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The mass shootings at students on U.S. campus became rampant recently considering two of such incidents taking place in just more than one week, thus raising the long-time debate over stiffer gun control by the U.S. government.
The latest shooting happened at the Northern Arizona University's Flagstaff campus early Friday morning, leading to one person killed and three others injured after a fight turned violent between two groups of students.
The suspect shooter was identified as Steven Jones, an 18-year-old freshman at the school, who opened fire with a handgun on other students. He was detained by the police. The three injured were sent to hospital.
The incident followed another shooting rampage on Oct. 1 at Umpqua Community College in southern Oregon, which left at least 10 dead, 20 others wounded.
Two pistols, four rifles and a shotgun were found at the 26-year-old gunman Christopher Harper-Mercer's apartment after he died during his confrontation with officers at the scene.
The two incidents raised again the long-time debate over stiffer gun control by the U.S. government, especially with the rampant shooting cases on campus, a supposedly safe harbor for students.
As a matter of fact, following the 2012 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, which claimed 28 lives, including 20 children, the Obama administration initiated but failed to push stronger gun control laws.
The laws, whose sections included expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons, were stymied in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights lobby groups.
In an interview earlier this year Obama called the failure to reform U.S. gun laws "one of the greatest frustrations" of his presidency.
Gun rights advocates said the shootings underscored the importance of the right of Americans to bear arms and defend themselves.
While in Congress, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee blocked a proposal on June 24 that would have reversed a ban passed by Congress in 1996 on funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to study gun violence.
Republicans defended the panel's decision as to protect the rights granted by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The powerful lobbyist group, the National Rifle Association, has also played a role in pressuring the Congress to kill federal-funded studies by cutting the fund.
Despite the absence of large-scale and authoritative studies of gun violence, studies conducted by individual organizations found that the presence of guns were associated with an increasing possibility of gun-related deaths.
However, as experts said, many questions related to gun violence remain unanswered, including whether allowing people to carry weapons in certain public places affects the number of deaths. Enditem
