... school shootings are a modern phenomenon. They weren't happening in the 40's, 50's, and 60's. They started to happen when the country became liberalized, and kids were screwed up, families and communtites were destroyed....

1940s

(U.S. Population: 132M-151M)

May 6, 1940: South Pasadena, California, After being removed as principal of South Pasadena Junior High School, Vieling Spencer shot six school officials, killing five, before attempting to commit suicide by shooting himself in the neck.[80][81]
May 23, 1940: New York City, New York, Infuriated by a grievance, Matthew Gillespie, 62-year-old janitor at the Dwight School for Girls, shot and critically wounded Mrs. Marshall Coxe, secretary of the junior school.[82]
July 4, 1940: Valhalla, New York, Angered by the refusal of his daughter, Melba, 15, to leave a boarding school and return to his home, Joseph Moshell, 47, visited the school and shot and killed the girl.[83]
September 12, 1940: Uniontown, Pennsylvania, 29-year-old teacher Carolyn Dellamea is shot to death inside her third grade classroom by 35-year-old William Kuhns. Kuhns then shot himself in the chest in a failed suicide attempt. Kuhns had reportedly been courting Dellamea for over a year but the relationship was ended when Dellamea discovered that Kuhns was already married.[84][85]
October 2, 1942: New York City, New York, Irwin Goodman, 36-year-old mathematics teacher at William J. Gaynor Junior High School, was shot and killed in the school corridor by a youth.[86][87]
February 23, 1943: Port Chester, New York, Harry Wyman, 13, shot himself dead at the Harvey School, a boys’ preparatory school.[88]
June 26, 1946: Brooklyn, New York, A 15-year-old schoolboy who balked at turning over his pocket money to a gang of seven youths was shot in the chest in the basement of the Public School 147 annex of the Brooklyn High School for Automotive Trades.[89]
November 24, 1946: New York City, A 13-year-old student at St. Benedict’s Parochial School, shot and fatally wounded himself while sitting in an audience watching a school play.[90]
February 5, 1947: Madill, Oklahoma, 1st grade teacher Jessie Laird, 40, was shot to death in her classroom, during recess by her estranged husband, Ellis Laird, 62. Laird then fatally shot himself.[91]
December 1, 1947: Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania, Donald Peabody Sargent, 14, shot himself to death in his junior high school classroom.[92]
December 24, 1948: New York City, New York, A 14-year-old boy was fatally wounded by a shot from the .22-caliber rifle of a fellow student Robert Ross, 17. The youth was accidentally shot in the head when he chanced into range where Ross was target shooting near a lake on the school property.[93]
March 11, 1949: New York City, New York, A 16-year-old student at Stuyvesant High School was accidentally shot in the arm by a fellow student who was ‘showing off’ with a pistol in a classroom.[94]
November 13, 1949: Columbus, Ohio, Ohio State University freshman James Heer grabbed a .45 caliber handgun from the room of a Delta Tau Delta fraternity brother and shot and killed his fraternity brother Jack McKeown, 21, an Ohio State senior.[95]


1950s

(U.S. Population: 151M-179M)

April 25, 1950: Peru, Nebraska, Dr. William Nicholas, 48, president of Peru State College and Dr. Paul Maxwell, 56, education department head, were shot to death at their desks by Dr. Barney Baker, 54-year-old psychology professor. Baker was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot at his home on campus.[96]
July 22, 1950: New York City, New York, A 16-year-old boy was shot in the wrist and abdomen at the Public School 141 dance during an argument with a former classmate.[97]
March 12, 1951: Union Mills, North Carolina, Professor W. E. Sweatt, superintendent and teacher at the Alexander School, was shot to death by students Billy Ray Powell, 16, and Hugh Justice, 19. The assailants had been reprimanded by Sweatt, and they waited for him as he locked his office door.[98]
June 4, 1951: New York City, New York, Carl Arch, a 50-year-old intruder to a girl's gym class, was shot and killed by a police officer at Manhattan's Central Commercial High School.[99]
November 27, 1951: New York City, New York, David Brooks, a 15-year-old student, was fatally shot as fellow pupils looked on in a grade school.[100]
April 9, 1952: New York City, New York, A 15-year-old boarding school student shot a dean rather than relinquish pin-up pictures of girls in bathing suits.[101]
July 14, 1952: New York City, New York, Bayard Peakes walked into the offices of the American Physical Society (APS) at Columbia University and shot and killed secretary Eileen Fahey with a .22 caliber pistol. Peakes was reportedly upset that the APS had rejected a pamphlet he had written.[102]
September 3, 1952: Lawrenceville, Illinois, After Georgine Lyon, 25, ended her engagement with Charles Petrach, Petrach shot and killed Lyon in a classroom at Lawrenceville High School where she worked as a librarian.[103]
November 20, 1952: New York City, New York, Rear Admiral E. E. Herrmann, 56, superintendent of the Naval Postgraduate School, was found dead in his office with a bullet in his head. A service revolver was found by his side.[104]
October 2, 1953: Chicago, Illinois, Patrick Colletta, 14, was shot to death by Bernice Turner,14, in a classroom of Kelly High School. It was reported that after Turner refused to date Colletta he handed her the gun and dared her to pull the trigger, telling her that the gun was “only a toy.” A coroner’s jury later ruled that the shooting was an accident.[105]
October 8, 1953: New York City, New York, Larry Licitra, 17-year-old student at the Machine and Metal Trades High School, was shot and slightly wounded in the right shoulder in the lobby of the school while inspecting a handmade pistol owned by one of several students.[106]
March 31, 1954: Newton, Massachusetts, John Frankenberger, 14, was accidentally shot to death in a classroom at Day Junior High School when a pistol being held by a classmate discharged.[107]
May 15, 1954: Chapel Hill, North Carolina, Putnam Davis Jr. was shot and killed during a fraternity house carnival at the Phi Delta Theta house at the University of North Carolina. William Joyner and Allen Long were shot and wounded during the exchange of gunfire in their fraternity bedroom. The incident took place after an all-night beer party. Mr. Long reported to the police that, while the three were drinking beer at 7 a.m., Davis pulled out a gun and started shooting with a gun he had obtained from the car of a former roommate.[108]
January 11, 1955: Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, After some of his dormmates urinated on his mattress, Bob Bechtel, a 20-year-old student at Swarthmore College, returned to his dorm with a shotgun and used it to shoot and kill fellow student Holmes Strozier.[109]
May 4, 1956: Prince George's County, Maryland, 15-year-old student Billy Prevatte fatally shot one teacher and injured two others at Maryland Park Junior High School after he had been reprimanded from the school.[110]
October 20, 1956: New York City, New York, A Booker T. Washington Junior High School student was wounded in the forearm by another student armed with a home-made weapon.[111]
October 2, 1957: New York City, New York, A 16-year old student was shot in the leg by a 15-year old classmate at a city high school.[112]
March 4, 1958: New York City, New York, A 17-year-old student shot a boy in the Manual Training High School.[113]
May 1, 1958: Massapequa, New York, A 15-year-old high Massapequa High School freshman was shot and killed by a classmate in a washroom.[114]
September 24, 1959: New York City, New York, Twenty-seven men and boys and an arsenal were seized in the Bronx as the police headed off a gang war resulting from the fatal shooting of a teenager at Morris High School.[115]

1960s

(U.S. Population: 179M-203M)

February 2, 1960: Hartford City, Indiana, Principal Leonard Redden shot and killed two teachers with a shotgun at William Reed Elementary School before fleeing into a remote forest, where he committed suicide.[116]
March 30, 1960: Alice, Texas, Donna Dvorak, 14, brought a .22 target pistol to Dubose Junior High School, and fatally shot Bobby Whitford, 15, in their 9th grade science class. Dvorak believed Whitford posed a threat to one of her girlfriends.[117]
June 7, 1960: Blaine, Minnesota, Lester Betts, a 40-year-old mail-carrier, walked into the office of 33-year-old principal Carson Hammond and shot him to death with a 12-gauge shotgun.[118]
January 4, 1961: Delmont, South Dakota, Donald Kurtz, 17-year-old senior at Delmont High School, was fatally wounded by a .22 caliber bullet from a rifle. The shot, intended as a sound effect for a school play, hit him in the chest during a rehearsal just minutes before the play was to take place.[119]
October 17, 1961: Denver, Colorado, Tennyson Beard, 14, got into an argument with William Hachmeister, 15, at Morey Junior High School. During the argument Beard pulled out a .38 caliber revolver and shot at Hachmeister, wounding him. A stray bullet also struck Deborah Faith Humphrey, 14, who died from her gunshot wound.[120]
August 1, 1966: Charles Whitman age 25, climbed atop the observation deck at the University of Texas-Austin, and killed 17 people and wounded 31 during a 96-minute shooting rampage in the University of Texas massacre.[121]
October 5, 1966: Grand Rapids, Minnesota, Grand Rapids High School student David Black, 15, killed school administrator Forrest Willey and seriously wounded fellow student Kevin Roth, 14.[122][123]
November 12, 1966: Mesa, Arizona, Bob Smith, 18, took seven people hostage at Rose-Mar College of Beauty. Smith ordered the hostages to lie down on the floor in a circle. He then proceeded to shoot them in the head with a 22-caliber pistol. Four women and a three-year-old girl died, one woman and a baby were injured but survived. Police arrested Smith after the massacre. Smith had reportedly admired Richard Speck and Charles Whitman.[124]
January 24, 1968: High Point, North Carolina, David Walker, 15, was shot to death just outside Central High School by Gerald Locklear, 15.
January 30, 1968: Miami, Florida, 16-year-old Blanche Ward shot and killed fellow student Linda Lipscomb, 16, with a .22-caliber pistol at Miami Jackson High School. According to Ward, she was threatened with a razor by Lipscomb during an argument over a fountain pen, and in the ensuing struggle the gun went off.[125]
February 8, 1968: Orangeburg, South Carolina, In the days leading up to February 8, 1968, about 200 mostly student protesters gathered on the campus of South Carolina State University, located in the city of Orangeburg, to protest the segregation of the All Star Bowling Lane. The bowling alley was owned by the late Harry K. Floyd. That night, students started a bonfire. As police attempted to put out the fire, an officer was injured by a thrown piece of banister. The police said they believed they were under attack by small weapons fire. The officers fired into the crowd, killing three young men: Samuel Hammond, Delano Middleton, and Henry Smith, and wounding twenty-seven others.[126]
May 22, 1968: Miami, Florida, Ernest Lee Grissom, a 15-year-old student at Drew Junior High School, shot and seriously wounded a teacher and a 13-year-old student after he had been reprimanded for causing a disturbance.[127]
January 17, 1969: Los Angeles, California, Two student members of the Black Panther Party, Alprentice Carter and John Huggins, were fatally shot during a student meeting inside Campbell Hall at the University of California, Los Angeles. The motive of the shooting regarded who would own the school's African American Studies Center. The shooter, Claude Hubert, was never to be found but three other men were arrested in connection with the shooting.[128]
January 23, 1969: Washington, D.C., Cardozo Senior High School assistant principal Herman Clifford, 45, was shot to death in the school's hallway by Ronald Joyner, 18, while scuffling with three youths who robbed the school's bank.[129]
November 19, 1969: Tomah, Wisconsin, Principal Martin Mogensen was shot to death in his office by a 14-year-old boy armed with a 20-gauge shotgun.[130]