When children kill

Students are victims very regularly

A school shooting incident that left two dead and at least a dozen injured has shocked America, but gun control advocates say it is not unusual for children to bring guns to school.

Nancy Hwa, a spokeswoman for the lobbying group Handgun Control, estimated that about one American child a week is caught with a gun at school.

In the past month alone, a 5-year-old boy was caught with a fully loaded semi-automatic 9mm weapon at a school in Florida and 12-year-old boy in Illinois was caught with a semi-automatic gun in his backpack.

The town of Jonesboro honoured its dead

The 12-year-old said the gun had been in his school locker all day because the school does not allow backpacks in the classroom.

In January, a 13-year-old boy killed himself at a school in Texas with his mother's gun while she was in conference with a teacher.

And in California in January, police shot dead a 17-year-old boy who was holding a 17-year-old girl hostage with a gun.

Hundreds killed each year

Handgun Control says that about 800 Americans a year die from guns shot by children under the age of 19.

Ms Hwa called on President George W Bush to act to control handguns.

Mr Bush says he supports some gun control

"In the wake of the shootings that happen every day, we hope that he would take leadership in keeping guns away from children", she said.

Mr Bush said during last year's election campaign that he wanted to close a loophole in American law that makes it easier to buy weapons at gun shows than in shops.

But Ms Hwa said that he had failed to do so as governor of Texas.

She also said talk of voluntary safety locks - which Mr Bush has said he supports - is meaningless without national standards.

"Why does the gun industry make guns that a two-year-old can fire?" she asked.

History of shootings

The deadliest incident of recent years was the shooting at Columbine High School in the suburbs of Denver, Colorado on 20 April 1999.

Two masked teenage pupils went on a shooting rampage, killing 12 pupils and a teacher, and injuring 23 others, before killing themselves.

In May 1998, 15-year-old Kipland Kinkel killed two fellow pupils after opening fire in the cafeteria at Thurston High School in Springfield, Oregon. He had murdered his parents a day earlier.

On the same day, 200 miles (320km) north in Washington state, a 15-year-old boy shot himself in the head after taking his girlfriend off the school bus at gunpoint and to his home in the town of Onalaska.

He shot himself as the girl's father tried to break down the door. The 14-year-old girlfriend was not injured.

Jonesboro killings

In March 1998, two boys opened fire on classmates at Westside Middle School in Jonesboro, Arkansas.

The four schoolgirl victims of the Jonesboro shooting

The boys, aged 11 and 13, killed four girls and one teacher, wounding nine more girls and one other teacher.

As the incident fuelled concern about a surge in youth violence, then-President Clinton instructed the Justice Department to look into the trend of school shootings.

That trend included these deadly attacks:

• 19 May 1998: An 18-year-old at Lincoln County High School shot and killed a student in a school parking lot in Fayetteville, Tennessee, three days before they were to graduate, apparently because they had argued about a girl.

• 25 April 1998: A 14-year-old boy opened fire at an eighth-grade graduation dance at Parker Middle School in Edinboro, Pennsylvania, killing a teacher and wounding two students and another teacher.

• 1 December 1997: A 14-year-old boy shot and killed three girls at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, while they took part in a prayer circle. Five others were wounded.

• 1 October 1997: A 16-year-old fatally stabbed his mother before going to school where he shot nine students. His ex-girlfriend and another girl at Pearl High School in Mississippi were killed. Seven other students were wounded and six boys, aged between 16 and 18, were charged with conspiracy to commit murder.