At least 10 killed, 10 injured, suspect arrested after shooting at US high school

At least one gunman opened fire at a Houston-area high school on Friday (Saturday NZ Time), killing 10 people, most of them students, authorities said, in the United States' deadliest such attack since the massacre in Florida that gave rise to a campaign by teens for gun control.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott says 10 people are dead and 10 more wounded after a shooting at a high school in the town of Santa Fe. He also revealed the school shooting suspect had a shotgun, .38-revolver, and that both belong to suspect's father.

Abbott called Friday's shooting "one of the most heinous attacks that we've ever seen in the history of Texas schools." He says explosive devices including a molotov cocktail that had been found in the suspected shooter's home and a vehicle as well as around the school and nearby.

The governor says the suspect said he originally intended to commit suicide but gave himself up and told authorities that he didn't have the courage to take his own life.

READ MORE: Two dead, 43 injured in US school bus crash

Michael Farina, 17, said he was on the other side of campus when the shooting began and thought it was a fire drill. He was holding a door open for special education students in wheelchairs when a principal came bounding down the hall and telling everyone to run. Another teacher yelled out, "It is real."

Students were led to take cover behind a car shop across the street from the school. Some still did not feel safe and began jumping the fence behind the shop to run even farther away, Farina said.

"I debated doing that myself," he said.

The assault was the deadliest in Texas since a man with an assault rifle attacked a rural church late last year, killing more than two dozen people. It comes three months after the February 14 attack in Parkland, Florida, that killed 17.

Aerial footage showed students standing in a grassy field and three medical helicopters landing at the school in Santa Fe, a city of about 13,000 people roughly 48km southeast of Houston.

One student told Houston television station KTRK in a telephone interview that a gunman came into her first-period art class and started shooting. The student said she saw one girl with blood on her leg as the class evacuated the room.

"We thought it was a fire drill at first but really, the teacher said, 'Start running,"' the student told the television station.

The student said she did not get a good look at the shooter because she was running away. She said students escaped through a door at the back of the classroom.

Authorities did not immediately confirm that report.

Vice President Mike Pence said he and US President Donald Trump were briefed on the shooting. Pence said the students, families, teachers and all those affected should know: "We're with you. You're in our prayers and I know you are in the prayers of the American people."

Trump added in a tweet that that early reports were "not looking good. God bless all!"

First lady Melania Trump also weighed in on Twitter, saying her "heart goes out to Santa Fe and all of Texas today."

The shooting was all but certain to re-ignite the national debate over gun regulations. In the aftermath of the February 14 attack on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, survivors pulled all-nighters, petitioned city councils and state lawmakers, and organised protests in a grass-roots movement.

Within weeks, state lawmakers adopted changes, including new weapons restrictions. The move cemented the gun-friendly state's break with the National Rifle Association. The NRA fought back with a lawsuit.

In late March, the teens spearheaded one of the largest student protest marches since Vietnam in Washington and inspired hundreds of other marches from California to Japan.

Parkland survivors took to social media to express outrage and heartbreak over the Texas attack.

"My heart is so heavy for the students of Santa Fe High School. It's an all too familiar feeling no one should have to experience. I am so sorry this epidemic touched your town - Parkland will stand with you now and forever," Marjory Stoneman Douglas student Jaclyn Corin said in a tweet.

She also directed her frustration at Trump, writing "Our children are being MURDERED and you're treating this like a game. This is the 22nd school shooting just this year. DO SOMETHING."

The calls for tighter gun controls that have swelled since the February mass shooting at a Florida high school have barely registered in gun-loving Texas - at least to this point.

Texas has some of the country's most permissive gun laws and just hosted the NRA's annual conference earlier this month. In the run-up to Texas' march primaries, gun control was not a main issue with candidates of either party. Republicans did not soften their views on guns, and Democrats campaigned on a range of issues instead of zeroing in on gun violence.

RECENT AND DEADLIEST US SCHOOL SHOOTINGS

A look at some recent US school shootings and some of the deadliest of years past:

- February 14, 2018: Authorities say a former student killed 17 people, including 14 children and three staff members, at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Nikolas Cruz, 19, faces 17 counts of first-degree murder in the attack, which sparked student walkouts throughout the country calling for tougher gun restrictions.

- January 23, 2018: Two students were killed and 14 were wounded by gunfire when a student opened fire before classes began at Marshall County High School in western Kentucky, authorities said. Gabriel Ross Parker, who was 15 at the time of the attack, is charged with two counts of murder and 14 counts of assault.

- December 7, 2017: Two students at Aztec High School in New Mexico were killed by a 21-year-old gunman disguised as a student. Police said the shooter later killed himself.

- September 13, 2017: A 15-year-old boy was killed at Freeman High School in Rockford, Washington, and three female students were wounded when authorities say another 15-year-old boy opened fire with a handgun. A suspect was arrested.

- April 10, 2017: A gunman opened fire in the special education classroom of his estranged wife at North Park Elementary School in San Bernardino, California, killing her and an 8-year-old boy, and wounding another child. The gunman then fatally shot himself.

- September 28, 2016: A 6-year-old boy was fatally shot on the playground of Townville Elementary School in South Carolina by a 14-year-old boy who had just killed his father, authorities said. Another child and a teacher were struck by bullets but survived. The teen was charged with murder.

- September 8, 2016: A 14-year-old girl died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after shooting and wounding another female student at Alpine High School in West Texas.

- December 14, 2012. A 20-year-old gunman killed 20 first-grade children and six educators inside Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, and then killed himself. He also fatally shot his mother before entering the school.

- February 27, 2012: Three students were killed and two wounded in a shooting that started in a school cafeteria in Chardon, Ohio, as students waited for buses to other schools. Police charged a suspect, 17 at the time, as an adult.

- April 16, 2007: Twenty-three-year-old Seung-Hui Cho fatally shot 32 people in a dorm and a classroom at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, and then killed himself.

- April 20, 1999: Students Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, opened fire at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado, killing 12 classmates and a teacher and wounding 26 others before killing themselves in the school's library.

- December 1, 1997: Three students were killed and five wounded at a high school in West Paducah, Kentucky. Michael Carneal, then 14, later pleaded guilty but mentally ill to murder and is serving life in prison.