Previous mass shootings on US soil

2 December 2015: A terror attack in San Bernardino, California, in which a married couple opened fire on a holiday party staged for the husband’s coworkers, left 14 people killed and 21 wounded.

14 December 2012: A school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut left 26 people dead, 20 of them children.

20 July 2012: A 24-year-old gunman sprayed bullets in an Aurora, Colorado, cinema during a late-night showing of a Batman film. He killed 12 people and injured 58 others, and was arrested in the parking lot outside. He was sentenced to life in prison

5 November 2009: An army psychiatrist killed 13 people and injured 32 others at Ft Hood, Texas, where he was based. The shooter was sentenced to death

3 April 2009: A gunman killed 13 people and injured four others at an immigration centre in Binghamton, New York, before apparently shooting himself.

16 April 2007: A Virginia Tech student opened fire on campus, killing 32 people in a dorm and university building in two separate attacks, the deadliest mass shooting in US history. The gunman killed himself after the second attack.

20 April 1999: Two Colorado high school students at Columbine High shot dead 12 students and a teacher and caused injury to two dozen others before taking their own lives.

16 October 1991: A gunman opened fire with a semiautomatic pistol at a restaurant in Killeen, Texas, killing 22 people and wounding 20 others. Police later find the gunman in a restroom, killed by a gunshot wound.

20 August 1986: A postman killed 14 people and wounded six others at his post office in Edmond, Oklahoma, before killing himself.

18 July, 1984: An unemployed security guard attacked a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California, killing 21 people and injuring 19 others. A police sniper killed him from the roof of a nearby post office.

Guardian Service