Oregon is just the latest in a series of campus mass shootings over the last few years

Oregon has once more thrown America's gun control laws into the spotlight, as the latest in a series of campus shootings over the last few years.

The worst recent killing spree in recent times came in April 2007, when 32 students were fatally shot before the gunman, Seung-Hui Cho, 23, turned the gun on himself.


 Part of the vigil for the victims of Oregon's mass shooting
 (AP)

The shooting took place in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.

In April 2012, seven people died and three were injured as a 43-year-old former student, One Goh, opened fire at Oikos University in Oakland, California. It was later decided that Goh was unfit to stand trial, after psychiatric evaluations established he suffered from long-term paranoid schizophrenia. He had been charged with seven counts of murder and three counts of attempted murder.

In May last year, Elliot Rodger, a 22-year-old community college student, killed six people and injured 13 in shooting and stabbing attacks around the University of California campus in Santa Barbara. Authorities say he shot himself after exchanging fire with police.

A lecture hall at Northern Illinois University in Delkab, Illinois was fired upon in February 2008, as five students were killed and 18 were wounded. The gunman was a former student named Steven Kazmierczak who committed suicide.

In June 2013, John Zawahri, 23, shot both his father and his brother before turning the gun on strangers in cars at Santa Monica College, California. Five people were killed and several others were wounded as students took their final exams. Zawahri was fatally shot in the college library by officers.