While such gun attacks are rare in Europe, where gun control laws are stricter than the US, there have been several notable shooting sprees:
- March 13, 1996: Sixteen children aged between five and six and their teacher are shot dead in their school in Dunblane, Scotland, by a mentally disturbed man who then kills himself.
- April 26, 2002: Sixteen people, including 12 teachers, die in a killing spree in Erfurt, Germany by a 19-year-old former student who then turns the gun on himself.
- September 24, 1995: Sixteen people are killed and many injured by a 17-year-old in the southern French town of Sollies-le-Pont et Cuers. The gunman later commits suicide.
Schools, meetings targeted
- March 11, 2009: Fifteen people, including nine school students and three teachers, die in Winnenden near the southwestern German city of Stuttgart when a 17-year-old former student of the school goes on the rampage. The shooter takes his own life.
- September 27, 2001: Fourteen Swiss politicians and local canton officials are killed by a crazed gunman in Zug in central Switzerland. The killer commits suicide.
- September 23, 2008: Nine students and a teacher die in Kauhajoki, southwestern Finland, after a 22-year-old student goes on a shooting spree before killing himself.
- March 27, 2002: Eight people die and 19 are injured when a man opens fire on a town meeting in Nanterre on the western outskirts of Paris. The killer commits suicide a day later while in police custody.
- November 7, 2007: Eight people are shot dead in a high school in Tuusula, southern Finland, by an 18-year-old who kills himself.
- October 15, 2002: Eight die in a family shooting near Turin in northwestern Italy. The killer, recently divorced, takes his life.
