Washington correspondent. Less than 48 hours after the mass shooting in Monterey Park, (the death toll rose to 11 yesterday) California – the US state with the most restrictive laws on weapons – registers a new massacre. A man, identified as 67-year-old Zhao Chunli, opened fire with a semi-automatic pistol and killed seven people (another is dying) in the Half Bay Moon area, San Mateo County less than fifty kilometers from San Francisco. The man – according to the first police reconstructions – fired at a mushroom growing farm and then at a nearby parking lot for trucks, less than three kilometers away. All the victims and also the killer, who was arrested in a nearby parking lot, are of Chinese origin and worked for the company.
Investigators have not provided details on the dynamics, the weapon used and the motive or on the identity of the victims. The investigations are ongoing. And the man, the police said, is collaborating.
In the afternoon, however, two students were killed at the headquarters of an education center (Starts Right Here) in Des Moines, the capital of Iowa. An adult was shot and is in serious condition.
The streak of blood that marked the American weekend prompted some Democratic senators to introduce bills to ban assault weapons and raise the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21. These are actions that immediately found the support of Biden who in a statement released in the evening by the White House asked Congress “to act quickly and get a law on my desk”.
According to Gun Archive in the first 23 days of the year there were 38 mass shootings and 70 victims.