A heavily armed young woman opened fire on Monday at an elementary school in Nashville, in the southern United States, killing three children and three adults, before being shot dead by police.
Armed with “at least two assault rifles and a pistol”, she broke into the premises of a private Christian school in the morning, said local police spokesman Don Aaron. during a press conference.
The young woman entered through a secondary door and fired numerous shots as she progressed through the establishment, “The Covenant School”, which has around 200 students and around 40 employees.
“Three children were fatally injured, along with three adults,” but there were no other casualties, Aaron added.
Officers were quickly dispatched to the scene. After hearing shots upstairs, they “immediately” went there and “killed” the assailant, who was pronounced dead at 10:27 a.m. (3:27 p.m. GMT), he continued.
His services then clarified on Twitter that the assailant had been identified and that it was a 28-year-old Nashville resident.
” Enough is enough “
The drama reignited calls from the White House to ban assault rifles, as a proposed law to that effect is blocked by opposition lawmakers.
“How many more children will have to be killed before Republicans in Congress…pass an assault rifle ban?” “, reacted the spokesperson for the presidency Karine Jean-Pierre.
“Enough is enough,” she said again.
Joe Biden will speak on this killing during the day, the White House said.
The elected officials of the State of Tennessee also expressed their emotion on social networks. “I am devastated and heartbroken at the tragic news from the Covenant School,” tweeted Republican Senator Bill Hagerty, without addressing the sensitive subject of gun control.
The United States, where approximately 400 million firearms are in circulation, are frequently bereaved by deadly shootings, including in schools.
Massacre
The most striking tragedy was committed in 2012 in an elementary school in Connecticut, during which 20 children aged 6 and 7 were killed.
Such a traumatic event repeated itself in May 2022 when an 18-year-old man shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas.
Between these two tragedies, a massacre committed in a high school in Florida, on February 14, 2018 in Parkland, triggered a vast national movement, spearheaded by young people, to demand stricter supervision of individual weapons in the United States.
Despite the mobilization of more than a million demonstrators, the United States Congress has not adopted ambitious legislation, many elected officials being under the influence of the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), the first American lobby weapons.
In a country where carrying a gun is considered by millions of Americans to be a constitutional right, the only recent legislative advances remain marginal, such as the generalization of criminal and psychiatric background checks before any gun purchase.