US President Joe Biden has once again called for a ban on the free sale of automatic small arms to citizens in the country. Reported by TASS.
“We must do more to stop gun violence <…>so that our schools do not turn into prisons <…>. I invite Congress to reaffirm it. [билль] on the prohibition of assault weapons. Time to make more progress [в этом вопросе]”,
– Wrote the American leader on his Twitter.
This is how he interpreted the attack on the Covenant parochial school in Nashville, Tennessee. Three children and three adults were killed there by gunfire.
All of the students who died were 9 years old, according to NBC. The adult victims are 60-year-old teachers. According to unconfirmed reports, one of those killed may have been school principal Katherine Koons.
According to WKRN, the attack was carried out by Audrey Hale, a 28-year-old trans woman who graduated from this school. Police describe the leading cause of the attack as “resentment”, but details are not yet available.
He shot students and teachers with two machine guns and a pistol. The police who arrived at the scene shot Hale.
Authorities say the attacker carefully planned the attack by mapping the school and observing the building from afar. Police spokesman Don Aaron said at a press conference that he first entered the ground floor and immediately opened fire. Then Hale went up to the second floor and there the police caught her.
The execution only took about 13 minutes. Aaron added that in the event of such an attack, according to security protocol, some children ran into the forest behind the school, while others hid in the fire station.
The Washington Post reported that the Nashville attack was the 17th attack on US schools since early 2023. According to the Gun Violence Archive, the Nashville tragedy was also the 128th “mass murder” since the beginning of the year – at least four people were killed or injured.
The GVA also claims that more than 43,600 people were killed in firearms incidents in the country in 2022. Last year, more than 1.6 thousand children were killed and 4.4 thousand children were injured.
For comparison, according to Voice of America (the organization is included in the list of foreign agents by the Department of Justice), 42.9 thousand people died in traffic accidents in the United States in 2021. In 2022, the number of victims was 31.8 thousand in just the first nine months, the portal reported. jalopnik.
The attack on the school shocked the people around. “I’m just in shock and can’t believe it. Nashville resident Megan Hill wrote on Twitter, “My heart is broken, I don’t understand why someone should set fire to a school with precious kids.”
Nashville Police Chief John Drake said he “literally burst into tears when he saw the kids.”