Two Chinese students injured in Michigan shooting

CHICAGO — Among the five students injured in a shooting at Michigan State University on Monday that left three dead were two Chinese, the Chinese Consulate General in Chicago said.

The two are out of danger following surgery, the consulate said, adding that it has contacted the families of the students in China and will offer help as they travel to the United States.

The consulate general has been in touch with Michigan State University, and it has called for effective measures to ensure the safety of Chinese citizens in the US, who it said should be aware of their surroundings and stay safe.

The suspect in Monday night's shooting, Anthony McRae, 43, died of a self-inflicted gunshot, police said.

A day before, the US news portal cleveland.com said gun violence threatened the ability of the country to function as a normal society, and that the government had surrendered unconditionally.

"Daily gun deaths have turned the United States into a killing field, a country far more dangerous than many of the planet's more civilized places," cleveland.com said.

However, "elected officials who live in mortal fear of the gun lobby and its followers have made a conscious decision to tolerate the slaughter of children and the mass shootings that have become an almost everyday presence in our daily lives".

"The failure of thousands of elected officials — mostly members of Congress, state legislators and governors — to prohibit access to assault-style firearms used as weapons of mass destruction against American citizens is an indefensible betrayal of their oath of office."

Payton Gendron, 19, who shot dead 10 people in Buffalo, New York state, in May, was sentenced to life in prison without parole on Wednesday.

Erie County Court Judge Susan Eagan announced the sentence based on 10 counts of first-degree murder and a single count of domestic terrorism motivated by hate, which carries a penalty of life imprisonment without parole.

Gendron drove about three hours from his home to a predominantly black community in Buffalo and shot people in and around a grocery store on May 14, which resulted in the deaths of 10 African Americans.

Also on Wednesday, one person was killed and three people wounded in a shooting at a shopping mall in El Paso, Texas, adding to the dozens of people already killed this year in mass shootings across the country.

Xinhua - Agencies