Obama says US needs to do something about gun violence

In the wake of the latest mass shooting in the US State of Colorado, President Barack Obama has criticized the easy availability of firearms on America’s streets, and demanded real action on US gun laws.

The United States president said in a Saturday statement that America needs to "do something" to make it harder for criminals to get guns.

Obama said it was particularly sad that one day after a US holiday, Thanksgiving, Americans have to comfort families who suddenly lost loved ones to gun violence.

"And yet, two days after Thanksgiving, that's what we are forced to do again," he said.

"We have to do something about the easy accessibility of weapons of war on our streets to people who have no business wielding them. Period," Obama pointed out, adding tersely, "Enough is enough."

The brusque statement comes after a shooting in Colorado Springs on Friday left three dead and nine injured.

Now officials have identified the suspect in the deadly shooting at a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic as Robert L. Dear, 57.

The gunman who stormed the clinic on Friday killed three people and wounded nine others before surrendering to police after a bloody siege lasting several hours inside the facility, according to Reuters.

The man, who carried a military-style assault rifle, had held hostages at the family planning center.

The rampage, which took place at the clinic that provides women's health services including abortions, was believed to be the first fatal attack on a US abortion provider in six years.

Police have not discussed the suspect's motives. The assailant in Colorado Springs, Colorado's second largest city, was armed with a rifle when he entered the clinic - a site repeatedly targeted for protests by anti-abortion activists - and opened fire shortly before noon on Friday, authorities said.

Police swarming the scene pursued the assailant into the building, trading gunfire with the suspect as authorities tracked their movements from room to room by watching live video feeds from security cameras mounted inside.

Officers closing in on the gunman managed to finally talk him into giving himself up inside, and he was taken into custody more than five hours after the violence began.

The victims were a police officer and two civilians, Colorado Springs Police Chief Peter Carey told reporters on Friday.

All nine surviving victims - five police officers and four civilians - were listed in good condition at area hospitals, he said.

The dead policeman in Friday's shooting was identified as Garrett Swasey, 44, a campus police officer for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs who joined city police in responding to the first reports of shots fired, authorities said. The dead civilians were not named.

At least eight workers at clinics providing abortions have been killed since 1977, according to the National Abortion Federation.

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