Days after a massacre at an elementary school in Texas in which 21 people died, the Memorial Day weekend in the US was marked by yet more mass shootings, at least 14 incidents total.
According to the Gun Violence Archive – which defines a mass shooting incident as one in which “four or more people are shot or killed, not including the shooter” – at least nine people were killed in the shootings and more than 60 injured. Overall, gun violence over the weekend from 5am on Friday to early Tuesday saw 156 people dead and 412 injured.
Among the mass shootings over the long weekend were six injured by gunfire at a high school graduation in Anniston, Alabama, and the killing of three children under 10 and a woman dead at a private residence in Mecosta county, Michigan.
Two women were shot in the head, both fatally, in Philadelphia’s Port Richmond, where a teenager also suffered a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a man was found shot a block away; he is listed in critical condition. The victims ranged in age from 14 to 21. Police said they had recovered 47 shell casings at the scene. According to Steve Keeley, a reporter for Fox29 Philadelphia, it was the city’s second double homicide scene in two hours: earlier that day, a father and his nine-year-old son were shot inside their car in the city.
On Saturday, six teenagers between the ages of 13 and 15 were injured by gunfire in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in what the mayor, Tim Kelly, said was probably “an altercation between other teenagers”. Two had life-threatening injuries, according to the Chattanooga police department.
Five other mass shootings took place on Saturday. In Taft, Oklahoma, one person was killed and seven people were injured. The suspect, 26-year-old Skyler Buckner, turned himself in to authorities.
A shooting at a party in Merced county, California, resulted in the death of one person and three others injured, including one listed as critical.
On Monday, the gun violence included one man dead and six injured close to a liquor store in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
The shootings came as the president, Joe Biden, and first lady, Jill Biden, visited Ulvalde, Texas, on Sunday where they met with first responders and the families of those who lost children at the Robb elementary school shooting a week ago.
On Monday, Biden renewed a push for a ban on assault weapons. “The idea of these high-caliber weapons – there’s simply no rational basis for it in terms of, about self-protection, hunting and I guess – and, remember, the constitution, the second amendment was never absolute,” Biden said.
“You couldn’t buy a cannon when the second amendment was passed. You couldn’t go out and purchase a lot of weaponry.”