20 Deaths by firearm in Kentucky

The Atlantis Plastics shooting was an incident of mass murder that took place at an Atlantis Plastics factory in Henderson, Kentucky, United States on June 25, 2008. The gunman, 25-year-old Wesley Neal Higdon, shot and killed five people and critically injured a sixth person before taking his own life. The shooting is the worst in the history of Henderson County, Kentucky in terms of casualties, surpassing triple homicides occurring in 1799 and 1955.

Samuel Wilson Catron was sheriff of Pulaski County, Kentucky. On the evening of April 13, 2002, Catron was assassinated by Danny Shelley after he finished a campaign speech at a fish fry and political rally being held at the Shopville-Stab, Kentucky Volunteer Fire Department in the small community of Stab, Kentucky. Sheriff Catron was running for a fifth term as sheriff. His former deputy, Jeff Morris, who was campaigning against him, and Kenneth White, a well-known drug dealer, conspired to commit the murder. He is buried at Somerset Cemetery in Somerset, Kentucky, along with other relatives. A memorial for Sam Catron can be viewed by the public directly across from the fire department, where Catron fell beside his police cruiser.

Josiah Henry Combs was a lawyer and judge in Perry County, Kentucky. He was one of the central players involved in the French–Eversole Feud from 1887 to 1894 in Perry County. Combs was assassinated on September 23, 1894 in Hazard, the county seat.

Henry H. Denhardt was a Democratic American politician and retired brigadier general in the United States Army, who served as the 34th Lieutenant Governor of Kentucky from 1923 to 1927, under Governor William J. Fields.

John Milton Elliott was an American lawyer and politician from Prestonsburg, Kentucky. He represented Kentucky in the United States House of Representatives from 1853 until 1857 and served in the First Confederate Congress during the American Civil War.

James Ford, born James N. Ford, also known as James N. Ford, Sr., the "N" possibly for Neal, was an American civic leader and business owner in western Kentucky and southern Illinois, from the late 1790s to mid-1830s. Despite his clean public image as a "Pillar of the Community", Ford was secretly a river pirate and the leader of a gang that was later known as the "Ford's Ferry Gang". His men were the river equivalent of highway robbers. They hijacked flatboats and Ford's "own river ferry" for tradable goods from local farms that were coming down the Ohio River.

Joseph Franklin "Jumping Joe" Fulks was an American professional basketball player, sometimes called "the first of the high-scoring forwards". He was posthumously enshrined in the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 1978.

William Justus Goebel was an American politician who served as the 34th Governor of Kentucky for four days in 1900, having been sworn in on his deathbed a day after he was shot by an assassin. Goebel remains the only state governor in the United States to be assassinated while in office.

The Hatfield–McCoy feud, also described by journalists as the Hatfield–McCoy war, involved two rural American families of the West Virginia–Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River in the years 1863–1891. The Hatfields of West Virginia were led by William Anderson "Devil Anse" Hatfield, while the McCoys of Kentucky were under the leadership of Randolph "Ole Ran'l" McCoy. Those involved in the feud were descended from Joseph Hatfield and William McCoy (born c. 1750). The feud has entered the American folklore lexicon as a metonym for any bitterly feuding rival parties.

The Heath High School shooting occurred at Heath High School in West Paducah, Kentucky, United States, on December 1, 1997. Fourteen-year-old Michael Carneal opened fire on a group of students, killing three and injuring five more.

William Thomas "Mox" McQuery was a Major League Baseball first baseman. He played for the Cincinnati Outlaw Reds (1884) of the Union Association, the Detroit Wolverines (1885) and the Kansas City Cowboys (1886), both of the National League, and the Syracuse Stars (1890) and Washington Statesmen (1891), both of the American Association. He was a native of Garrard County, Kentucky.

Marion Miley was an American amateur golfer. Active in the 1930s, she won dozens of amateur tournaments and was ranked as high as #1 in the United States. She was noted by the press as being one of the most photogenic golfers in the world and received international acclaim from her successes both nationally and abroad, bringing attention to the sport of women's golf in the era prior to the establishment of the LPGA. She was murdered in 1941 during a robbery of the country club where she and her mother lived, dying at the age of 27; her mother also died as a result of the crime.

William "Bull" Nelson was a United States naval officer who became a Union general during the American Civil War.

Helen Marlene Major, best known by her middle name and posthumously by her maiden name, was an American woman who was murdered by her estranged husband in 1980. The victim's partial skull was located near the pair's home not long after her death, but it was not identified until 2001 after mitochondrial DNA testing confirmed the identity of the remains.

On October 12, 2012, Ryan Carter Poston, an American attorney at law from Fort Mitchell, Kentucky, was shot to death by his on again off again girlfriend Shayna Michelle Hubers. After a trial in the Campbell County circuit court, Hubers was convicted of murder on April 23, 2015. She was sentenced to 40 years in the Kentucky Department of Corrections on August 14, 2015, with parole eligibility after 34 years. On August 25, 2016, Hubers' conviction was overturned on appeal when one of the jurors in her murder trial was revealed to be a convicted felon. Hubers was convicted of murder during her second trial on August 28, 2018. On October 18, 2018 she was sentenced to life imprisonment with parole eligibility after 20 years.

William Clarke Quantrill was a Confederate guerrilla leader during the American Civil War.

Harry Simms, born Harry Simms Hersh, was an American labor leader from Springfield, Massachusetts. He was sent by the National Miners Union to Harlan County, Kentucky during the Harlan County War to organize the mine workers there.

Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old African-American woman, was fatally shot in her Louisville, Kentucky, apartment on March 13, 2020, when white plainclothes officers Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison, and Myles Cosgrove of the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD) forced entry into the apartment as part of an investigation into drug dealing operations. Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, was inside the apartment with her when the officers knocked on the door and then forced entry. Officers said that they announced themselves as police before forcing entry, but Walker said he did not hear any announcement, thought the officers were intruders, and fired a warning shot at them. According to officials, it hit Mattingly in the leg, and the officers fired 32 shots in return. Walker was unhurt but Taylor was hit by six bullets and died. According to police, Taylor's home was never searched.

Felix Kirk Zollicoffer was an American newspaperman, politician, and soldier. A three-term United States Congressman from Tennessee, an officer in the United States Army, and a Confederate brigadier general during the American Civil War; he led the first Confederate invasion of eastern Kentucky and was killed in action at the Battle of Mill Springs. Zollicoffer was the first Confederate general to die in the Western Theater.