The United States is once again bereaved by a shooting. A gunman who opened fire and killed three black people Saturday at a store in Jacksonville, Fla., before killing himself, was motivated by racial “hate”, the local sheriff said.
“He targeted a certain group, and it was black people,” said Sheriff TK Waters, saying the racial motive was “very clear”. Manifestos left by the gunman, who was in his 20s and white, detail his “repulsive ideology of hate”, according to TK Waters.
Americans over-equipped with individual weapons
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 incident as a hate crime, Agent Sherri Onks said.
The United States has more individual weapons than inhabitants, mainly 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.