Gun nightmare: A US school shooting every 60hrs

The mass shooting at a US high school in Florida on Wednesday was the 18^th mass murder at a school since the beginning of 2018, that is one shooting every 60 hours.

There have been over 6,500 shooting incidents across the US so far, leading to the death of over 1,820 people and injuring more than 3,100 other.

The data has been compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit that tracks gun-related violence in the US.

According to the website, since January, 69 children between the ages of 1-11 years and 333 teenagers (12-17 years) have been killed in various incidents.

As of Thursday, there has been 30 mass shootings, collectively killing over 58 people and injuring dozens more.

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a gun control advocacy group, a school shooting is "any time a firearm discharges a live round inside a school building or on a school campus or grounds, as documented by the press and, when necessary, confirmed through further inquiries with law enforcement or school officials."

That is the very definition of what happened at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Pompano Beach on Wednesday afternoon, where a former student who was fired for disciplinary reasons killed at least 17 people at his school.

PressTV-At least 17 dead in Florida school shooting

At least 17 people have been killed and several others injured in a shooting at a high school in the US state of Florida.

The suspect, identified as 19-year-old Nikolaus Cruz was armed with an AR-15 rifle and what officials described as endless number of magazines.

The semi-automatic weapon, which was introduced by Colt in the 1960s, has virtually become the favorite weapon for mass murderers across the US and has been linked to many similar shootings.

Last October, a gunman armed with 14 AR-15s and a cache of other deadly weapons opened fire on a music festival from his nearby hotel room leaving 58 people dead and 851 injured.

In September 2016, a gunman used stormed a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, Killing 49 people and wounding 58 others using his AR-15.

Just two days after the shooting, The Huffington Post sent a group of reporters to see how long it took to purchase the latest iteration of the deadly weapon. The result was astonishing: You can buy an AR-15 in Orlando in just 38 minutes.

In the latest instance of gun violence in the United States, at least 17 people were killed and several others injured in a shooting at a high school in the US state of Florida.

The shooting occurred on Wednesday at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

It is estimated that there are between 270 million and 300 million guns in the US, about one per person, according to the New York Daily News.

Perhaps it is no surprise then that Statistics by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show firearms kill more than 33,000 people in the US every year, a number that includes accidental discharges, murders and suicides.

PressTV-Guns kill, injure 19 kids in US every day: Study

Gunshot wounds are the third leading cause of death for children in America.

Here is a look at some of the deadliest school shootings in recent US history:

April 2007: Seung Hui Cho, a 23-year-old student, went on a shooting spree at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, killing 32 people, before killing himself.

December 2012: Adam Lanza, 20, killed as many as 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, before taking his own life.

August 1966: Charles Joseph Whitman, a former US Marine, shot and killed 16 people from a university tower at the University of Texas in Austin before being shot by police.

April 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, started shooting students and teachers at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 students and one teacher while wounding more than 20 others. They both killed themselves.

February 2008: Steven Kazmierczak, 27, stormed into a lecture hall at Northern Illinois University and opened fire, killing five students and wounding 18 others before killing himself.

March 2005: Jeff Weise, 16, killed his grandfather and his companion before heading to a high school on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in Minnesota, where he killed five students, a teacher and a security guard before committing suicide.

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