The US is not expected to put gun control on the agenda even after the country's unprecedented levels of gun violence, an expert said, as a teenage boy opened fire with a handgun at a Kentucky high school on Tuesday, killing two fellow students and wounding more than a dozen people in the latest mass shooting to hit the United States.

The unnamed 15-year-old student, now in custody, is alleged to have carried out the attack at Marshall County High School in Benton, a small town in western Kentucky.

One of the students died at the scene and the other after being taken to a hospital. Seventeen students were injured, 12 of them hit with bullets and five others hurt in the scramble as hundreds of students fled for their lives from the school, Kentucky State Police said, adding that those hurt ranged in age from 14 to 18 years old.

The shooter struck at 7:57 am when the school day was just starting. Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin said the shooter was apprehended in a "nonviolent" manner, and will be charged with two counts of murder and multiple counts of attempted murder.