A visibly angry US President Barack Obama has made an impassioned plea for gun control after a shooting at an Oregon college left 10 dead and seven wounded, saying such tragedies had become “routine.”
In the close-knit community of Roseburg, large crowds turned out for a candlelight vigil for the victims of Thursday’s killing spree at Umpqua Community College, which ended with the assailant dying during a shootout with police.
“Somehow this has become routine,” Obama said of the attack, as he blasted the US Congress for its failure to act in the face of such killings. “We’ve become numb to this... It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun.”
Photo: AFP
“Prayers are not enough,” he said. “We can actually do something about it, but we’re going to have to change our laws.”
Douglas County Sheriff John Hanlin said 10 people were killed and seven were injured, several critically.
Witnesses described scenes of terror and panic as the tragedy unfolded at the school. The gunman — identified by US media as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer — opened fire in a classroom, then moved to other rooms, methodically gunning down people.
Photo: AFP
One man whose daughter was wounded told CNN that the gunman, who did not attend the school, ordered students to identify themselves if they were Christian and then shot them.
“They would stand up and he said: ‘Good, because you’re a Christian, you’re going to see God in just about one second,’” Stacy Boylan told CNN, relaying his daughter Ana’s account.
He said that his daughter, who survived by playing dead, told him the shooter burst into the classroom and first shot the professor point blank.
As the community struggled for answers, the gunman’s motives — whether religious hatred or a desire for notoriety — remained unknown. It is not known whether he had a history of mental illness.
Neighbors described Mercer as a withdrawn, anxious young man who lived with his mother.
They told the New York Times he wore the same outfit every day — combat boots, green army pants and a white T-shirt.
“He was not a friendly type of guy,” Bronte Hart, who lived in the apartment below Mercer’s in Winchester, Oregon, told the newspaper. “He did not want anything to do with anyone.”
At the candlelight vigil, families prayed, consoled one another and held their children tight in the chill night air.
They brought flowers and made signs and arranged candles to form the letters UCC, the college’s initials.
Authorities said that investigators were examining social media postings thought to belong to the shooter. Several reports said he may have shared his intentions online beforehand.
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