Attack in San José: "It is enough"

A few hours after the fatal shooting in San José, California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Wednesday what many Americans thought: “What the hell is wrong with the United States?

When do we lay down our arms, leave politics, lame rhetoric, finger pointing and hand rings behind us?

All of this brings nothing but more anger and frustration - over and over again. "

Samuel Cassidy, a 57-year-old mechanic, carried out one of the most devastating attacks in northern California in decades on Wednesday morning. As the door camera of a neighbor in South San José showed, the employee of the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VAT) got into his car at around 6:00 am with a black travel bag. Half an hour later, Cassidy fired at his colleagues in the transport company's train depot. Eight people died and one more died hours later in hospital from injuries. As the sheriff of Santa Clara confirmed, the gunman turned the gun on himself after the massacre. Cassidy seemed to have planned that May 26 would be the anniversary of his death. Before he left the quiet residential area in San José that morning,He set fire to his house 75 kilometers southeast of San Francisco.

According to the Gun Violence Archive organization, which collects data on gun crimes in America, the attack on the train depot is one of more than 200 mass shootings in 2021. For the month of May alone, 60 shootings with more than four fatalities have been recorded so far. In a speech addressing the crime in San José on Wednesday, President Joe Biden recalled the attack on a supermarket in Atlanta, Georgia, where a gunman killed eight people, six of them Asian, in a rampage in several massage parlors in late March in Boulder, Colorado a few days later, at Rock Hill (South Carolina), where six members of a family, including two children, were shot in early April, and the attack on a mail distribution station in Indianapolis, Indiana a week later. "It's enough",said Biden and had the flag raised to half-mast one more time.

At the same time, the Senate heard the hearing of David Chipman, the president's preferred candidate for the office of head of the Federal Police Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Biden chose Chipman because he is an advocate of gun crime prevention, including banning civilians from assault rifles. Although Congress approved the position of ATF head in 2006, it had remained vacant time and again in recent years - allegedly also under pressure from the National Rifle Association (NRA).