US shootings deepen fears over gun violence

WASHINGTON－A spate of shootings has taken lives and caused injuries in cities and communities across the United States over the past weekend, with the bloodshed deepening a public outcry against gun violence.

There is also a growing concern that the deep-seated problem could worsen in the US as summer approaches－typically the nation's most violent season－and as businesses and public places move to fully reopen in spite of rising COVID-19 infections and deaths.

Police responded to two shootings in Prince George's County in the state of Maryland on Friday evening. One of the incidents happened inside a shopping mall in the city of Hyattsville, killing one person.

At least four people were injured in a shooting that police said involved "several parties" outside a tavern in Virginia Beach, a coastal city in southeastern Virginia, on Saturday.

Several officers were monitoring the tavern when they noticed a group of people arguing before several of them took out their guns and started shooting, according to the police. Two officers then intervened and shot at one of those who was armed. The suspect fled and has not been located.

"I was sitting there and all I saw was a bunch of people trying to get in and my gut instinct told me to get out of the way, shortly after I heard a bunch of gunshots followed by people pushing to get in the door," a witness told a local news station. "I ran down the street and heard multiple more gunshots. They just kept coming in; it was terrifying."

Police in other states such as Illinois, Ohio, North Carolina, Florida, Colorado, and California, have reported at least one fatal shooting in those states over recent days. On the prior weekend, several mass shootings attracted national attention, including one at a car show in Dumas, Arkansas, that killed one person and injured at least 27 others.

More than 17,000 people have died or been injured due to gun violence in the US this year, according to the nonprofit research group Gun Violence Archive.

A group of residents in a neighborhood of Montgomery, the capital of Alabama, marched on Saturday to decry gun violence, a day after a shooting in the southern city left one dead and another in critical condition.

Gun violence has been on the rise across the country in the past few years.

"Gun violence is one of America's deadliest and longest-running epidemics," Michael Dowling, president and CEO of Northwell Health, New York's largest healthcare provider, co-wrote in an article published recently in the Scientific American magazine with Chethan Sathya, a firearm injury researcher. "It is nothing less than an immediate need."

Xinhua