Three people are dead, including the shooter, after a student opened fire at a Christian school in Wisconsin.
The shooting took place 12 years and two days after one of the most notorious school shootings in US history: the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut where 26 people were killed.
The incident in Wisconsin was the 323rd school shooting in the US this year.
So far, 2024 has seen the second-highest number of US school shootings since 1966, which is far back as the data goes.
Escalation in school shootings
The K-12 school shooting database monitors school shootings across the United States.
The highest number of shootings on record happened in 2023, when there were 349.
The shootings in 2024 resulted in the deaths of 69 victims and 12 shooters.
The majority of those deaths were male students, accounting for 21 of the fatalities.
A further 194 victims were wounded. This included four teachers and 101 students.
The deadliest shooting this year occurred on September 4 at Apalachee High School in Georgia, where four people were killed and nine injured.
A memorial at Apalachee High School after the school shooting. (AP: Mike Stewart)
Locations, times
Texas had 24 shootings in the past year, the largest number for 2024.
This was followed by Ohio with 20, and California and Tennessee with 17 shootings each.
Elementary schools were the target of 87 shootings, middle schools 28, and high schools 183, with the remainder other types of schools, or school property such as buses.
The median time for shootings was at 2:40 p.mright when most schools finish classes for the day.
Shooter profile
Male teenagers accounted for 119 of the 361 school shooters.
Just nine of the shooters were female.
The chart above includes categories for “Adult”, “Teen” and “Child” as well as specific age groups. That is because specific data on shooters’ ages isn’t always available.
Handguns were the most common weapon and were used in 257 shootings.
Miscellaneous weapons such as pellet guns and replica guns were the second most common category, making up 22 of the shootings.
While 184 shooters were apprehended by law enforcement or other means, 165 escaped.
Escalations of disputes made up 93 of the shooting situationsfollowed by 36 drive-by shootings and 27 accidents.
Biden repeats calls for gun control
Outgoing President Joe Biden responded to the latest shooting by calling on Congress to enact gun-control legislation.
Similar calls have gone unheeded after almost every school shooting in recent memory.
“It is unacceptable that we are unable to protect our children from this scourge of gun violence,” Mr Biden said in a statement.
“We cannot continue to accept it as normal.”
President-elect Donald Trump has not responded to the Wisconsin shooting yet.
However in October Trump told the families of school shooting victims he was a strong advocate of the right to bear arms and that “good” people have guns it would keep the crime rate down.
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