When the official death toll climbed to 19, it was clear: the massacre at the Robb Elementary School, an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas, is the deadliest at a school in the United States since 2012. The 18-year-old perpetrator shot 19 children and two teachers.
The crime in Texas follows a series of mass killings in schools and public buildings in recent weeks.
A few days ago, an 18-year-old shot ten people in a supermarket in Buffalo, New York, and a 68-year-old killed one and injured five others in a church in Laguna Woods, California.
In 2020, firearms became the leading cause of death among children and adolescents in the United States for the first time, ahead of traffic accidents.
The Californian research institution Center for Homeland Defense and Security (CHDS) has been collecting cases of gun violence in US schools and kindergartens since 1971. SPIEGEL evaluated this data with a view to mass shootings.
There is no general definition of mass killings in schools.
We included those firearm incidents that the FBI categorizes as an Active Shooter Attack.
They are crimes in which one or more perpetrators actively use firearms to kill or attempt to kill people in a limited area.
This definition largely corresponds to what is often referred to as amok run in Germany.
The data show that gun deaths are now part of everyday life in the United States.
There has been at least one Active Shooter Attack in US schools almost every year.
The CHDS has documented 191 such attacks since 1971, with a total of 205 fatalities.
The three deadliest years are in the recent past.
The high number of fatalities in these years can be explained by individual, particularly serious mass killings.
In 2012, 20 children and six faculty and staff died at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
In 2018, 17 people died at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.
And now 21 dead at Robb Elementary School in Texas.
Who are the perpetrators?
The Texas shooter's motive is currently unclear.
What is known, however, is that the perpetrator was male, 18 years old.
So he fits into the pattern of the other shooters.
The perpetrators are almost always men, mostly of school age or just over.
Three out of four perpetrators attended the school where they shot or had previously attended.
The vast majority of perpetrators are white.
After the massacre in Texas, as is often the case after rampages, calls for stricter gun laws were once again made loud.
It is difficult to determine exactly how many weapons are in circulation in individual countries, partly because of the number of unreported weapons in illegal possession.
The United States has more guns in civilian hands than any other country in the world, according to the Geneva Institute for International Studies and Development's Small Arms Survey, one of the largest in the field.
Most recently there were 121 weapons for every 100 inhabitants.
The National Rifle Association, America's most powerful pro-gun lobbying organization, claims stricter gun laws aren't reducing violence.
One of the arguments is that the perpetrators are not those who buy their guns legally.
This does not correspond to reality.
The US magazine Mother Jones has collected mass shootings since 1982 in a database.
These include actions in schools, but also outside of educational institutions.
The situation is therefore clear: Legally acquired weapons were used in around five out of six mass shootings.
The Texas shooter also allegedly bought his two assault rifles legally.