A lone gunman on Thursday opened fire on students in a college in the state of Oregon, United States of America, killing 10 people and wounding 7 others in the process.
The suspect, Chris Harper Mercer, a 26-year-old American man, opened fire in a classroom at Umpqua Community College, Roseburg on Thursday, using four guns.
Eyewitnesses, including an 18-year-old Kortney Moore, said he asked the religion of people in the building before opening fire on them.
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said, “This is a peaceful community.We have our share of crime like any community but certainly this is a shock to have this level of a crime.”
The town of Roseburg is the county seat of Douglas, a county of over 100,000 people in the state of Oregon.
Roseburg is a town of about 22,000 inhabitants, and lies 180 miles south of Portland, Oregon’s most popular city.
Sheriff Hanlin confirmed the suspect was killed in a shootout with police.
This is just one of the many shootings to rock the US in recent times.
In June, 9 people were massacred in a church in South Carolina, and five US servicemen were killed in a shooting in Chattanooga, Tennessee earlier in the year.
But the deadliest was back in April 2007 when a student opened fire on people at the Virginia Tech University, killing 32 people in the process.
The recent killings have led to more calls for tighter gun control measures in the country, including from US President Barack Obama, who is a well-known advocate.
“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine, the conversation in the aftermath of it. We’ve become numb to this,” Obama said.
According to him: “Our thoughts and prayers are not enough. It’s not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted someplace else in America — next week, or a couple months from now.”
Ownership of firearms is protected by the Second Amendment of the constitution of the United States.
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