Category Archives: US gun control

‘I can’t’: Georgia gun shop owner to close store as US reels from mass killings

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Jon Waldman says attacks have weighed on his conscience and that Atlanta shooting earlier this month was ‘final straw’

A Georgia gun shop owner said he is closing his store in the wake of several mass shootings targeting young children, as the country reels from recent attacks and an escalating rate of killings.

Jon Waldman, a gun shop owner in Duluth, Georgia, said that he had already closed his store and will have the gun inventory cleared out by 15 June, NBC News reported.

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Winnie-the-Pooh book teaches Texas kids to ‘run, hide, fight’ in a shooting

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Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston, was sent home in backpacks of children

Texas schoolchildren as young as four years old are being given Winnie-the-Pooh cartoon books, teaching them to “run, hide, fight” if a gunman enters their building.

Parents and teachers in the Dallas area have expressed alarm and concern that the Stay Safe book, produced by a law enforcement consulting firm in Houston, has been sent home in the backpacks of children in pre-kindergarten and elementary classes.

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Family of teen shooter who killed three says he struggled with mental illness

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New Mexico 18-year-old killed three women and injured six others in mass shooting on Monday in Farmington

The family of an 18-year-old high school student who took three of more than a dozen guns to which he had access and killed three elderly women without provocation in New Mexico on Monday has claimed he was struggling with his mental health before the attack.

The shooter, who was armed with at least three guns and wore body armor before police killed him, “was fighting a battle of mental illness that he lost”, his family asserted on Friday in a statement, according to the Albuquerque Journal.

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Gun violence is top public health concern for quarter of Americans – poll

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After several mass shootings this year, 26% of Americans believe guns are the number one public health threat

A quarter of Americans now believe guns are the number one public health threat, according to new polling.

According to the Axios/Ipsos American Health Index, 26% of Americans believe access to guns is the top threat to public health. Around 25% believe opioids and fentanyl are the top concern.

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Texas man kills girlfriend after she had an abortion in Colorado

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Gabriella Gonzalez, 26, was shot in the head in a parking lot by Harold Thompson, 22, shortly after she ‘shrugs off’ his chokehold

A 26-year-old woman from Texas was shot and killed by her boyfriend after getting an abortion in another state, Dallas police said.

He was jailed on a murder charge as of Friday.

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Oregon Republican boycott threatens key bills on abortion and gun control

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Walkout lasting more than a week has thrown statehouse into disarray and jeopardized Democrats’ legislative agenda

Oregon Republicans boycotted the statehouse for a ninth day on Thursday, denying lawmakers the quorum necessary to pass legislation, in a protest that could derail hundreds of bills, including proposals on gun control and abortion rights.

While Democrats control the capital in the Pacific north-west state, Republicans have leveraged rules requiring two-thirds of lawmakers be present to pass legislation, which means Democrats need a certain number of Republicans to be there too.

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Texas gunman who killed eight had ‘neo-Nazi’ ideation, say officials

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Mauricio Garcia, who was discharged from the US army in 2008, reportedly also had Nazi tattoos on his body

The gunman who killed eight people and wounded seven others at a suburban Dallas shopping mall had no prior criminal record but had “neo-Nazi ideation”, authorities said on Tuesday.

Investigators are still trying to determine why Mauricio Garcia opened fire on Saturday at the Allen Premium Outlets, Hank Sibley, the regional director of the Texas department of public safety, said at a news conference.

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Louisiana teenager shot by neighbor as she played hide-and-seek

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The latest shooting of an innocent victim spotlights ‘stand your ground’ laws, which some Republicans are trying to strengthen

A 14-year-old girl was playing hide-and-seek with her friends when she was shot in the head by her neighbor in Louisiana, according to authorities.

The shooting on Sunday adds to a recent string of gun attacks across the US aimed at people who were engaged in innocuous activities when they encountered their shooter.

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US on track to set record in 2023 for mass killings after series of shootings

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Country is seeing an average of more than one mass killing weekly – amid little political prospect of meaningful gun control

After a series of shootings and other attacks, 2023 is on track to be the worst in recent history for mass killings in the US.

Mass killings are defined as incidents in which four or more people are killed, not including the shooter or other type of perpetrator. According to data from the Gun Violence Archive, the US is on pace for 60 mass killings this year. There were 31 in 2019, 21 in 2020, 28 in 2021 and 36 in 2022.

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‘Gun-loving’ ex-US army officer calls for gun control after witnessing Texas mall shooting

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Steven Spainhouer described rushing to the shopping center after his son called and trying to help a girl who ‘had no face’

As an ex-police and US army officer, Steven Spainhouer is comfortable around firearms and goes so far as to describe himself as a “gun lover”.

But Spainhouer is now passionately arguing in favor of meaningful gun control after witnessing a rifle-wielding man murder several people before being shot to death by police outside a suburban Dallas shopping mall Saturday.

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Texas mall shooting: family and friends identify victims as investigation goes on

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Police chief Brian Harvey declined to answer questions Sunday evening after a gunman killed eight people at a shopping mall

The victims of a mass shooting have been named as law enforcement officials in Allen, Texas, are still trying to piece together the events of the Saturday afternoon attack that killed nine people, including the gunman, and left at least seven others injured at a suburban shopping mall.

Brian Harvey, the Allen police chief, declined to answer questions Sunday evening, saying of the investigation, “we actually don’t have a lot”.

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Texas takes step toward more gun control as US mass shootings on record pace – as it happened

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The United States is suffering mass shootings this year at a pace that means 2023 is already on track to become a record year for such killings – even as the Republican-controlled legislature of Texas took a small step towards greater gun safety laws.

The mass shooting in Allen, Texas, on Saturday was the second deadliest gun massacre of the year and just the latest in a string of such killings that are blighting 2023 and leaving many Americans in despair that action will be taken to stem the bloodshed.

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Texas mall shooting: gunman expressed interest in neo-Nazi views – report

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Federal agents reportedly examining social media history of alleged shooter Mauricio Garcia

US federal officials are looking into whether the gunman who killed eight people at a Dallas-area mall expressed an interest in white supremacist ideology, as they work to try to discern a motive for the attack, a law enforcement official has told the Associated Press.

The official cautioned that the investigation was in its early stages.

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‘Spare us your prayers’: Ted Cruz faces backlash after Texas mall shooting kills eight

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Critics say the Republican senator should advocate for meaningful gun control rather than invoke prayer after mass, deadly violence

Texas US senator Ted Cruz’s comment that he was “praying” for families of the eight victims killed in a shooting at a shopping mall in his state has sparked outrage as many critics say the Republican should advocate for meaningful gun control rather than repeatedly invoke prayer after mass, deadly violence.

The backlash came as President Joe Biden called on Congress to pass gun control bills in the wake of Saturday’s attack, in which the gunman was also killed, in Allen, Texas.

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‘Fearful and trigger happy’: flooded with guns and paranoia, the US reels from shootings

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Permissive self-defense and gun laws spotlighted by recent shootings in which victims approached gunmen by mistake

Waldes Thomas and Diamond Darville were driving for the grocery delivery service Instacart near Miami in mid-April when they drove the order up to the wrong address.

Thomas, 19, and Darville, 18, reportedly told authorities they were backing away from the home when the owner emerged with his son, grabbed on to the driver’s window and fired a gun three times at their car. Antonio Caccavale, who didn’t hit anyone, later reportedly claimed to police who investigated the encounter that he shot because he feared for his and his son’s lives as Thomas and Darville’s car ran over his foot and struck a boulder.

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Shooter at Michigan State who killed three had no ties to school, officials say

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Details emerge about shooting, in which shooter left note mentioned fatigue at ‘being rejected’ by women

The man who stormed on to Michigan State University’s campus and shot three students to death before killing himself bought the ammunition fired during the attack only a few hours earlier, investigators announced on Thursday.

Additionally, authorities said, the murderer had no personal or professional connection to the school, making his motive a mystery to them, despite his leaving a note which – among other things – complained about feeling rejected and not having sex during the last decade.

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Washington governor signs three gun-control bills into law

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Democrats and activists applaud state for new legislation, which includes a ban on the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles

Washington’s Governor Jay Inslee signed a trio of bills meant to prevent gun violence on Tuesday – one banning the sale of certain semi-automatic rifles, one imposing a 10-day waiting period on firearms purchases, and one clearing the way for lawsuits against gun makers or sellers in certain cases.

A crowd of gun-control activists and Democratic lawmakers broke into cheers as he signed the measures, which he said would not solve all gun violence but would save lives.

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Suspect in shooting of six-year-old over stray basketball arrested in Florida

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Robert Singletary will not resist being transferred back to home state of North Carolina to face four attempted murder charges

The North Carolina man who is accused of shooting a six-year-old girl along with her parents after a basketball with which the child was playing rolled into his yard is not resisting being transferred to his home state after being arrested in Florida.

After his arrest on Thursday in Tampa, Florida, 24-year-old Robert Louis Singletary made a court appearance on Friday during which he was asked whether he would sign the extradition waiver that would allow officials to transport him back to North Carolina, where the shooting occurred two days earlier.

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One mass killing every 6.53 days: US shootings are on a record pace

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Despite the death toll, there is little indication of federal policy changes, but some states have tried to impose more gun control

The US is setting a record yearly pace for mass killings, with around one each week. According to a database tracking such events, the death toll from 17 mass killings in 111 days is 88. All were shot. Only 2009 saw as many such killings in the same period.

At a Nashville elementary school, three children and three adults were killed. In northern California, farm workers died over a workplace grudge. At a ballroom outside Los Angeles, dancers were massacred as they celebrated the Lunar New Year.

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US gun safety group’s chilling new ad calls for assault weapons ban

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Brady ad features US navy veteran’s shocking account of Vietnam gunfire and comes on heels of several devastating mass shootings

A gun safety group has created a provocative new ad campaign calling for the renewal of a federal assault weapons ban, in the wake of several devastating mass shootings across the US that involved the use of military-style rifles.

The ad, released on Thursday by the gun safety group Brady and shared exclusively with the Guardian, features a US navy veteran of the Vietnam war reading a chilling account of coming under gunfire and being struck by a bullet.

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