S. Invasion of Cambodia on May 4, 1970.
Edward Charles Allaway, 37, took a semi-automatic rifle that he bought at a Kmart to the campus of California State University Fullerton where he was a janitor and on July 12, 1976 he shot and killed seven people in the school's library. Allaway was found to be insane and instead of incarceration, he was committed to a mental institution.
A 16-year-old female named Brenda Ann Spencer shot a rifle at a San Diego elementary school on January 29, 1979 from her home across the street, killing a janitor, the principal and injuring eight students. Spencer said afterwards she shot at the school because, "I don't like Mondays." She was found guilty and sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
On January 17, 1989 Patrick Edward Purdy, 24, opened fire with a semiautomatic rifle on a Stockton, Calif. schoolyard, killing five children and wounding 29 other students and one teacher before turning the gun on himself.
University of Iowa graduate Gang Lu, 27, was upset his doctoral dissertation was not nominated for an academic award so he used a .38-caliber revolver to kill four members of the department, another university staff member and himself on November 1, 1991.
Eric Housto