48 school-related shootings in 2015 have killed 26 people
After the rampage Thursday at Oregon’s Umpqua Community College, statistics began flying, including the claim that there now have been 45 school shootings this year.
That’s the tally by the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, which is careful to verify each instance.
But it’s also a broad definition — a firearm discharged on school property — and doesn’t include three other shootings that turned up in an Internet search and involved a school bus and school traffic zones.
The toll from the Everytown list plus the three additional incidents is grim: 16 killed, including seven suicides, and 37 others injured.
Thursday’s shootings in Oregon left 10 more dead and seven more injured.
The youngest non-suicide fatality was a 16-year-old high school student. At colleges, three students, two professors and a university staff member were killed. Two young men were killed on elementary school playgrounds or parking lots.
No elementary school students were among the gun deaths this year, though one girl at an elementary school was injured when a classmate brought a gun to school and it went off.
But until the mass shooting Thursday, none of the deaths this year resulted from someone opening fire in a classroom, cafeteria or dormitory.
Two of the shootings could have ended up worse had the shooter not quickly been tackled — one in which a principal was wounded, and another in which the only two shots the student hit the ceiling. In that incident and 12 other gun discharges, no one was struck by the bullets.
To be sure, there are different lists with different definitions and tallies. Recent fact checks conducted by media outlets including The Washington Post have found there is no standard way to count what constitutes a school shooting.
A report by The New York Times also found that some studies include stabbings, shootings that happen near but not on school grounds, and accidental discharge of weapons.
But the Everytown list, plus the three other instances that didn’t meet its definition, did involve firearms and school property and could be verified by local news accounts.
Our list includes 29 school shootings in 2015 in which someone was injured or killed on school property or on school buses, omitting the suicides except for one that was part of a murder-suicide.
Roseburg, Ore.; Oct. 1, 2015
10 dead, 7 injured
Gunman shot students in classrooms and then was killed in gun battle with police.
Harrisburg, S.D.; Sept. 30, 2015
1 injured
Student shoots principal in arm.
Statesville, N.C.; Sept. 22, 2015
1 injured
Woman shoots husband outside school.
Cleveland, Miss.; Sept. 14, 2015
1 dead
Professor Ethan Smith, a Kansas native, is killed in his office by another instructor at the college.
Lafayette, La.; Sept. 11, 2015
1 injured
Girl, 17, shot in arm and leg in parking lot.
Sacramento, Calif.; Sept. 3, 2015
1 dead, 2 injured
Roman P. Gonzalez, 25, is killed and two other students injured when shots are fired in a confrontation between two groups of men.
Savannah, Ga.; Aug. 27, 2015
1 dead
Student Christopher Stark is killed in the student union after an altercation.
Augusta, Ga.; Aug. 25, 2015
1 injured
A student playing with a gun inside a desk accidentally fires it, hitting another student.
Wichita, Kan.; Aug. 8, 2015
1 dead
Student Rayan Ibrahim Baba is fatally shot in campus parking lot.
Converse, Texas; July 24, 2015
1 dead, 1 injured
Shots are fired in a school parking lot. Albert Nelson, 19, is killed and another teenager is wounded.
Dallas, Texas; July 5, 2015
1 injured
An 18-year-old former high school student graduate is wounded while playing basketball on school grounds on a Sunday.
Everglades City, Fla.; May 27, 2015
1 injured
A man suffers a minor hand wound in a shooting behind the school.
Flint Southwestern Classical Academy
Flint, Mich.; May 24, 2015
7 injured
Seven people are injured when shots are fired into a large crowd that had gathered on school grounds on a Sunday.
Jacksonville, Fla.; May 12, 2015
2 injured
Two teenage girls are injured when a 16-year-old boy fires into a school bus carrying 30 students from three middle and high schools.
Cleveland, Ohio; May 4, 2015
1 dead, 1 injured
Pajo R. Barnes Jr., 22, is killed and another man in his late 20s wounded in a drive-by shooting at the school’s playground.
Charlotte, N.C.; April 19, 2015
1 injured
A male student is shot while sitting in a car on campus.
Paradis, La.; April 16, 2015
1 injured
Police officer shot while directing traffic in a school zone.
Goldsboro, N.C.; April 13, 2015
1 dead
School print shop operator Ron Lane is killed in the school library by a 20-year-old former student who also had worked for Lane.
Community College of Beaver County
Beaver Falls, Pa.; April 2, 2015
1 injured
Student accidentally shoots himself.
Jackson, Tenn.; April 2, 2015
1 injured
Student shoots a gun while near a group of people hitting a fellow student in the thigh.
University City, Mo.; March 30, 2015
1 injured
Man, 34, wounded in a dispute in a school parking lot.
Daytona Beach, Fla.; Feb. 23, 2015
3 injured
Three men grazed by bullets in parking lot near football team practice field.
Little Rock, Ark.; Feb. 15, 2015
2 injured
Suspect shot two men in the school parking lot around 2 a.m. on a Sunday.
Merced, Calif.; Feb. 15, 2015
1 dead
Benito Aguirre, 16, is killed in a school parking lot on a Sunday.
Columbia, S.C.; Feb. 5, 2015
2 dead
Professor Raja Fayad is killed in a campus lab by ex-wife Sunghee Kwon, who then kills herself.
Frederick, Md.; Feb. 4, 2015
2 injured
A 14-year-old boy and 15-year-old boy were shot outside the school gym during a basketball game.
Mobile, Ala.; Jan. 20, 2015
1 injured
A passerby was shot as he passed a group of juveniles arguing at the school after a basketball game.
Ocala, Fla.; Jan. 16, 2015
2 injured
One girl shot after basketball game, another hurt by flying glass.
Wisconsin Lutheran High School
Milwaukee, Wisc.; Jan. 15, 2015
3 injured
A man wounded three people in a fight in the school parking lot after a dispute between two girls attending a basketball game escalated.
This story was originally published October 2, 2015 at 10:53 AM with the headline "48 school-related shootings in 2015 have killed 26 people."