Guns in the US A Self-Destructive Passion Rooted in History
A six-year-old boy opened fire in a
Virginia
elementary school classroom Friday , seriously injuring a teacher, and is in police custody, police said.
No students were injured in the incident at
Richneck Elementary School
in the coastal city of
Newport News
, in the eastern United States.
"The individual is a six-year-old student. Right now he is in police custody," local police chief
Steve Drew
said at a press conference , adding that "it was not an accidental shooting."
Police reported the victim is a female teacher in her 30s whose injuries are believed to be life-threatening.
"I'm shocked and heartbroken," said the city's superintendent of schools,
George Parker
.
"We need the support of the community to make sure that guns are out of the reach of young people."
School shootings ravage the United States, with recent tragedies including the killing last May of 19 children and two teachers in
Uvalde, Texas
, by an 18-year-old gunman.
According to the
Gun Violence Archive
, there were some 44,000 firearm-related deaths in the United States last year, about half of which were murder, accidents, and self-defense, and the other half were suicides.
According to the criteria of The Trust Project
Know more
USA
shootings