Spotlight: Increased shootings in U.S. due to weak security policies

WASHINGTON, Feb. 15 (Xinhua) -- A mass shooting claimed 17 lives at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Wednesday in Parkland in the U.S. state of Florida, local police said.

The suspected gunman, captured shortly after the shooting, was identified as Nikolas Cruz, a 19-year-old expelled student from the school. An AR-15 semi-automatic rifle was found at the site.

Former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who survived a shooting attack in 2011, said in a statement that the deadly school shooting in Florida should "strike fear into all Americans."

She also said an epidemic of gun violence continuing "days after deadly day" plus the latest shooting should stir fresh resolve in Congress to "find the courage to pass the laws we need to protect children."

GUN CONTROL POLICIES REMAIN STAGNANT

After the Florida school shooting, U.S. President Donald Trump tweeted his prayers and condolences to the victims, as he has done in previous mass shootings at a Texas church in November and Las Vegas concert in October.

Representative Seth Moulton from Massachusetts quote-tweeted the president and urged him to "do something" about gun violence.

However, the White House in its newly unveiled budget proposal for 2019 would cut millions of dollars from the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, a system of the Federal Bureau Investigation to help gun dealers verify if a prospective buyer is qualified.

Furthermore, in early 2017, having been in office for merely a month, Trump revoked former President Barack Obama's regulation on gun control, which imposed purchase limits on people receiving Social Security checks for mental illnesses and those deemed unfit to handle their own financial affairs.

In an exclusive interview last month with British political pundit Piers Morgan, Trump described himself as a "Second Amendment person," saying he believes that people need weapons for their own security.

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution preserves the right of the people to keep and bear arms, a legal document in force for two centuries.

TURMOIL BECOMES THE "NEW NORMAL"

The United States has been disturbed by increasing problems in public security in recent years involving hate crimes and gun violence.

In addition to frequent shootings, the emergence of white nationalists and supremacists has triggered the fear of a hate crimes resurgence, especially after the Charlottesville incident in August, 2017, which triggered nationwide protests denouncing white supremacy and neo-fascists.

The heavily-armed neo-Nazis, Klansmen and white supremacists gathering in Charlottesville spewed hatred and incited violence to protect their so-called "right to bear arms."

According to Everytown for Gun Safety, a U.S. nonprofit organization advocating gun control, the Florida attack has been the 18th school shooting in the past 45 days in the country in 2018; only eight of these incidents had no one injured.

The death toll in the latest attack would make it the third deadliest school shooting in recent U.S. history only after the Virginia Tech attack in 2007 and the Sandy Hook elementary school incident in 2012, killing 33 and 28 respectively.

During an interview with the U.S. television network MSNBC, former chief of the New York City police department Bill Bratton said the frequency of school shootings was "astonishing," but had become "the new normal." Enditem