Motivated by racial “hate” according to authorities, a gunman opened fire and killed three black people on Saturday August 26 in a store in Jacksonville, Florida, before committing suicide.
“He targeted a certain group, and that was black people,” Sheriff TK Waters told a news conference, calling the racial motive “very clear.” Manifestos left by the gunman, who was in his twenties and white, detail his “repugnant ideology of hate”, according to Mr Waters.
The shooter, wearing a tactical vest and armed with an assault rifle and a pistol, fired into a Dollar General store, the sheriff said, explaining that two men and a woman had lost their lives . The FBI will investigate the facts as a hate crime, Agent Sherri Onks said.
The United States has more individual weapons than inhabitants, partly because of the ease with which Americans have access to them. One in three adults owns at least one weapon and almost one in two adults lives in a household where there is a weapon.
The consequence of this proliferation is a very high rate of death by firearm in the United States, without comparison with that of other developed countries.
Several other shootings took place over the weekend, notably in Chicago and Boston, without causing any deaths.
