The Valentine’s Day celebration on Wednesday turned tragic in the United States as a 19-year-old man wearing a gas mask walked into his former school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School armed with smoke grenades and an AR-15 style rifle killing 17 people and injuring many others, 5 in critical condition.
School shootings in the United States are becoming too frequent. Parkland, a suburban middle-class community on the outskirt of Miami, joined Sandyhook and Columbine schools in the pantheon of names associated with America’s gun culture.
The Florida school tragedy is the biggest mass shooting to occur ‘in America since last November’s mass murder in Southern Springs Texas when a local 26-year-old killed 26 of his neighbours during a Sunday morning church service.
A month earlier, a gunman opened fire from a Las Vegas hotel room killing 58 people and injuring hundreds more, many of whom have been left with life-changing injuries.
Adam Lanza, 20, killed 20 children and six adults before killing himself in the Sandy Hook massacre of 2012.
The gunman in Florida has been identified as 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz. He was expelled from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School for disciplinary issues. They did not specify when he was expelled or the specifics of his expulsion. He was enrolled in a different high school, local reports said.
The catalog of gun violence in the US is inexhaustible. All entreaties for gun control has been rebuffed. The National Rifle Association, the nation’s most powerful gun ownership lobby group, holds a tight grip on the Republican party.
US President Donald Trump offered his condolences to the families of the victims. He said: “No child, teacher or anyone else should ever feel unsafe in an American school”.
Florida Governor Rick Scott said the shooting was “absolutely pure evil”.
Chris Murphy on the Florida school shooting: "Let me just note once again for my colleagues, that this happens nowhere else other than the U.S.A…. We are responsible for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere else." (via ABC) pic.twitter.com/Mqyr01r9Xh
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 14, 2018
As news of the Florida shooting emerged on Tuesday, Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy interrupted the immigration debate on the Senate floor and told senators to turn on their televisions. “Let me just note once again for my colleagues: this happens nowhere else other than the United States of America. This epidemic of mass slaughter. This scourge of school shooting after school shooting.
“It only happens here, not because of coincidence, not because of bad luck, but as a consequence of our inaction. We are responsible for a level of mass atrocity that happens in this country with zero parallel anywhere else.”
