Shooting attack
Shooting attackiStock

Wednesday's Florida shooting was the eighteenth school shooting incident this year, SBS News reported.

According to the Telegraph, the shooting is the deadliest so far in 2018, and the third deadliest in US history, coming in just after the Virginia Tech and Sandy Hook shootings.

Quoting the Everytown for Gun Safety group, SBS noted that eight of the 18 incidents did not cause injuries, two were suicide attacks, and the rest were attacks on others.

Everytown for Gun Safety also noted that since January 2013, the US has seen at least 291 school shootings.

Former New York police chief Bill Bratton told MSNBC that the shootings have become "the new normal," and "the reality is, this is something that will just continue to occur."

Florida Senator Bill Nelson asked CNN, "Are we coming to expect these mass shootings as a kind of routine matter?"

And former FBI analyst Philip Mudd burst into tears while giving an interview with CNN.

Students in both elementary and high schools across the US have regular "shooting drills," where students practice how they would respond to an incident involving an "active shooter."

Florida Governor Rick Scott said, "There's a time to continue to have these conversations about how through law enforcement, how through mental illness funding that we make sure people are safe, and we'll continue to do that."

In 2012, The Washington Post reported that the US has the highest rate of gun-related murder in the developed world, at about twenty times the average and four times as many as Turkey and Switzerland, which tied for third place.