US, wave of mass gun attacks precedes Independence Day

2023-07-04 20:51:19, Kosova & Bota CNA

Mass shootings in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Forth Worth, Texas, claimed the lives of 10 people on the eve of the July 4th Independence Day holiday, officials said — a grim reminder of the decades-long failure of efforts to reduce gun violence in the United States.

In Fort Worth, three people were killed and eight were wounded in a mass shooting after a local festival ended, police said Tuesday.

In another shooting incident in Philadelphia on Monday night, five people were killed and two were wounded when the suspected gunman, who was also wearing a bulletproof vest, opened fire on bystanders, police said. A child and a teenager were among the injured.

Monday night's shootings came after two people were killed and 28 injured, nearly half of them children, when bullets were fired during a party in the streets of a Baltimore city neighborhood.

US President Joe Biden condemned the violence and reiterated his call for tougher gun laws in America.

"Our country has once again suffered a wave of tragic and senseless gun attacks," the president said in a statement released Tuesday.

President Biden called on Republican lawmakers, who have generally blocked efforts to meaningfully reform gun safety laws and opposed President Biden's efforts to restore a measure of restrictions on gun safety, to "sit down at the table for meaningful and common sense reform." combat weapons.

The motive for the latest three gun attacks was not immediately clear.

The United States has faced a large number of mass shootings and incidents involving gun violence. There have been more than 340 mass shootings so far in 2023, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, an organization that defines mass shootings as incidents in which at least four people are shot, regardless of the perpetrator.

If the year continues at the same pace, mass shootings during the 2023 calendar year will reach about 679, nearly double the 336 recorded in 2018. That would be the second-highest annual rate in nine years. last. The highest level was that of 2021, when 690 such attacks were recorded.

The United States has the most deaths in relation to the population, compared to all other high-income countries, according to the analysis of the Institute for Health Evaluation and Data, at the University of Washington. / VOA