A weekend of national celebrations marking the US semiquincentennial was disrupted by outbreaks of gun violence, which claimed dozens of lives and left multiple people wounded across the country.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, at least 43 fatalities from firearms have been recorded since early Saturday, which marked the 250th anniversary of the US declaration of independence.
The database listed at least 224 mass shootings in the year to date as of Monday morning, tracking a total of 6,604 fatalities from gun violence within the same period.
Incidents Across the Country
In east Los Angeles, four people were shot in a neighborhood where soccer fans gathered during Mexico's World Cup elimination match on Sunday night.
The Los Angeles police department stated that a suspect pulled out a gun during an argument at about 9:30 pm local time and started firing after the match ended.
The gunfire struck two intended victims and two bystanders, identified as a woman and a boy, who both left the scene to seek medical assistance.
All four individuals were treated at local hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries, according to local news channel KTLA, though no further details regarding their identities were released.
In a separate incident on Sunday, two people were killed during a shooting amidst a large crowd in Batesburg-Leesville, South Carolina, according to local authorities.
Officers responding to the gunfire discovered three people shot, including Ronald Cleveland Brown, 39, and Devante Elliott, 34, who were both later declared dead.
Meanwhile, a man and a woman in their late teens or early 20s were shot dead in the parking lot of an Austin, Texas nightclub early Sunday morning.
The local Travis county sheriff’s office spokesperson, Kristen Dark, stated that the shooting followed an altercation at approximately 4 am.
“I can’t say that it stems from the nightclub at all,” she said.
“It happened in the parking lot of the nightclub, but we don’t know at this point in time what led to the altercation.”
Investigators in Austin were simultaneously handling another firearm fatality involving a man killed in a sports bar parking lot late Saturday, where another male was injured.
In Compton, California, three people lost their lives during separate Independence Day block parties on Saturday, according to the Los Angeles county sheriff’s office.
The first Compton shooting resulted in the deaths of a woman and a man, while another man became the victim in the second neighborhood shooting.
Additionally, police in Centreville, Mississippi are investigating a mass shooting early Saturday that left two adult men dead and at least nine others wounded.
The high rates of firearm violence have led to persistent public calls for Congress to implement stricter federal controls, though legislative restrictions have faced continuous hurdles over the years.
