Mass shootings have definitely gotten out of control in the United States of America. It happens outside the country too, in all kinds of countries throughout the world, whether it be impoverished countries in Africa and the Middle East, and first-world nations such as Norway. The worst mass shooting to have ever been committed by a single person occurred in July 2011, when a man named Anders Behring Breivik planted a bomb in a car he parked outside an Oslo government building, which quickly detonated and destroyed much of the buildings in downtown Oslo, and killed nine people, most of them who worked for the Oslo government. He disguised as a police officer and took a boat trip to an island near Oslo where a summer camp was being help. He opened fire on the youth, instructors and chaperons on the island, killing 69 and wounding more than a hundred people. The youngest victim was a 14-year-old girl, and Breivik targeted the island because the youth were being taught about multiculturalism, in which Breivik thought was destroying Norway and Europe, due to many Muslims immigrating to European countries such as Norway, especially in metropolitan areas like Oslo. Breivik is currently serving a 21-year sentence, which can be extended, as 21 years is the longest a person can be given for any serious crime, but the sentence can be extended at all costs.
We need to take action. Now.
This year in the U.S., the following mass shootings happened:
February 27: A 17-year-old high school student opened fire inside a cafeteria of a school in Chardon, Ohio. Three students were killed, and three others were wounded. T.J. Lane was arrested and is charged with murder and attempted murder.
April 2: Angry ex-student One Goh returns to Oikos University, a small Christian college in Oakland, California, and forces a classroom to line up against a wall while Goh shouted out that he was going to kill them all. Seven students were killed, and four others were wounded. Goh quickly fled the scene of the crime and was found hours later by police at a Safeway in a nearby city.
May 30: At a cafe in Seattle, Ian Lee Stawicki, was asked to leave. Stawicki went back into the cafe with two handguns and killed four patrons and wounded a fifth person. Stawicki killed another woman while carjacking her SUV, and hours later when Stawicki was confronted by police, he shot himself to death.
June 9: Three people, including two former Auburn University football players, were killed and three others were wounded in a shooting in an off-campus apartment complex in Auburn, Alabama. At least one suspect was arrested for the murders.
July 17: Nathan Van Wilkins is charged with shooting people inside a bar in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Seventeen people were shot and wounded, with no fatalities. Van Wilkins has an extensive criminal record involving violence.
July 20: A gunman walked into the midnight screening of Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, at a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, and threw canisters of tear gas into the crowd, causing confusion and pandemonium. Once the tear gas irritated and distracted the moviegoers, the gunman fired into the crowd with a shotgun, a rifle, and two Glock handguns. Twelve people were murdered, and 59 others were wounded, many of them suffering critical wounds. James Holmes was arrested at his car outside the theater, and is charged with numerous murder, attempted murder, and firearms and explosive charges. Holmes, who many people knew as timid and quiet, and intelligent and brilliant, was a valedictorian at his San Diego high school, and was pursuing a Ph.D. at the University of Colorado at Denver. However, Holmes was believed to have displayed warning signs before the shooting rampage.
August 5: A white supremacist named Wade Page stormed into a Sikh temple and killed six Sikhs and wounded four other people, including a police officer who Page shot nine times during an exchange of gunfire. Page committed suicide during the exchange of gunfire.
September 27: Andrew John Engeldinger was a person that not many thought much about, as he was quiet and kept to himself most of the time. That changed that very day when Engeldinger was fired from his job in Minneapolis, where he worked a sign-making business. Engeldinger was told that he was fired, and he responded with "Oh really?" and pulled out a Glock pistol. Engeldingershot and killed six of his colleagues, including his boss, and wounded two other co-workers. One of those fatal victims died two weeks later from his wounds. Engeldinger committed suicide in a warehouse.
October 21: Radcliffe Haughton was angry at his estranged wife who worked at a spa in Brookfield, Wisconsin, an upper middle-class suburb of Milwaukee. Haughton barged in the Azana Spa and shot seven women, including his wife. Three people died, including his wife, and Haughton committed suicide inside the spa hours after the attack.
December 11: Jacob Tyler Roberts, a 22-year-old who had just quit job at a gyro eatery in downtown Portland and broke up with his girlfriend, planned to move to Hawaii, but missed his flight. On a day where many people were shopping at the Clackamas Town Center in Clackamas, Oregon, Roberts, sporting a bullet-proof vest and a black hockey mask, fired dozens of rounds in the food court area from his AR-15 semi-automatic rifle which he had taken from an acquaintance without consent. Roberts shot and killed two people, and seriously wounded a 15-year-old girl. Roberts also fired upon another woman, who narrowly escaped the bullet. A civilian took out a handgun which he was allowed to carry in public, but did not fire because a bystander was behind Roberts which may have been a hostage of his. Roberts quickly fled the scene and committed suicide with a gunshot wound to the head.
December 14: In a very notorious shooting rampage, 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot and killed his neighborhood in the tranquil community of Newtown, Connecticut. Lanza drove to Sandy Hook Elementary School, a school he had briefly attended, and shot andkilled 20 first-grade children, and six staff members, including the teacher of the first-grade students. As police closed in, Lanza committed suicide. It was the second-deadliest shooting to have ever taken place in the U.S. history, committed by a single person, with the only deadlier shooting to have occurred at Virginia Tech in 2007. The motive of the shooting is unknown and many speculate Lanza may have been angry at his mother and was suffering from mental illness.
December 21: In rural Blair County, Pennsylvania, 44-year-old Jeffrey Lee Michael killed a woman at a church, a man at his house, and another man was shot and killed while driving his car on the highway. Michael exchanged gunfire with state troopers, leaving three of them wounded by gunshots. Michael was quickly shot and killed by a state trooper.
December 24: In the small suburban community of Webster, near Rochester, New York, an ex-convict named William Spengler, deliberately set fires to his house and car. Firefighters were called on scene, and Spengler took out a long rifle and fired shots at them in an ambush.Two firefighters were killed, including a 19-year-old volunteer, and two others were wounded. An off-duty police officer who responded to the officer also suffered minor wounds from shrapnel that ricocheted. Spengler committed suicide in his house.
Also, while it did not happen in the U.S., another mass shooting that occurred in North America, occurred in Canada. On a warm July day, two gangs encountered each other a BBQ party in the crime plagued Jane and Finch neighborhood of Toronto, Ontario. When at least one person was asked to leave the party, gunfire erupted and two people, including a 14-year-old girl, were killed. 24 other people were wounded. In November, Shaquan Mesquito, an 18-year-old documented gang member, was arrested and charged with murder and attempted murder.
