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Special Report

Texas has had at least 49 mass shootings since 2006. Two-thirds came after 2015.

By The Dallas Standard Special Reports Desk October 17, 2026 at 9:27 AM
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Chart of every shooting that killed four or more people in Texas since 2006, by year

A shooting Thursday at Silver Rail Elementary School in Bend, Oregon, killed three children and a teacher, police said. In Texas, the three deadliest since 2006 were at a church in Sutherland Springs, a store in El Paso and an elementary school in Uvalde.

Since 2006, at least 49 shootings in Texas have killed four or more people, not counting the shooter, a Dallas Standard review of news reports and police records found. They killed 304 people and wounded at least 166 more. Of those, 33 came after 2015. The later span is slightly longer, and the state's population grew over the two decades, so part of the rise reflects a bigger Texas.

At least three more such shootings appear in other databases or FBI homicide records but could not yet be confirmed in two independent sources, so they are not counted here.

There is no single definition of a mass shooting. The AP/USA Today/Northeastern University database counts killings of four or more people, the threshold used here. The Gun Violence Archive counts shootings in which four or more people are shot, killed or wounded, a far larger number. Mother Jones counts only public attacks.

Family killings were the largest group

Family killings, in which most victims were the shooter's relatives or partners or a partner's household, numbered 20. Public attacks numbered eight. Another crime, such as a robbery, a drug deal or a fight between rival groups, was behind six cases. The remaining 15 cases were other or unsolved.

The deadliest

The deadliest was in Sutherland Springs in 2017, where 25 people were killed at a church; officials count 26, including an unborn child. Next were El Paso in 2019 (22 killed) and Uvalde in 2022 (21).

In North Texas

Of the 49, at least 12 happened in the 13 North Texas counties The Dallas Standard covers. They include the 2016 ambush in downtown Dallas that killed five police officers.

At schools

Two of the 49 happened at a school or college: Santa Fe, May 18, 2018 (high school, 10 killed); Uvalde, May 24, 2022 (elementary school, 21 killed).

The bigger picture

Mass shootings are a small share of gun deaths. In 2024, 4,389 Texas residents died from gunshot wounds, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: 13.9 per 100,000 residents after adjusting for age, 26th highest among the 50 states, against 12.8 nationally. Of those deaths, 2,779 were suicides and 1,450 were homicides.

How we did this

The Dallas Standard counted every shooting from Jan. 1, 2006, through Oct. 15, 2026, in which four or more people were killed within 24 hours, not counting the shooter, and gunfire caused most or all of the deaths. Victims who died within seven days of the attack are counted; unborn children are not. A shooting that crossed state lines is counted in the state where most victims died. Each case was confirmed in at least two independent sources: news reports, statements from police or prosecutors, court records or, in some cases, the FBI's homicide records, which police agencies file for each killing. Some dates are when the victims were found. We started from leads in the AP/USA Today/Northeastern University Mass Killing Database, the Mother Jones and Stanford mass-shooting databases, the Gun Violence Archive and Wikipedia's yearly lists, then searched news archives for cases those lists missed. Leads we could not yet confirm in two sources are not counted, so the totals are minimums. Cases are grouped as family killings (the victims were mainly the shooter's relatives or partners), killings tied to another crime such as a robbery or drug dispute, public attacks, and other or unsolved cases.

Sources: news reports and, where available, police, prosecutor and court records for each case, listed below. Gun deaths: CDC, Stats of the States and CDC WONDER (Underlying Cause of Death, 2024 final).

Every case

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