Gun violence "tears the very soul of our nation," responded Joe Biden after a shooting broke out Monday, March 27 at an elementary school in Nashville, in the south of the United States. "It's just repugnant," the US president continued from the White House, while praising the responsiveness of the police and again calling on Congress to ban assault rifles. The White House also reiterated its call to ban assault rifles.

A young woman, heavily armed, opened fire, killing three children and three adults, before being shot dead by police.

Armed with "at least two assault rifles and a pistol," she broke into the premises of a private Christian school in the morning, local police spokesman Don Aaron told a news conference.

The young woman entered through a secondary door and fired many shots as she progressed through the school, "The Covenant School" which has about 200 students and about forty employees.

"Three children were fatally wounded, as well as three adults," but there are no other victims, Aaron added.

A former school student

Officers were quickly dispatched to the scene. After hearing gunfire upstairs, they "immediately" went there and "killed" the assailant, who was pronounced dead at 10:27 am (15:27 GMT), he said.

His office later said on Twitter that the assailant had been identified and that it was a 28-year-old resident of Nashville. The woman is believed to be a former student of the school, according to police.

"According to our preliminary investigation, at one point she was a student at this school, but we are not sure of the year," Nashville Police Chief John Drake told US television.

In a country where gun violence is a daily reality, Biden tat did not make a special address, but raised the subject at the beginning of a conference on female entrepreneurship at the White House. "It's time again to make more progress" in gun regulation, Biden said.

Since his inauguration, the US president has issued a series of executive orders on the regulation of firearms, which are limited in scope because Congress is competent in this area. His calls to ban assault weapons are unlikely to be heard, as Republicans, who control the House of Representatives, fiercely oppose it, while the powerful gun lobby, the NRA, campaigns fiercely against such a measure.

The United States banned assault rifles for ten years, between 1994 and 2004. Since then, gun violence has increased, and gun sales have skyrocketed during the pandemic, with a strong craze for the AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. The defense of the constitutional right to bear arms has also become a strong political marker of the radical right.

An ABC News/Washington Post poll from February shows that 51 percent of Americans oppose a ban on assault weapons, while 47 percent favor it.

With AFP

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