SAN BERNARDINO, California (AFP) - The town of San Bernardino in California was rocked by a shooting rampage on Wednesday (Dec 2) that killed 14 people and wounded 17 others.

It is the country's worst mass shooting since 2012 when 20 pupils and six adults were killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut by 20-year-old Adam Lanza.

Here is a timeline of some of the worst mass shootings in the US over the past 25 years:

- Killeen, Texas, Oct 16, 1991: A man shoots dead 23 people in a restaurant and then kills himself.

- Littleton, Colorado, April 20, 1999: Two teenage boys shoot and kill 12 fellow classmates and a teacher at Columbine High School before killing themselves.

- Atlanta, Georgia, July 29, 1999: A stock market trader goes on a day-long shooting rampage, killing 12 people, including his wife and two children, before taking his own life.

- Red Lake, Minnesota, March 21, 2005: A teenage boy kills two people at his grandfather's home on an Indian reservation and then goes to his local high school, where he kills seven others before committing suicide.

- Blacksburg, Virginia, April 16, 2007: A student goes on a rampage at Virginia Tech University, killing 32 people before committing suicide.

- Covina, California, Dec 24, 2008: A man dressed in a Santa Claus suit opens fire at a family party and then sets fire to the house. Nine people are killed. The gunman commits suicide.

- Binghamton, New York, April 3, 2009: A gunman shoots dead 13 people at a civic centre for immigrants.

- Fort Hood, Texas, Nov 5, 2009: US army psychiatrist Major Nidal Hasan opens fire at his military base, killing 13 people and wounding 42, before being overpowered by police.

- Oikos, California, April 2, 2012: A male nursing student methodically kills seven people at a Christian university.

- Aurora, Colorado, July 20, 2012: A man kills 12 people when he opens fire at a movie theatre showing a late-night premiere of a Batman film in a suburb of Denver.

- Oak Creek, Wisconsin, Aug 5, 2012: A white supremacist and US army veteran fatally shoots six people and wounds four others at a Sikh temple before taking his own life.

- Newtown, Connecticut, Dec 14, 2012: A young man kills 26 people, including 20 children at Sandy Hook elementary school. He also fatally shoots his mother. He commits suicide.

- Miami, Florida, July 26, 2013: A gunman kills six people in a shooting rampage at an apartment building, taking two people hostage before being killed by police after a lengthy standoff.

- Washington, Sept 16, 2013: A gunman fatally shoots 12 people at a naval base in the US capital. The gunman is killed by police.

- Charleston, South Carolina, June 17, 2015: A white gunman kills nine people at a historic black church in Charleston, South Carolina.

- Roseburg, Oregon, Oct 1, 2015: A gunman goes on a shooting rampage at a college in the western state of Oregon, killing nine people and wounding several others before he committed suicide.

- San Bernardino, California, Dec 2, 2015: A shooting inside a centre for the disabled leaves at least 14 dead and wounds the same number in San Bernardino, California.