Walmart to limit ammunition sales after mass shooting in Texas store

NEW YORK - Walmart will halt sales of ammunition for handguns and some military-style rifles, the company announced Tuesday, calling the status quo on firearms in the United States "unacceptable."

Walmart also said it would direct consumers not to carry firearms into its stores, a practice that is legal in "open carry" states but which has sparked safety scares in recent weeks.

The moves, which were praised by gun control advocates and ridiculed by gun rights supporters, came a month after a deadly shooting at an El Paso, Texas store claimed 22 lives, a calamity that has been followed by subsequent attacks, including another shooting over the weekend in West Texas that left seven dead.

Chief Executive Doug McMillon called on Congress and the White House to enact "common sense" measures, including stronger background checks for gun purchases, while signaling the retail giant still plans to sell sporting rifles.

"As we've seen before, these horrific events occur and then the spotlight fades. We should not allow that to happen," McMillon said in a statement.

"Congress and the administration should act."

The actions stop well short of the outright ban on gun sales that some gun control advocates called for but are still significant given Walmart's size and prominence in many communities in the United States and its influence in corporate America. 

Later Tuesday, Kroger, the biggest US supermarket chain, called for strengthened background checks and announced it was "respectfully asking that customers no longer openly carry firearms into our stores, other than authorized law enforcement officers."

BOYCOTT? 

The world's biggest retailer, Arkansas-based Walmart has more than 4,700 stores across America, many in conservative regions where political opposition to gun control is strong. 

The hashtag #boycottwalmart was trending Tuesday afternoon on Twitter and the move drew a strident response from the National Rifle Association.

"It is shameful to see Walmart succumb to the pressure of the anti-gun elites," the NRA said. "Lines at Walmart will soon be replaced by lines at other retailers who are more supportive of America's fundamental freedoms."

On the other side, Everytown for Gun Safety praised Walmart for a "significant step forward."

Several Democratic presidential candidates also praised Walmart, while calling for more action, drawing further distinction from US President Donald Trump who has backed off efforts to tighten background checks.

Democratic presidential candidate Beto O'Rourke, who previously represented El Paso in Congress, called Walmart's move a "step in the right direction," adding, "we can't rely on corporations to stop gun violence. We need universal background checks, we need red flag laws, and we need to buy back every single assault weapon."

Walmart expects the changes to lower its market share for ammunition from around 20 percent to a range of 6 to 9 percent.

The company will also no longer sell ammunition for short-barrel rifles, which can be used for hunting but also in military-style weapons.

The company will still sell long-barrel deer rifles and shotguns and much of the ammunition they use, leaving its stores "even more focused on the needs of hunting and sport shooting enthusiasts," McMillon said.

NO MORE 'OPEN CARRY' 

Walmart also unveiled new policies restricting firearms in stores, citing a number of incidents in which shoppers have fled stores after members of the public brandished such weapons in "open carry" states. 

In one well-publicized incident last month just days after the El Paso shooting, a man in Missouri was arrested after entering a Walmart wearing body armor and carrying a loaded military-style rifle.

"We believe the opportunity for someone to misinterpret a situation, even in open carry states, could lead to tragic results," McMillon said. "We hope that everyone will understand the circumstances that led to this new policy and will respect the concerns of their fellow shoppers and our associates."

The moves announced Tuesday followed earlier actions by Walmart to restrict access to some weapons, including a decision in 1993 to halt handgun sales in all states but Alaska and in 2015 to end sales of semiautomatic weapons of the sort used in mass shootings. 

On Tuesday, Walmart said it was also ending sales of handguns in Alaska.

McMillon noted he is a gun owner himself, adding "we understand that heritage, our deeply rooted place in America and our influence as the world's largest retailer. And we understand the responsibility that comes with it."

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8Chan creator admits online form hard to moderate in wake of US mass shootings

EL PASO, Texas - The community of this border city continues to mourn for the lives of 22 people killed in the Aug. 3 shooting at the Walmart store. They are also trying to make sense of why a 21-year-old man from a Dallas suburb would go on a shooting spree.

But one thing certain for now is that the gunman used the internet messaging forum 8chan prior to his crime where he expressed hatred for Hispanic people and laid out a plan for a deadly attack on the Hispanic community.

The site's creator Fredrick Brennan, who migrated to the Philippines in 2014, admitted that he created a "Frankenstein monster" after realizing that the online forum has led to massacres in the US.

Brennan started 8chan in 2013 as a means of free speech. He handed over management to a man named Jim Watkins in 2016.

Brennan said it's been challenging to moderate postings on the forum. He's been calling for the site to be shut down. It's now inaccessible.

“I never really imagined that this would happen -- that shooters would post their manifestos on 8chan. And I put some of the blame on the way they're administering it. They have this saying that was on 8chan before it was closed, you know, 'embrace infamy,' and they had that right on the homepage of 8chan," Brennan said.

Brennan said one of the reasons he resigned was because of the difficulty in moderating the site.

"It's like letting the mental patients run the asylum," he said.

US lawmakers have asked that the current owner of 8chan, Watkins, testify before the House Homeland Security Committee.

According to authorities, Watkins is not located in the Philippines but he posted a message on 8chan's Twitter account claiming to be on his way to America to accept the lawmakers' invitation.

Read more on Balitang America

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Lawyers: El Paso shooting suspect's mother called police over son's gun

The mother of a young man suspected of gunning down 22 people at a Walmart in the US state of Texas called police weeks before, concerned about a military-style weapon he owned, the family's lawyers told CNN.

The report comes with bipartisan sentiment for action on gun safety appearing to grow after the killings in El Paso and another mass shooting hours later in Dayton, Ohio that left nine people dead.

CNN reported that the mother of the El Paso suspect, Patrick Crusius, had called police in the Dallas suburb of Allen weeks before the attack because she was concerned about his owning an "AK"-type firearm, the network quoted family lawyers as saying.

AK usually refers to a Kalashnikov, a type of semi-automatic rifle.

The lawyers, Chris Ayres and R. Jack Ayres, of Dallas, told CNN that Crusius's mother was worried given her son's age, maturity level and lack of experience with such a weapon.

They added that, during the call, a police officer told her that -- based on what she described -- her 21-year-old son was legally able to purchase the weapon.

But the mother's call was "informational" and not motivated out of a concern that her son posed a threat, the lawyers said, adding the mother did not give police her name or her son's name.

"This was not a volatile, explosive, erratic behaving kid," CNN quoted Chris Ayres as saying. "It's not like alarm bells were going off."

Chris Ayres could not immediately be reached when AFP contacted his law office.

Asked about the CNN report, Sergeant Jon Felty, of the Allen Police Department, told AFP: "I have nothing in our database to support this claim."

About 20 minutes before the rampage with a semi-automatic weapon, Crusius, who is white, posted a four-page white supremacist "manifesto" on the online forum 8chan that railed against Hispanics.

Several of those killed were Mexicans.

After the shootings, US President Donald Trump faced protests that his rhetoric on race has fuelled extremism.

In an address to the nation on Monday, Trump rejected racism and white supremacist ideology, and said he supported "red flag" laws allowing authorities to confiscate weapons from people believed to present grave risks. 

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Racism, misogyny: US authorities probe motives of 2 gunmen

One was fueled by racist hatred of immigrants and warned of a "Hispanic invasion." The other's motives are less clear but he apparently resented women and compiled a "hit list" of girls in high school.

Police and the FBI were trying to piece together on Tuesday what drove two young American men to commit unspeakable acts of carnage over the weekend.

Patrick Crusius, a 21-year-old unemployed white man from the Dallas suburb of Allen, opened fire with a semi-automatic weapon at a Walmart on Saturday in El Paso, Texas.

About 20 minutes before the rampage, which left 22 people dead, he posted a four-page white supremacist "manifesto" on the online forum 8chan that railed against Hispanics.

In the document titled "The Inconvenient Truth," Crusius wrote that the attack "is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

Crusius claimed he was "defending" the US "from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion" and made references to the Christchurch shootings in New Zealand, where a white gunman killed 51 worshippers at two mosques in March.

El Paso police chief Greg Allen said Crusius has not shown any remorse since his arrest and "appears to be in a state of shock and confusion."

According to court documents, Crusius has been unemployed for the past five months and living with his grandparents.

In a statement, his grandparents said he had lived with them while attending classes at Collin County College but moved out of their home about six weeks ago.

According to CNN, a Twitter account linked to Crusius frequently shared tweets by President Donald Trump including one with Trump's name spelled out with guns.

In a LinkedIn profile, Crusius wrote, "I'm not really motivated to do anything more than what's necessary to get by.

"Working in general sucks, but i guess a career in Software Development suits me well. I spend about 8 hours every day on the computer so that counts towards technology experience I guess."

El Paso is about a nine-hour drive from the Dallas area and Crusius appears to have deliberately selected the city because of its heavily Hispanic population.

El Paso lies on the Rio Grande River which marks the US border with Mexico, and has a population of 680,000, of which 83 percent are of Hispanic descent.

- 'An oddball' -

The motivations of the other gunman, Connor Betts, 24, are less clear but several former friends told US media that he had a history of disturbing behavior, particularly towards women.

Also armed with a semi-automatic weapon, Betts killed nine people including his sister, 22-year-old Megan Betts, in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning. He was shot dead by police within a minute.

Investigators have found no evidence so far to indicate that the shooting was motivated by racial hatred.

"Just based on where we're at now we are not seeing any indication of race being a motive," Dayton police chief Richard Biehl said.

Betts was white and six of his nine victims were black.

Mika Carpenter, 24, who has known Betts since she was 13 years old, told The New York Times "he was kind of hateful to women because they didn't want to date him."

The Dayton Daily News reported that Betts had been suspended from Bellbrook High School for drawing up a "hit list" of girls.

According to Buzzfeed News, Betts was a member of a "pornogrind" heavy metal band called Menstrual Munchies which performed songs with themes of sexual violence.

Demoy Howell, a friend of Betts, told the Dayton Daily News that Betts was "always a bit of an oddball."

"He had a dark sense of humor -- jokes about people dying," Howell told the newspaper. "He would wear all black. I remember sensing a dark energy around him.

"I think this is less of a hate crime and more of an 'I hate everybody' crime," Howell said.

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El Paso residents tell Trump to stay away after shooting

Residents in majority-Hispanic El Paso told US President Donald Trump Tuesday to stay away amid fury over his anti-immigration rhetoric as he struggles to unite the country in the wake of mass shootings that killed 31 people.

Trump is scheduled to travel Wednesday to the Texan border city where 22 died in a weekend gun massacre, before heading around 1,500 miles (2,400 kilometers) northeast and to Dayton, Ohio where a second gunman shot nine dead hours later. 

The president called on Americans in a nationwide address Monday to condemn bigotry but community leaders say his words rang hollow set against a longstanding refusal to call out white supremacy and a history of provocative tweets widely condemned as racist.

"This president, who helped create the hatred that made Saturday's tragedy possible, should not come to El Paso," tweeted Beto O'Rourke, a Democratic presidential hopeful and former congressman who grew up in the city.

"We do not need more division. We need to heal. He has no place here."

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley meanwhile said she would meet Trump and tell him "how unhelpful he's being. His comments weren't helpful on guns."

Before striking at a Walmart superstore in El Paso, the 21-year-old suspected gunman, who is white and from the Dallas area, reportedly posted an online manifesto railing against a "Hispanic invasion of Texas."

Critics pointed out that the language echoed much of Trump's rhetoric on Twitter and at rallies, where he has frequently framed Hispanic migrants as part of an "invasion."

Trump has also characterized Mexicans and Central Americans as criminals, gang members and rapists and described the communities of African American lawmakers on several occasions as "infested" with crime and filth.

- 'Not welcome' -

Congresswoman Veronica Escobar, whose district includes the area targeted by the El Paso gunman, urged Trump "to consider the fact that his words and his actions have played a role in this."

"From my perspective, he is not welcome here," Escobar told MSNBC. "He should not come here while we are in mourning."

El Paso mayor Dee Margo, announcing the visit, stressed that he was welcoming the president because it was his duty to do so.

Presidential advisor Kellyanne Conway accused Democrats of politicizing a moment of acute pain while Trump was trying to "bring the country together, heal a nation."

She was backed by the chairman of the El Paso County Republican Party, Adolpho Telles, who defended Trump's visit but told CNN he needs to be more careful about his language.

In his nationwide address, Trump spoke out against racism but blamed mental illness, video games and the internet for fueling gun violence, sidestepping the fact that other countries with these issues do not have mass shootings. 

He had nothing substantial to say about gun control measures, drawing expressions of disappointment from those hoping for a healing moment.

"He mentioned gun issues one time," said Whaley, the Dayton mayor. "I think, watching the president over the past few years on the issue of guns... I don't know if he knows what he believes, frankly," she said.

- 'He has no right' -

Residents in El Paso, unimpressed by Trump's tightly scripted appeal for unity, told AFP they were fearful of a rise in white nationalism and said the president was part of the problem.

"I do blame our president. Since the moment he got into office the rhetoric, the hate that he's got towards people that are just different color skin, he has no right," said Silvia Rios.

The president began Tuesday apparently irritated by veiled criticism from former president Barack Obama, who warned US leaders against divisive rhetoric.

"We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments," said Obama, who has only rarely spoken out on public affairs since leaving office in 2017.

In response Trump retweeted a quote from an anchor on Fox News who said it was inappropriate for a former president to criticize a successor over a shooting.

"President Obama had 32 mass shootings during his reign. Not many people said Obama is out of control," read the quote from Brian Kilmeade.

Legislation to overhaul gun control under Obama failed in 2013 when the Republican-controlled Senate rejected a ban of assault-style weapons and expanding background checks.

He told the BBC two years later gun control was "the one area where I feel that I've been most frustrated and most stymied."

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Obama: Reject language from leaders that 'normalizes racist sentiments'

WASHINGTON -- Former President Barack Obama responded to the weekend mass shootings in Ohio and Texas on Monday with a plea to Americans to reject the language of hatred, fear and intolerance from any of their leaders.

"We should soundly reject language coming out of the mouths of any of our leaders that feeds a climate of fear and hatred or normalizes racist sentiments," Obama said in a statement posted on Twitter that did not refer to President Donald Trump by name.

The shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, killed 31 people.

A 21-year-old white man has been charged with capital murder in Saturday's shooting spree in Texas. Police in El Paso cited a racist, anti-immigrant manifesto posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect.

Democrats said Trump was indirectly to blame for the attack in Texas, with some drawing connections between his rhetoric to a resurgence in nationalism and xenophobic sentiment.

Trump on Monday proposed tighter monitoring of the internet, mental health reform and wider use of the death penalty in response to mass shootings.

Trump did not address accusations that his own anti-immigrant and racially charged comments have contributed to a rise in race tensions, nor did he call for broad gun control measures.

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2 more Texas shooting victims die in attack, Trump to visit El Paso

EL PASO, Texas - Two more victims of a shooting rampage at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, died of their wounds on Monday, police said, raising the death toll to 22 in the massacre as U.S. President Donald Trump planned a visit to the stricken community.

The latest fatalities bring to 31 the number of people killed during the weekend in mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Ohio, that have touched off a new furor over gun violence in the United States.

Patrick Crusius, 21, has been charged with a single count of capital murder in the El Paso case, court documents show, in what is likely a legal place holder to keep him in custody while the investigation is under way.

Authorities have cited a lengthy anti-immigrant manifesto, apparently posted online by the suspect before the Saturday morning shooting in the heavily Hispanic border city, which they said was evidence the bloodshed was racially motivated.

Eight of those killed in the attack were Mexican citizens, according to the Mexican government.

The four-page statement uploaded to 8chan, a largely un-moderated online message board often used by extremists, called the Walmart attack "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

It also expressed support for a gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

The El Paso killings prompted 8chan founder Frederick Brennan, in an interview with the New York Times, to call for the site to be shut down. Brennan no longer has control of 8chan, which is now run from the Philippines by a U.S. Army veteran, the Times reported.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Saturday's rampage appeared to be a hate crime and federal prosecutors called it domestic terrorism. A Texas prosecutor said the state will seek the death penalty against Crusius if he is convicted.

Trump said Americans "must condemn racism, bigotry and white supremacy" and blamed the internet and violent video games for fostering violence.

TRUMP TO VISIT WEDNESDAY

El Paso Mayor Dee Margo told reporters at an afternoon news conference that Trump would visit the city on Wednesday. The Democratic mayor asked that the visit by the Republican president amid a divisive gun control debate not be politicized.

U.S. gun control activists say the internet and video games cannot be blamed because they are also are popular in countries where mass shootings are virtually unknown, in part because it is harder to obtain a firearm.

It was unclear if Crusius had retained a lawyer or would make an initial court appearance. El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said the suspect was cooperating with investigators.

The suspect's grandparents said in a statement read to reporters by a family outside their home in the Dallas suburb of Allen, 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso, that they were devastated by the attack.

"He lived with us in our house in Allen, Texas, while he attended Collin College," they said. "He moved out of our house six weeks ago and has spent a few nights here while we were out of town."

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional panel on July 23 that the bureau has recorded about 100 arrests of domestic terrorism suspects in the preceding nine months and that most investigations of that kind involve some form of white supremacy.

The Texas rampage was followed just 13 hours later by the mass shooting in Ohio and came a week after a man shot dead three people at a California garlic festival before taking his own life.

In Dayton, Ohio, a gunman in body armor and a mask killed nine people in less than a minute and wounded 27 others in the downtown historic district before he was shot dead by police.

Police said the El Paso suspect opened fire with a rifle on Walmart shoppers, many of them bargain-hunting for back-to-school supplies, then surrendered to officers who confronted him outside the store.

In El Paso, residents on Monday brought crosses representing each of the victims to a growing memorial site near the store.

El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, together with the neighboring city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, form a metropolitan border area of some 2.5 million residents constituting the largest bilingual, bi-national population in North America.

Trump has derided asylum seekers and other immigrants coming across the U.S. southern border as liars and criminals, prompting Democrats to accuse him of racism.

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US prosecutors charge Texas shooting suspect with murder, seek death penalty

EL PASO, Texas - A single capital murder charge was filed on Sunday against the man accused of killing 20 people and wounding more than two dozen others at a Walmart store in El Paso, a mass shooting authorities are viewing as a case of domestic terrorism.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said Saturday's rampage in the heavily Hispanic city appeared to be a hate crime. Police cited an anti-immigrant screed posted online shortly before the shooting, which they attributed to the suspect, Patrick Crusius, as evidence that the bloodshed was racially motivated.

It was the second of three separate public shooting sprees carried out in the United States in the span of a week, an unusually dense cluster of massacres that prompted fresh alarm in a country accustomed to reports of young men shooting down strangers.

The County of El Paso's state court website lists a single charge of capital murder against Crusius, a 21-year-old white man from Allen, Texas.

His grandparents, with whom Crusius had recently been living, said they were devastated by the attack.

"He lived with us in our house in Allen, Texas, while he attended Collin College," the statement said, read aloud by a family friend to reporters outside the home on Sunday. "He moved out of our house six weeks ago, and has spent a few nights here while we were out of town."

The single charge is likely a legal place holder to keep Crusius in custody until further charges can be filed against him for each of the dead and the wounded.

It was unclear if Crusius has a lawyer or when a bond hearing or other court appearances will occur.

A state prosecutor said prosecutors will seek the death penalty against Crusius if he is found guilty.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation said in a statement on Sunday the attack "underscores the continued threat posed by domestic violent extremists and perpetrators of hate crimes."

The agency said it remains concerned that more US-based extremists could become inspired by these and previous high-profile attacks to engage in similar acts of violence.

The US attorney for the western district of Texas, John Bash, said federal authorities were treating the El Paso massacre as a case of domestic terrorism.

"And we're going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is to deliver swift and certain justice," he told a news conference on Sunday. He said the attack appeared "to be designed to intimidate a civilian population, to say the least."

FBI Director Christopher Wray told a congressional panel on July 23 that the bureau has recorded about 100 arrests of domestic terrorism suspects in the preceding nine months and that most investigations of that kind involve some form of white supremacy.

BACK-TO-BACK SHOOTINGS

The Texas rampage was followed just 13 hours later by another mass shooting, and came a week after a man shot dead three people at a California garlic festival before he was killed by police.

In Dayton, Ohio a gunman in body armor and a mask killed nine people in less than a minute and wounded 27 others in the city's downtown historic district before he was shot dead by police.

Democratic candidates for next year's presidential election called on Sunday for stricter gun laws and accused President Donald Trump of stoking racial tensions.

Trump has frequently derided many asylum seekers and other immigrants coming across the US southern border as liars and criminals. At a political rally he held in May, after asking the crowd what could be done about immigrants coming in illegally, Trump smiled and joked after someone in the crowd yelled back: "Shoot them!"

Responding to the shootings, Trump called on lawmakers to pass new background checks laws for buying guns, and suggested any such legislation might also include greater restrictions on immigration.

"We must have something good, if not GREAT, come out of these two tragic events!" he wrote on Twitter on Monday morning ahead of planned remarks on the subject. On Sunday, he attributed the shootings to what he called the "mental illness" of the killers.

SIGNS OF HATE

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said the suspect was cooperating with investigators.

"He basically didn't hold anything back," Allen said at Sunday's news conference, but declined to elaborate.

Police said the suspect opened fire with a rifle on shoppers, many of them bargain-hunting for back-to-school supplies, then surrendered to officers who confronted him outside the store.

A police spokesman said on Sunday that the names of the victims would be released only when relatives had been informed, and he said he had no estimate for how long that would take.

Crusius comes from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb some 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso, which lies along the Rio Grande across the US-Mexico border from Ciudad Juarez.

A four-page statement posted on 8chan, an online message board often used by extremists, and believed to have been written by the suspect, called the Walmart attack "a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas."

It also expressed for support for the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, together with the neighboring city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, form a metropolitan border area of some 2.5 million residents constituting the largest bilingual, bi-national population in North America.

The rampage in El Paso on Saturday was the eighth most deadly mass shooting in recent years in the United States.

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Gunman in Illinois shooting described as 'loner'

When Gary Martin came to work at the Henry Pratt valve manufacturing plant in Aurora, Illinois, on Friday, he was told he was being terminated from his job. Shortly thereafter, Martin pulled out his Smith & Wesson revolver and opened fire.

Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman said Martin shot six fellow employees, five of them fatally, at the sprawling warehouse where he had worked for 15 years, and wounded five police officers before he was slain by police 90 minutes later.

She said police had yet to determine whether the shooting was an impulsive act or premeditated, and that investigators had not immediately ascertained why he had been fired.

She said police were executed a search warrant at his residence to further their investigation of what she called a "workplace shooting."

Jeremy Sherman, a neighbor of Martin's at Acorn Woods Condominium Complex in Aurora, about 40 miles west of Chicago, told Newsweek's Daily Beast website that Martin could often be found outside playing with his remote-control toy cars and drones.

Sherman described his neighbor as a loner with whom he sometimes chatted without ever learning anything about Martin's work life or his past. Sherman said he never saw Martin with weapons - or with guests.

"He kept to himself a lot, and he was always on his porch," he told the Daily Beast. "Even when he wasn't doing nothing, he'd be out there sitting. I'd be out there, sometimes one, two [o'clock] in the morning and he'd be there just sitting all in the dark, [in the] shadows."

AGGRAVATED ASSAULT

Martin's mother told the Chicago Sun-Times that her son had been "way too stressed out" recently.

Public records showed Martin had a criminal past, a 1995 conviction for aggravated assault in Marshall County, Mississippi.

Aurora Police Chief Ziman said authorities did not know if he had legally purchased the gun he used. Convicted felons are barred from buying firearms.

A fellow employee and eyewitness John Probst told CNN that Martin fired his pistol with a green laser sight at fellow workers. "What I saw was the guy running down the aisle with a pistol with a laser on it," he said.

The shooting came a day after the one-year anniversary of the massacre of 17 people by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. 

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Five killed as gunman opens fire at Illinois warehouse

CHICAGO - A gunman opened fire in a warehouse in Aurora, Illinois, on Friday, killing five people and wounding five police officers before he was slain, law enforcement officials said.

Aurora Police Chief Kristen Ziman said the shooter, identified as 45-year-old Gary Martin, was an employee at the sprawling industrial complex in Aurora, a Far West Chicago suburb, but did not say what may have motivated the attack.

The Chicago Sun-Times newspaper reported that a woman who identified herself to police as Martin’s mother told authorities her son had been laid off two weeks ago and was “stressed out” before Friday’s shooting

"Today is a sad day in the city of Aurora," Mayor Richard Irvin told reporters. Aurora is about 40 miles (65 km) west of Chicago.

Ziman said police received multiple emergency calls from the manufacturing warehouse at 1:24 p.m. reporting an active shooter. The first officers arrived on the scene four minutes later and two of them were struck by gunfire, she said.

All told, five officers were shot and wounded, Ziman said, before the gunman was killed by police returning fire. A sixth officer suffered a knee injury.

Inside the building, five civilians were found deceased. None of them were identified.

The wounded police officers were in stable condition at a local hospital, Clayton Muhammad, spokesman for the City of Aurora, told the local ABC affiliate.

Witness John Probst told CNN that he saw the gunman, a co-worker, running down an aisle of the manufacturing facility with a pistol equipped with a laser sight. Probst told the network that he saw people bleeding.

Video on local media showed numerous police cars surrounding a large commercial building in Aurora, the ground covered in snow.

The bloodshed, marking the latest spasm of gun violence in a nation where mass shootings have become almost commonplace, came a day after the one-year anniversary of the massacre of 17 people by a gunman at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida.

A spokeswoman for US President Donald Trump said that he was aware of the incident.

"The President has been briefed and is monitoring the ongoing situation in Aurora, IL," Sarah Sanders said in a statement. 

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A year after US school massacre, gun control remains elusive

MIAMI - On Valentine's Day of last year, a 19-year-old armed with a military-style assault rifle walked into his old high school in Parkland, Florida and slaughtered 17 people.

That spasm in America's epidemic of gun violence gave new impetus to the debate on controlling firearms, prompting marches across the country and a fresh round of hand-wringing in cable news studios.

Many of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School survivors such as David Hogg and Emma Gonzalez remain national figures a year on -- a testament to their tenacity in keeping the atrocity in the headlines -- yet concrete reform has remained limited and local.

Meanwhile America risks becoming inured to the carnage: four months before Parkland a gunman killed 58 people at a festival in Las Vegas while, 16 months earlier, a massacre at a gay night club in Orlando left 49 dead.

Nearly 1,200 children lost their lives to gun violence in the year since Parkland, according to a report from McClatchy newspapers and The Trace, a non-profit that chronicles firearms issues. More than 200 teen journalists banded together to profile the young victims for the report.

And with 37 mass shootings -- those with at least four victims, not including the assailant -- recorded already in the US this year, it is tempting to conclude that almost nothing has changed.

The inertia on gun control endures despite the best efforts of the Parkland students, who rejected the usual outpourings of sympathy offered by politicians and launched a nationwide movement seeking tougher regulation on sales.

"So many shootings have happened and you get 'thoughts and prayers' and then nothing happens," said Ryan Servaites, who survived the shooting.

"It's an absolute shame that our government has done absolutely nothing about it. So you know, we're fed up," Servaites, 16, told AFP.

'OUR CHILDHOOD ENDED'

A month after the shooting, the student activists brought together hundreds of thousands of demonstrators in Washington, under the "March for Our Lives" banner.

The teenagers toured 26 states, visiting schools and talking with lawmakers. They published a book, took part in an HBO documentary and, most importantly, caused state laws to be changed.

"In just 11 minutes, our childhood ended," Hogg and Gonzalez wrote in November in The Washington Post.

Florida is governed by Republicans and posed a major challenge for the student activists. But they successfully pushed for passage of state laws opposed by the powerful US gun lobby, the National Rifle Association.

Among other changes, a "red flag" law was passed allowing judges to order the seizure of guns from people deemed to be mentally unstable and the minimum age for purchasing a gun was raised to 21.

The sale and possession of devices known as bump stocks, which allow semi-automatic weapons to fire as fast as illegal machineguns, and which were used to such deadly effect in Las Vegas, were also banned.

In December, President Donald Trump barred them at the national level.

After Parkland, 26 states and US capital Washington approved 67 laws related to gun control, according to the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.

In a report last December, the center said the movement for gun safety in America "experienced a tectonic shift in 2018."

BIG PLANS FOR 2019

Yet significant nationwide reform to slash gun deaths has largely eluded the activists, who have vowed to entrench their campaign in 2019.

On Friday last week lawmakers from both parties presented Congress with a bill that would require universal background checks prior to gun purchases.

Under current laws, licensed dealers must carry out background checks on would-be buyers, but loopholes allow people to avoid such checks if they buy from a private seller, at gun shows or over the internet.

Defenders of the Second Amendment to the US Constitution, which establishes the right to bear arms, will fight the bill.

The NRA said such a law would not dissuade criminals, who will always find some way to acquire a firearm.

"These bills attack law-abiding gun owners by placing further burdens on gun ownership and use," its website states.

Tom Palmer, a gun rights supporting political scientist and vice president of free-market think tank Atlas Network, told the Miami Herald the two sides in the gun debate could not be more polarized.

"The gun control people see their opponents as people who don't care about human life, and the gun rights people see their opponents as people who don't care about human freedom," Palmer said.

Also worth noting: in a closely contested race for Florida's governorship in last November's mid-term elections, NRA-endorsed Republican Rick DeSantis beat Democrat Andrew Gillum, who backed stricter gun controls.

Undeterred, a group of Parkland survivors launched a petition on Monday which, if it garners the almost 800,000 signatures needed, will trigger a referendum on banning military-style assault rifles in Florida.

Meanwhile Nikolas Cruz, the defendant in the Parkland shooting, awaits his day in court. Prosecutors have said they will seek the death penalty on 17 counts of pre-meditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder.

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source: news.abs-cbn.com

Multiple deaths and injuries after shooting at Oregon college

OREGON - At least 15 people were killed and another 20 wounded at a shooting on Thursday at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon, media reported.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper and CNN reported that a suspect had been taken into custody, citing Douglas County officials. That suspect was not identified.

CNN reported that one of the wounded was a female who had been shot in the chest. There was no immediate information on condition of the other wounded victims.

A spokeswoman for the Douglas County Sheriff's department confirmed to Reuters that there was a shooting at the Umpqua Community College campus in Roseburg. The spokeswoman had no further details.

"Active shooter scene is code 4. Multiple casualties all pt's transported," the Douglas County Fire Department said in a tweet. Multiple ambulances were reported to be on scene.

The Portland Oregonian newspaper reported that officers responded at around 10:40 a.m. PDT to reports of a shooting at the college. The Oregonian said police scanner traffic indicated that the shooter was "down."

Shelly Stefanich, spokeswoman for Mercy Medical Center in Roseburg, said that the hospital was the only one in town and most likely to receive patients, but could not say how many were being treated there.

Local media reported that authorities were combing through the campus.

The paper said agents from the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were en route to Roseburg, a city of about 20,000 people some 260 miles (418 km) south of Portland.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com

Three shot at Lone Star college near Houston, Texas

Three people were injured as gunfire rang out during an argument at a college in the US state of Texas, say police.

A sheriff's official said both people involved in the altercation at Lone Star College in the Houston area were wounded and taken to hospital.

A college maintenance man was also injured in the cross-fire.

The latest in a series of US shootings, it comes amid a push for gun control by the Obama administration.

Hiding under table

Lone Star College's official Twitter account said the incident took place at about 12:30 local time (18:30 GMT) on Tuesday.



 "Danger has been mitigated," said the statement. "Situation under control."

Harris County Sheriff's official Armando Tello told a news conference that one of the two suspects was enrolled at the college.

The two people involved in the fight are considered people of interest, he added, and officials say they are not looking for any other suspects. A handgun was recovered at the scene.

In total, four people were brought to two hospitals, including one who had a heart attack, said emergency services spokesman Mark Smith.

Witnesses told local broadcaster KHOU they had seen a man pull out a gun during an argument with another man.

"I saw two dudes basically get into an altercation and the dude that shot, he basically got angry and started shooting the other guy," Brittany Mobley said.

Students fled for safety as ambulances arrived at the scene and police swarmed over the campus.

A student who was leaving an emergency-responder class said he had helped two injured people, one who had been shot in the knee and another with a wound to the lower buttocks.

Another student, Amanda Vasquez, told KPRC television she had been waiting for an English class to begin when gunfire rang out.

"They sounded very close, the shots. Five or six gunshots," she said. "I just ducked under the table as fast as I could and hoped for the best.

"I saw one of the shooters when he was already under police control."

Richard Carpenter, chancellor of the Lone Star College System, said the shooting happened outside between an academic building and the library.

The campus, about 20 miles (32km) north of Houston, has some 18,000 students.

Several school districts in Texas have allowed faculty members to carry guns on campus. Guns are not allowed on college campuses, but the state legislature may debate a bill to allow it this year.

Last week, President Barack Obama unveiled the most sweeping gun control proposals in two decades, including calls for a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines as well as wider background checks on gun buyers.

The US gun debate gained new impetus last month after a school shooting that left 20 children and six teachers dead in Newtown, Connecticut.

source: bbc.co.uk