At least three dead and one injured is the latest official toll from the shooting incident that took place late Wednesday night, Greek time, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. According to the police, the condition of the injured person is critical .

The incident occurred when a gunman opened fire on the University grounds, injuring several people.
The police also announced that the attacker was found dead without providing further details.

“Three people have died and another is in a critical condition,” police explained via X (formerly Twitter). The attacker is also dead, the same source added.

Shots were fired yesterday afternoon (local time) at the University of Nevada Las Vegas campus. Police almost immediately ordered everyone to leave the campus, about two kilometers from the famous “strip”, the artery where several casinos operate.

After police called the attack over, the rectory asked everyone to stay “locked inside” so its men could clear the buildings “one by one”, while canceling all classes and other activities that were due to be delivered.

“This has darkened the campus” and “now we have to try to fight and overcome this and it’s just sad,” a student said, according to a report by local television station KSNV.

Wounds

The new tragedy reopens the wounds of the massacre that Las Vegas experienced in 2017, one of the worst in US history.

Then, armed with assault rifles modified to fire at the rate of machine guns and a large amount of ammunition, he killed 58 people and injured hundreds more when he opened fire from the 32nd floor of a hotel on a crowd attending a country music concert. The perpetrator committed suicide.

Yesterday’s latest tragedy makes even heavier for the US the price it pays for the widespread proliferation of weapons on its soil and the ease with which Americans can gain access to them. The country has more guns (some 400 million) than residents, one in three adults owns at least one gun and nearly one in two lives in a household with more than one gun.

The ever-recurring violent incidents with the use of weapons “are not normal, and we cannot let them become something normal”, was the reaction of US President Joe Biden, who recalled the tragic account published by the specialized website Gun Violence Archive.

“This year alone,” the organization, a US-based source, recorded more than 600 gun attacks that left at least four people dead or injured (mass shootings, as defined by US authorities) and some 40,000 gun-related deaths — half were classified as suicides.

The Democratic president has once again reiterated his call to ban assault rifles and implement truly systematic background checks on people who want to own a gun.

But without a majority in Congress — the House of Representatives is controlled by Republicans — these remain wishful thinking.

Despite the strong emotional reactions each such massacre provokes, the right to bear arms guaranteed by the Constitution remains a burning issue that deeply divides progressives and conservatives, the latter insisting on projecting an increasingly maximalist vision.