Child wounds instructor in first-grade classroom over an “altercation” at Richneck Elementary School in Newport News, police say, with no rationalization on how a six-year-old acquired handgun.
(AP)
A six-year-old pupil has shot and wounded a instructor within the US state of Virginia throughout an altercation inside a first-grade classroom, police and faculty officers within the metropolis of Newport News mentioned, in one more case of gun violence menacing the nation.
No college students had been wounded within the Friday capturing at Richneck Elementary School, police mentioned.
The instructor — a girl in her 30s — suffered life-threatening wounds.
Newport News Police Chief Steve Drew advised reporters that her situation had improved considerably by late afternoon.
Police mentioned the kid had a handgun within the classroom and that they took that pupil into custody.
There was no additional rationalization for the way a 6-year-old acquired the handgun.
“We did not have a situation where someone was going around the school shooting,” Drew advised reporters.
“We have a situation in one particular location where a gunshot was fired.”
He added that the capturing was not an accident.
Parents and college students had been reunited at a gymnasium door, Newport News Public Schools mentioned on Facebook.
Newport News is a metropolis of about 185,000 folks in southeastern Virginia identified for its shipyard, which builds the nation’s plane carriers and different US Navy vessels.
Richneck has about 550 college students who’re in kindergarten by fifth grade, in line with the Virginia Department of Education’s web site.
School officers have already mentioned that there shall be no lessons on the faculty on Monday.
Schools superintendent George Parker lamented educators’ incapacity to maintain weapons out of college, saying he was “shocked” and “disheartened”.
“We need to keep guns out of the hands of our young people,” Parker mentioned. “I cannot control access to weapons. My teachers cannot control access to weapons.”
READ MORE:
US accounted for 73 p.c of worldwide mass shootings
Common tragedy
It comes after a 42-year-old Utah man whose spouse had filed for divorce simply earlier than Christmas shot lifeless seven members of his household together with his 5 kids ranging in age from 4 to 17 after which turned the gun on himself on Wednesday.
Family mass killings have change into a disturbingly frequent tragedy throughout the nation.
In 2022 there have been 17 of them, in line with a database compiled by USA Today, The Associated Press and Northeastern University.
Ten had been murder-suicides, and 14 had been shootings. The database defines a mass killing as 4 or extra folks slain, not together with the assailant.
READ MORE: US says nation flooded with practically 140M weapons
(The Virginian Pilot by way of AP)
Millions of weapons in heavily-armed society
US stays essentially the most closely armed civilian inhabitants on this planet, with Americans possessing 393.3 million weapons, in line with a report by the Small Arms Survey, a Geneva-based organisation.
US firearms producers produced over 139 million weapons for the industrial market over the twenty years from 2000, together with 11.3 million in 2020 alone, in line with a authorities report in 2022.
Another 71 million firearms had been imported in the identical interval –– in comparison with simply 7.5 million exported –– underscoring how the nation is actually swimming in private weapons which have stoked a surge in gun violence, murders and suicides, the Justice Department report mentioned.
The report confirmed that whereas Americans have made favourites of semi-automatic assault rifles seen in lots of mass shootings, they’ve purchased en masse the more and more low-cost, easy-to-use and correct semi-automatic 9 mm pistols like people who most police now use.
The report confirmed authorities face a surge in unregistered “ghost guns” made at house with components that may be purchased on-line and produced with 3-D printers, and pistols and short-barrelled rifles which can be as highly effective and deadly because the semi-automatic assault rifles utilized in mass shootings.
READ MORE: US gun violence epidemic is a plague with no vaccine
Source: TRTWorld and companies
