Sunday’s shooting at a rural Baptist church in Sutherland Springs, Texas marked the fifth deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history and comes just over a month after the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at a concert in Las Vegas.
With four out of the five deadliest mass shooting having occurred in the last year and a half, it seems that every other week a similar tragedy is appearing on the news, and everywhere from post offices, nightclubs, schools, and churches are the target.
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These are the 10 deadliest mass shootings in modern U.S. history.
1. Route 91 Harvest Festival, Las Vegas, Nevada – Oct. 1, 2017
On the night of Oct. 1, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock barricaded himself inside his 32nd floor suite at the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. With as many as 19 guns already loaded and ready, he targeted the Route 91 Harvest music festival taking place along the strip, killing 58 and injuring more than 500 before taking his own life. The massacre marked the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
2. Pulse Nightclub, Orlando, Florida – June 12, 2016
In an ISIS-inspired hate crime, 29-year-old Omar Mateen entered Pulse, a gay nightclub, shortly after 2am. He shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more, before SWAT officers shot and killed him.
3. Virginia Tech University, Blacksburg, Virginia – April 16, 2007
In Blacksburg, Virginia, Virginia Tech senior Seung-hui Cho went on a rampage at Virginia Tech University. Carrying a 9mm Glock handgun and a .22-caliber gun, he began his rampage in a dorm room, where he shot and killed two students, before going out and killing 30 more students in four different classrooms. Cho took his own life.
4. Sandy Hook Elementary School, Newtown, Connecticut – Dec. 14, 2012
Adam Lanza, 20, shot and killed 26 people inside Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012. Among the dead 6 adults and 20 first graders, whom had been shot when Lanza entered their schoolroom with a semi-automatic rifle. Prior to carrying out the deadly massacre, Lanza had shot and killed his mother at their home. He turned the gun on himself at the school.
5. First Baptist Church, Sutherland Springs, Texas – Nov. 5, 2017
While details are still emerging in the most recent mass shooting, it is known that at least 26 people were killed, some of them children, and more than 20 were injured when a gunman opened fire inside of the First Baptist Church. The shooter later died.
6. Luby’s Cafeteria, Killeen, Texas – Oct. 16, 1991
On Oct. 16, 1991, 35-year-old George Jo Henderson slammed his Ford Ranger truck into the window of Luby’s Cafeteria before he began shooting. Henderson killed 23 people and injured 20 before turning his gun on himself.
7. McDonald’s, San Ysidro, California – July 18, 1984
Twenty-one people were killed and 19 injured when James Oliver Huberty entered a McDonald’s in San Ysidro, California with multiple weapons. It is reported that before he left, he told his wife I’m going hunting… Hunting for humans.” A sharpshooter killed Huberty an hour after the shootings occurred.
8. University of Texas, Austin, Texas – Aug. 1, 1966
In what became known as the University of Texas tower shooting, Charles Joseph Whitman, a U.S. Marine sniper, climbed to the observation deck on the bell tower at the University of Texas. With a cache of weapons, including rifles and pistols, shot at students on the campus below, killing 14 and wounding at least 30. He was shot and killed by police officers.
9. Edmond Post Office, Edmond, Oklahoma – Aug. 20, 1986
The shooting at Edmond Post Office took the lives of 14 people, tying it as the eighth deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Patrick Henry Sherrill, 44, a part-time postman, entered the post office armed with three handguns, which he used to murder 14 fellow postal workers just minutes before he took his own life. Police claimed that Sherrill was motivated out of anger that he may lose his job due to the fact that he had received a poor performance review the day before the shooting occurred.
10. Inland Regional Center, San Bernardino California – Dec. 2, 2015
Tied for number 8, the San Bernardino shooting carried out by husband and wife Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik claimed the lives of 14 people and left 17 injured. The couple had entered the workplace armored in tactical gear and opened fire on Syed Rizwan Farook’s colleagues attending their workplace’s mandatory Christmas party.
