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Frantic parents texted with teenagers barricaded in classrooms. Others offered shelter to students fleeing their high school in this sleepy suburb north of Los Angeles on Thursday. It was the latest example of a wrenching sequence that has become a recurring nightmare for families in America. This time it was a little after 7:30 a.m. when a young man opened fire at Saugus High School in Santa Clarita, Calif., killing two students and wounding three others before turning the gun on himself, authorities said. (Cowan, Harmon and Bogel-Burroughs, 11/14)

The gunfire began around 7:30 a.m. at Saugus High School in the Los Angeles suburb of Santa Clarita. Authorities estimated that the suspect took just 16 seconds to pull out the weapon, shoot five classmates and turn the gun on himself. At the time, students were “milling around” and greeting each other in an outdoor quad area, sheriff’s homicide Capt. Kent Wegener said. Surveillance video showed the shooter standing still while “everyone is active around him.” (Dazio and Weber, 11/14)

Television footage showed a familiar scene: a campus swarmed with ambulances and police cars, students evacuating school buildings while wounded classmates were wheeled out on gurneys, and worried parents clustered around the school’s perimeter. The shooting is at least the seventh to take place on U.S. school grounds since the start of the academic year, according to a Washington Post analysis, and the first fatal shooting on a campus since students arrived back at school. More than 233,000 schoolchildren have been exposed to gun violence at their own schools since the shooting at Columbine High in 1999. (Monnier, Duan, Balingit and Mattler, 11/14)

Some students remained locked in classrooms for more than an hour amid the massive police presence. Eventually, they were led off the school grounds by deputies. Some were in tears. As they walked, one student asked aloud a question on the minds of many others: “What kind of a world is this?” (Fry, Gerber, Queally, Mejia, Winton and Parvini, 11/14)

A 16-year-old female student and 14-year-old male student died after being transported to a nearby hospital, the sheriff said. The three surviving victims were in stable condition, according to the sheriff’s office, and one has been released. Sheriff Villanueva declined to elaborate on the suspect’s motivations but said authorities didn’t believe he worked with anyone else. The suspect used a .45 caliber semiautomatic handgun, Capt. Wegener said. (Elinson, Ansari and Caldwell, 11/14)

The message flashed across the screen on Joy Songcuan’s phone just after 8 a.m., prompting confusion, and then fear. “I’m OK,” the text from his son read, “don’t worry.” At first, Songcuan didn’t know what his son, Karl, a freshman at Saugus High School, was talking about. Then another text came through. “There’s a shooting.” (Gerber, Queally, Vives, Miller and Mejia, 11/14)

First on the scene was a detective from the Santa Clarita Sheriff's Station Detective Bureau who had just dropped a family member off at the school, Villanueva said. The detective was driving away when he saw students fleeing the gunshots. Two officers also entered the school "within seconds" of the shooting, followed "within a minute" by on-duty responders from the Santa Clarita Sheriff's Station, he added. The trio "did not hesitate" to tend to all six of the wounded students, including the suspect, Villanueva said. "Their actions definitely saved lives," he added. (Sundby, Baldwin and Albert, 11/14)

The first thing adults should do is make sure their child or adolescent knows they are willing and available to talk with them, said Stephen Brock, a professor of school psychology at Cal State Sacramento. “Help them process whatever they want,” Brock said. “At the same time, especially in the immediate aftermath of an incident like this, [it’s important] not to force the issue. You simply acknowledge the event.” Ask them if they have questions, he said, and let their questions be your guide. (Agrawal, 11/14)

The modern American gun debate began on May 2, 1967, when 30 protesting members of the Black Panther Party marched into the California Capitol with loaded handguns, shotguns and rifles. As photos of gun-toting radicals from Oakland hit front pages across the country, many Americans were shocked to see who was embracing the Second Amendment. In California, as in most states at the time, there were few restrictions on carrying loaded weapons in public. (Christopher, 11/14)

At least 30 shooting attacks on school grounds have occurred in 2019 resulting in deaths or injuries, according to gun safety group Everytown. The count includes a shooting Thursday at Saugus High School in Los Angeles County that left two people dead and four others injured, including the suspect. At least 12 people have died in fatal shooting attacks this year, according to Everytown's research. (Miller, 11/14)

An impromptu effort to pass a gun background check bill in the Senate unanimously was quickly nixed by a Republican senator who said it would infringe on Second Amendment rights, as news of a mass shooting at a California high school came rolling in Thursday morning. Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut requested that the universal background check bill, H.R. 8, be passed by unanimous consent -- a procedural move that allows a bill to skip several steps, including debate, to pass unanimously, without senators casting an individual vote. (Stracqualursi, 11/14)

Dozens of students from across Florida descended on their state Capitol demanding action on gun control Thursday, a day when a deadly school shooting in California prompted panic, helplessness and determination. Two students were killed and three others were wounded when a fellow student opened fire at a Santa Clarita, California, high school. (11/14)