US community college killer backed IRA: Reports
US media reports say the gunman who shot over a dozen people to death at a community college in Oregon was sympathetic to the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and a Nazi fan.
Reports of Chris Harper Mercer’s support for Northern Ireland’s independence fighters emerged after US officials identified the slain 26-year-old as the culprit behind the Thursday shootings at the Umpqua College in Roseburg, Oregon.
Latest reports have put the number of campus fatalities at 10 with nearly twice as many injured.
They say the shooter entered a college building where he started his killing spree before being ‘neutralized’ by police.
Media reports indicate the young gunman had a varied online presence which showed support for the IRA as well as an interest in the Sandy Hook school massacre, a late 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut where over two dozen people, mostly school kids, were gunned down in a similar mass killing.
Meanwhile, other reports say the gunman was sympathetic to Nazis as he appeared to have bought ‘Nazi paraphernalia.’
It is not known whether Mercer attended Umpqua Community College, but he was listed as a "production assistant" in a Facebook post promoting a performance of a play by the school's drama group.
Following the mass shooting, President Barack Obama urged the Congress to overhaul US gun laws, saying the country needs more gun-control legislation.
Obama also condemned the ‘routine’ mass shootings in the country and said the United States had become ‘numb’ to such killings.
During the Clinton administration, the rate of US gun production decreased by 9 percent, while it increased by 18 percent under George W. Bush.
Under President Obama, however, gun production soared 140 percent, reaching 10.8 million firearms in 2013, the most recent year for which data is available.
More than 6,000 people were killed and over 13,000 others injured in gun violence in the United States from January 1, 2015 until late July, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
About 4.5 million firearms are sold annually in the country at a cost of 2 to 3 billion dollars.
A Huff Post report says a daily average of 36 people die in America over gun violence.
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