15 Biggest Mass Shootings in The World

15. 2012 Aurora Shooting

Deaths: 12

The 2012 Aurora Shooting took place on July 20 inside a Century 16 movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. During a midnight screening of the film The Dark Knight Rises, a gunman dressed in tactical clothing, identified as James Eagan Holmes, threw tear gas grenades and shot into the audience with multiple firearms, killing 12 people and injuring 70. Holmes was later arrested in his car outside the cinema. In 2015, Holmes was convicted of 24 counts of first-degree murder, 140 counts of attempted first-degree murder and one count of possessing explosives. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

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These are the 15 biggest mass shootings in the world that were carried out either by lone gunmen or by gunmen acting in small groups. Unfortunately, they represent only a fraction of all the mass shootings that took place in the last couple of decades. Even though some countries, like New Zealand, Australia, and the UK promptly responded to the mass shootings by severely restricting gun ownership, in the U.S the issue still remains a very big one, despite the higher number of mass shootings than in other countries and the many debates and proposals that take place after every such dreadful incident.

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