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The murder of moviegoers attending a screening of “The Dark Knight” in Aurora, Colorado joins an unfortunate list of other gun related mass murders. The most shocking are compiled in a list below and remembered for the long-term impact they had on society.

 

August 1, 1966: After killing his mother and wife, former marine Charles Whitman then killed 14 others, and wounded 32, during a shooting spree at the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a student.

 

December 7, 1993: Colin Ferguson killed six people and wounded 19 others after opening fire on a Long Island Railroad train in New York. The death of her husband and injury of her son that day would inspire nurse Carolyn McCarthy to run for Congress as a gun control advocate. She remains a member of Congress today.

 

March 13 1996:  Fifteen children age five and six, were shot and killed along with their teacher, by Thomas Hamilton as they sat in their school gymnasium in Dunblane, Scotland. The tragedy led to the creation of the Gun Control Network in the United Kingdom.

 

April 20, 1999: Two high school seniors, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, opened fire in Columbine High School in Jefferson County, Colorado killing 12 students and 1 teacher. The massacre inspired the Michael Moore film “Bowling for Columbine” and the Million Mom March against gun violence.

 

October 2, 2006: Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV took a group of young Amish students hostage in a one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, shooting ten and killing five. The Amish community’s emphasis on forgiveness in the tragedy’s aftermath, served as an inspiration to others throughout the world.

 

April 16, 2007: 32 people were shot and killed, and 17 others wounded by Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University student Seung Hui Cho in two separate firearms attacks, two hours apart. The Virginia Tech shooting remains one of the deadliest in U.S. history and sparked a nationwide debate about the treatment of the mentally ill on college campuses. (Cho had battled mental and emotional problems since high school but his family and school staff found their options for assisting him limited by bureaucracy and complex privacy laws.)