Two children were in “extremely critical condition” after being shot at a tiny religious K-8 school in Northern California where the gunman died at the scene, apparently from a self-inflicted gunshot, the Associated Press reports. The gunman may have targeted the Feather River School of Seventh-Day Adventists in Palermo on Wednesday because of its religious affiliation, but isn’t believed to have had a prior connection to the victims or the school, said Butte County Sheriff Kory L. Honea, who didn’t explain further. The wounded children, boys ages 5 and 6, are kindergartners at the school and were being treated at a trauma center in the Sacramento area, officials said. “I am thankful that they’re still alive, but they’ve got a long road ahead of them,” said Honea, who said that it was the shooter 's first visit to the school and that he was dropped by an Uber driver for a "cordial" meeting with an administrator about enrolling a child there. While in the meeting, shots rang out, Honea said.
The shooting occurred shortly after 1 p.m. at the private Christian school with fewer than three dozen students in Palermo, a small town about 65 miles north of Sacramento. It was the the latest among dozens of school shootings across the U.S. in recent years, including especially deadly ones in Newtown, Connecticut, Parkland, Florida, and Uvalde, Texas. The shootings have set off fervent debates about gun control and frayed the nerves of parents whose children are growing up accustomed to doing active shooter drills in their classrooms. Still, school shootings have done little to move the needle on national gun laws. Firearms were the leading cause of death among children in 2020 and 2021, according to KFF, a nonprofit that researches health care issues.
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