Another gun-toting massacre in the United States. A daily massacre that has no end. A 21-year-old man committed suicide after shooting dead three people in the town of Yakima, a city of 100,000 in Washington state in the northwestern United States.
The Yakima massacre: kills three people, escapes and commits suicide
The killer’s name was Jarid Haddock: he had been identified from surveillance camera footage. The massacre took place in a shop. Haddock fled in a Chrysler. The authorities spoke of a dangerous person and described the shooting as “accidental” and warned the population of the danger that the fugitive posed “to the community”.
According to initial summary reconstructions reported to the media by Yakima Police Chief Matt Murray, the 21-year-old drove his car to a gas station where he tried unsuccessfully to enter the store near the gas pumps because the doors were closed . He then crossed the street and went to a Circle K store. The customers ate, Haddock – who was armed, his face was not distorted and made no attempt to hide his identity – opened the door to the store and immediately began shooting. kill two people. After he left, he shot a third person. Back at the gas station, he fired another shot into the window of his parked car (he had left his keys inside) and escaped. The names of the victims were not released by the authorities. An hour later, Haddock went to another store, borrowed a phone, and called his mother, reportedly admitting to “killing those people.” He then committed suicide: large quantities of ammunition were found on him and in the car. The suspect’s family is cooperating with the police.
Yakima is the 40th mass shooting of 2023 in the United States. According to data from the Weapons Violence Archive (GVA), the data has never accelerated as quickly as in the past. Between 2019 and 2020, the total number of such episodes increased from 417 to 610. The worst year so far was 2021: 690 episodes in 44 states. In 2022 there were 647 mass shootings. The impressive list has been updated daily on the Gun Violence Archive website for years. Everytown for Gun Safety, the non-profit anti-gun organization founded by former New York City Mayor Bloomberg, estimates that between 2015 and 2020, minors under the age of 18 were involved in 2,070 shootings (some of which were unintentional, with gunshots from superficial were fired): 765 killed and 1,366 wounded. After one of the recent massacres in California, President Biden noted that the situation in the country called for “strong action” and urged Congress to “act quickly and authorize the ban on assault weapons.”
How many guns are in circulation in the United States
Although it is difficult to obtain accurate data, according to some estimates, there are approximately 393.3 million guns per 330 million people in the United States. Few attempts to change gun laws have been nipped in the bud for decades by the powerful gun lobby in legislative activity and the intransigence of the Republican right. Last summer, President Biden signed a gun law into law, “the most significant in 30 years” and the first to intervene on the matter in many years. Among other things, it provides funding for states that commit to reducing the possibility of guns falling into the hands of those perceived to be a danger to themselves or others and to end the so-called “boyfriend loophole” that Blocked sale of arms to them accused of domestic violence, including against unmarried partners. However, the measure does not affect the sale of assault rifles or high-capacity magazines. The gun massacres don’t stop.
The Second Amendment to the United States Constitution protects the right to own and bear arms: “A well organized militia is necessary to the security of a free State; the right of citizens to own and bear arms shall not be violated. “, the text reads. It is contested by those who oppose easy gun ownership by individuals, while for proponents it represents legal protections as old as the United States. Gavin Newsom, Democrat, Governor of California, now defines it as “a suicide pact.” Newsom clarified that he has “no ideological opposition” to people owning guns “responsibly” when background checks are conducted and training on how to use them is provided. But after the events of the past few days, it seems obvious that current gun-freedom rules are no longer sufficient to limit the massacres even minimally (assuming and not assuming that they ever were sufficient). To date, there have been more than 2,800 firearm-related deaths in the United States in 2023 alone, 2,800 deaths in less than a month.
