US President Joe Biden on Thursday called on Congress to ban assault weapons, expand background checks and implement other gun control measures to deal with the spate of mass shootings.
Chris Murphy, a Democratic senator working on the bipartisan gun safety talks, said Sunday he thinks a package that includes investments in mental health and school safety and some changes to gun laws can pass Congress.
A vast majority of American voters, both Republicans and Democrats, favor tougher gun control laws, but Republicans in Congress and some moderate Democrats have blocked such legislation for years.
Shooting occurred after a fight
The Philadelphia Police (Pennsylvania, United States believe that the mass shooting occurred as a result of an argument between two individuals who were carrying firearms.
“These individuals began shooting at each other, and both sustained injuries, one of them fatal,” Philadelphia Police Commissioner Danielle Outlaw said at a news conference on Sunday.
Sheriff Outlaw recounted how a police officer who was present at the scene at the time of the shooting fired at one of the attackers, probably wounding him.
The attacker dropped his weapon and fled, and has yet to be identified or apprehended.
Reward
Authorities are offering a $20,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of the suspect.
“We are using all available resources to determine what happened, not just last night, but what is behind the violence with firearms in this city,” defended the commissioner.
One of some
The one in Philadelphia is one of multiple mass shootings – those in which four or more people are affected, in addition to the attacker – that have taken place in the last 24 hours in the United States.
In Chattanooga, Tennessee, 3 people were killed and 14 were injured in a shooting at a nightclub, and in Phoenix, Arizona, a teenage girl was killed and eight others were injured in a shooting at a shopping mall.
The debate on the control of firearms intensified in the country after the death on May 24 of 19 children and two teachers in an elementary school in Uvalde (Texas) by shots of an 18-year-old boy.
Restrict use of weapons
The House of Representatives is scheduled to vote next week on a gun control package that includes, among other things, a ban on magazines with more than ten bullets.
Of the two firearms seized after last night’s shooting in Philadelphia, one had an extended magazine.
The divide between Democrats and Republicans makes it difficult to pass gun control measures in Congress, although there are expectations after a group of senators from both parties held meetings in recent weeks to try to agree on legislation on the issue.
The president of the United States, Joe Biden, has urged lawmakers to “do something” in the face of what he considers “an epidemic of gun violence.”
With information from Reuters and EFE.