RUSSIA

Memorial in honor of the victims of the May 11, 2021 Kazan school shooting — Photo: Yegor Aleyev/TASS/ZUMA

Where: Gymnasia No. 175 in Kazan, east of Moscow

When: May 11, 2021

Casualties: 9

Four months later, 18-year-old Timur Bekmansurov opened fire at Perm State University, in the city of Perm, killing six people and wounding 47 others.

Although this type of attack is relatively rare in Russia, owing to strict gun ownership regulations, the shooting prompted President Vladimir Putin to order a revision of the country's gun control laws.

BRAZIL

Entrance to the Professor Raul Brasil State School in Suzano — Photo: Julien Pereira/Fotoarena/ZUMA

Where: Professor Raul Brasil State School in Suzano, near São Paulo

When: March 13, 2019

Casualties: 10, including the two perpetrators

Using a short-frame revolver, a composite bow, crossbow, hatchet and molotov cocktail, 17-year-old Guilherme Taucci Monteiro and 25-year-old Luiz Henrique de Castro, both former students at the Suzano school, killed five students and two school employees before committing suicide. As reported by O Globo daily, prior to the attack, the duo had also killed Monteiro's uncle. According to Reuters, the pair had been inspired by the 1999 Columbine High School massacre in the U.S. state of Colorado, in which Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold murdered 12 fellow students and one teacher.

CANADA

Flowers in front of the La Loche community school on Feb. 2, 2016 — Photo: Kayoty

Where: La Loche Community School in Canada's Sakatchewan province

When: January 22, 2016

Casualties: 4

Canada has a lot of guns — an estimated 35 per 100 residents, according to Bloomberg numbers, but the U.S.'s northern neighbor also has a lot of rules and regulations in place, including a strict gun-license process. Still, the country is no stranger to shootings on school grounds, the deadliest of which happened at the Ecole Polytechnique in Montreal in 1989 when a man who failed to qualify for entry at the university opened fire with a semi-automatic rifle, targeting female students. All 14 of the victims killed were women.

More recently, western Canada was left in shock after a 17-year-old identified as Randan Dakota Fontaine, went on a shooting spree in La Loche — killing two people at their home, before targeting the La Loche Community School where he killed a teacher and an educational assistant. He was later apprehended and placed in custody. According to the Toronto Star, Fontaine had been bullied at school for his appearance. The Saskatoon Star Phoenix also reported on the following exchange on social media before the shooter entered the school grounds: "Just killed 2 ppl. Bout to shoot up the school."

CHINA

Still from CCTV footage of the Chenpeng Village Primary School attack — Source: CNN

Where: Chenpeng Village Primary School

When: December 14, 2012

Casualties: 24 injured

Gun control laws in China rank among the strictest in the world, making firearms extremely hard to come by — which leads perpetrators to turn to other weapons. In the past two decades, the country has been struggling to stem a spate of mass stabbings and knife attacks targeting schools.

In 2012, 36-year-old Min Yongjun stabbed 24 people with a kitchen knife, including 23 children and an elderly woman, at the Chenpeng Village Primary School in the Henan Province, according to the South China Morning Post.

The Chenpeng school attack was followed, only hours later, by the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in the U.S., drawing comparisons between the two — particularly when it comes to the disparity in casualties in light of the two countries' respective stance on gun control: All victims in the Chenpeng attack survived, while the deadliest mass shooting at an elementary school in U.S. history left 28 dead.

As the New York Times noted, analysts have blamed the epidemic of stabbings in China on mental health problems caused by a rapidly changing society, in a country where the stigma surrounding mental illnesses is still strong, and mental health care is harder to access in small villages. In June, British medical journal BMC Psychiatry estimated that 91% of China's 173 million Chinese adults suffering from mental problems never received professional help.