US President Barack Obama has said that the US has “become numb” to mass shootings like the latest incident in the state of Oregon, where a 20-year-old gunman killed at least nine people at a community college.
Obama issued the statement as local and federal investigators struggled on Friday to determine a motive of the shooting at Umpqua Community College.
“We are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months,” Obama said, adding that something needs to be done to stop the recurring deadly incident.
He said late on Thursday that the nation’s response to mass shootings has become “routine” – from the reporting by the media, to his own comments, to the opposition to gun control laws aimed at deterring the violence.
On Friday, law enforcement sources confirmed reports identifying the suspect as Chris Harper-Mercer, 26, who lived with his mother in a town near the college campus, where the shooting took place.
Mercer’s motive remained unclear. But an unnamed law enforcement officer told the New York Times that “he appears to be an angry young man who was very filled with hate.”
Investigators also said the gunman had body armour and was armed with three pistols, a rifle and five additional magazines, including a 9mm Glock pistol, a .40-caliber Smith & Wesson, both traced to the suspect.
The gunman stormed into a classroom at the college in the former timber town, shot a professor at point blank range, then ordered cowering students to stand up and state their religion before he shot them one by one, according to survivors’ accounts.
The violence, the latest in a series of high-profile mass killings across the country, has fueled demands for stricter gun control in the United States.
Student Cassandra Welding was in a classroom when she heard 35 to 40 shots coming from an adjacent room.
She saw a fellow student shot after opening the classroom door to check what was happening.
“Then we locked the doors, turned off the lights and … we were all pretty much in panic mode and called 911 (emergency services) and our parents and (said) ‘I love yous’ because we didn’t know what would happen, if those were our last words.”
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