Mass shootings in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Fort Worth, Texas, killed 10 people and wounded nearly 40 others ahead of the Fourth of July holiday, officials said, a grim reminder of the decades-long failure to curb gun violence in the United States.
In Fort Worth, three people were killed and eight wounded in a mass shooting following a local festival to mark the U.S. Independence Day holiday, police said on Tuesday.
In a separate mass shooting incident in Philadelphia on Monday evening, five people were killed and two were wounded, including a 2-year-old boy and 13-year-old boy both shot in the legs, when a suspect in body armor and armed with an AR-15 opened fire on apparent strangers, according to local police.
The Monday night shootings came a day after two people were shot dead and 28 others injured, about half of them children, in a hail of gunfire at an outdoor neighborhood block party in Baltimore.
The motives in all three recent shootings remained unclear.
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U.S. President Joe Biden condemned the violence and renewed his calls to tighten America’s lax gun laws.
“Our nation has once again endured a wave of tragic and senseless shootings,” the president said in a statement released on Tuesday. Biden called on Republican lawmakers “to come to the table on meaningful, commonsense reforms.”
Citing constitutional protections for gun ownership, Republicans in Congress have generally blocked attempts to significantly reform gun safety laws and oppose Biden’s push to reinstate a ban on assault weapons.