Gunshots at a birthday party in the US kill four

At least four people have been killed in a shooting at a teenage birthday party in Alabama.

There are also 28 injured, some of whom are in critical condition, local police chief Jeremy Burkett said at a press conference on Sunday evening (local time). The authorities initially gave no information about the age of the victims and the background of the act of violence. It was also unclear whether the detectives identified or even caught one or more shooters.

The shots were fired around 10:30 p.m. on Saturday evening at a dance studio in the town of Dadeville, about 70 kilometers northeast of the capital Montgomery. US media reported that the victims were mainly young people because it was a girl’s 16th birthday party.

One of the fatal victims is said to be the older brother of the birthday boy, the local newspaper “Montgomery Advertiser” reports. He was about to graduate high school. “He was a very, very modest boy. He never messed with anyone. He always had a smile on his face,” the paper quoted his grandmother as saying. The mother was also shot, but survived.

Broadcaster CNN reported that there was great outrage among the 3,000 residents of Dadeville about the reticent information policy of the police. However, Burkett asked for your understanding that no details could be given.

US President Joe Biden reacted with horror to the renewed bloodshed and called again for stricter gun laws in the US, where thousands of people are shot dead every year. «What has become of our country if children can no longer go to a birthday party without fear? If parents have to worry every time their children go to school, to the cinema or to the park?”

Biden also referred to a fatal incident in Kentucky, north of Alabama. Shots were fired into a crowd in Louisville’s largest city on Saturday night, killing at least two people, according to police. At least four others were injured, one of them in critical condition.

Without substantial tightening of the law, experts see no chance of a decrease in gun violence in the US. To push this through, however, Biden and his Democrats would have to rely on the willingness of Republicans in Congress to cooperate — and there is no sign of that at this point.

Many in the party are affiliated with the powerful National Rifle Association (NRA), a firearms lobbying group. When they met for their annual meeting in Indianapolis this weekend, prominent Republicans like Donald Trump and Mike Pence also showed up.

Rampages and shootings are part of everyday life in the US. There are more guns in circulation in the United States than anywhere else in the world. The non-governmental organization Gun Violence Archive has recorded more than 5,000 gun deaths since the beginning of the year, not counting suicides. At the end of March, three children and three adults were shot dead in a shooting at a school in the US state of Nashville. (sda/dpa)