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Colorado mass shooting reinvigorates calls for gun control

Tuesday, 23 March 2021 6:21 PM [ Last Update: Thursday, 25 March 2021 6:11 AM ]

Crime scene investigators, with Boulder County District Attorney Michael Dougherty (2nd-R), walk outside the entrance of the King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, the US, after a mass shooting on March 22, 2021. (Photo by AFP)

The latest mass shooting in a Colorado grocery store has sparked new calls for political action to tighten gun control in the United States.

Americans were in a state of shock on Monday after the nation witnessed its second deadly mass shooting in a week. The mass shooting occurred at a Boulder King Soopers grocery store and killed 10 people.

Less than a week earlier, eight people had been killed by a lone gunman at Atlanta-area spas.

Police identified the suspect in the Monday shooting as 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa of Arvada, a suburb of Denver about 20 miles from Boulder.

Police said the suspect, who was wounded in his right leg, had been taken into police custody. He was charged with 10 counts of first degree murder, though officials offered no details on his motive.

Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty vowed that "the killer's name will live in infamy."

Several people killed at Colorado grocery store shooting

The top Democrat in the US House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, weighed in on the Colorado shooting, calling for urgent action against the "epidemic of gun violence."

"For the second time in a week, our nation is being confronted by the epidemic of gun violence. Too many families in too many places are being forced to endure this unfathomable pain and anguish," she said in a statement.

"Action is needed now to prevent this scourge from continuing to ravage our communities," she said.

A Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on the subject of gun violence is already scheduled for Tuesday. It will be the first of a series of hearings to examine proposals to reduce gun violence.

"It's not 'timely' that the Senate is having a hearing on gun violence prevention tomorrow," tweeted Senate Judiciary spokesman Jenna Valle-Riestra on Monday, hours after the Colorado attack. "That's not the point. The point is that gun violence is so common in this country, we can schedule a hearing on a random date and it ends up within a week of two mass shootings."

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