Texas mall shooting prompts Biden to renew call for gun control

US President Joe Biden on Sunday called on Congress to pass gun control bills in the wake of yet another mass shooting that left nine people dead, including the gunman, at a Texas mall on Saturday.

The Democratic president renewed calls for Congress to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, as well as to enact universal background checks and end immunity for gun manufacturers. There is little chance the narrowly divided House and Senate would pass such legislation, although polls show most Americans support background checks.

Biden, who has made similar pleas before, said the assailant at Allen Premium Outlets mall in Allen, a northern suburb of Dallas, wore tactical gear and was armed with an AR-15 style assault weapon.

The gunman killed eight people, including children, and wounded at least seven, before a police officer killed him, police said on Saturday.

Mass shootings have become commonplace in the United States, with at least 199 so far in 2023, the most at this point in the year since at least 2016, according to the Gun Violence Archive. The nonprofit group defines a mass shooting as any in which four or more people are wounded or killed, not including the shooter.

As of Sunday morning, law enforcement had not released details about suspect's identity or a possible motive. The identities of the victims had also not been released.

"We don't have anything that we're ready to release at this time," Sergeant Jonathan Maness of the Allen Police Department told Reuters. "It's a lot of moving parts here."

Officials said three people transported to area hospitals were in critical conditions as of Saturday, while four had been stabilized.

Reuters