Amarillo, TX - Mass shootings strike a chord of grief and fear in the collective American mind, and today's rampage in Connecticut is only the latest in a string of similar incidents.
And unfortunately, sometimes it almost seems like they've become the norm.
So far this year, there have been 16 public shootings in the U.S. that claimed a total of 88 lives.
And Friday's marks the second-deadliest in our country's history - the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the Virginia Tech shooting in 2007.
33 people were killed by a lone gunman, sparking an intense national debate about where the line of responsibility lies for our schools.
And since then, there have been at least 20 more school shootings in the U.S., with 5 just this year:
In February, a student at an Ohio high school admitted to shooting five fellow students, killing three.
Then just weeks later, a former student at Oikos University in Oakland killed six students and a school employee.
And two more cropped up just this summer - in July, 12 people were killed in the Aurora movie theater shooting.
Then in August, a white supremacist in Wisconsin went on a rampage at a Sikh temple, killing six before turning his gun on himself.
And just Tuesday, two people were killed at random by a complete stranger in an Oregon mall.
Although it may seem like public shootings are happening all the time, they've actually declined by about half in the last decade.
However, the Bureau of Justice Statistics says violent crime in general is on the rise.
If you'd like to learn more, follow the links attached to this story.
