BOULDER: A 21-year-old man was charged on Tuesday with gunning 10 people down in a Colorado grocery store, as America reeled from its second mass shooting in less than a week — sparking urgent calls for gun control.

The suspect, named as Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, was in hospital after being shot in an exchange of fire with officers following the attack on King Soopers in Boulder County, 50 kilometres northwest of the state capital Denver, on Monday afternoon.

“He is charged with 10 counts of murder in the first degree and will be shortly transported to Boulder county jail,” Boulder Police Chief Maris Herold told a press conference.

The police chief also read out, one by one, the names of the 10 people killed in the attack, men and women aged from 20 to 65 who included a police officer who was a father of seven.

Suspect, injured in an exchange of fire with police, charged with murder

“Boulder county is a small community — we’re all looking over the list. Do we know anybody?” said Governor Jared Polis at the press conference.

“None of them expected that this would be their last day here on the planet.”

Addressing the same press conference, Boulder District Attorney Michael Dougherty vowed that “the killer’s name will live in infamy”. “We will make sure that the suspect is held accountable for what he did to them yesterday,” he said.

The massacre came less than a week after another gunman shot dead eight people at multiple spas in the Georgia state capital Atlanta. The suspect in that case is also facing murder charges.

Together the killings ignited new calls for US politicians to act against the country’s notoriously lax gun ownership laws.

Tighter gun control is overwhelmingly popular with Americans — and backed by President Joe Biden — but Republicans have long stood against what a minority view as any infringement on their right to bear arms.

With a Senate Judiciary hearing on the subject already scheduled for Tuesday, the familiar bipartisan divide was emerging once more.

“Too many families in too many places are being forced to endure this unfathomable pain and anguish,” the top Democrat in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, said in a statement.

“Action is needed now to prevent this scourge from continuing to ravage our communities,” she said.

Biden, who is due to speak on the Boulder tragedy later on Tuesday, has ordered White House flags to be flown at half mast, his office said.

“It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s beyond time for our leaders to take action,” tweeted former congresswoman Gabby Giffords, who survived a gunshot wound to the head during a 2011 assassination attempt.

Biden said last month he wanted Congress to pass laws that would require background checks on all gun sales and ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines.

“This administration will not wait for the next mass shooting to heed that call,” he said at the time.

This month the House of Representatives passed two measures aimed at enhancing background checks and closing a loophole related to a deadly 2015 church shooting in Charleston.

The bills address a hugely popular premise among American voters: that background checks be required for all US firearm sales, including those at gun shows.

Tuesday’s Senate Judiciary hearing will be the first of a series to examine proposals to reduce gun violence.

Ban on assault-style weapons

The city of Boulder imposed a ban on “assault-style weapons” and large-capacity gun magazines in the wake of the Parkland, Florida, shooting in 2018.

But a judge last week blocked that ban, the Denver Post reported, in a decision hailed by the NRA, a powerful pro-gun advocacy group.

The NRA tweeted a copy of the Second Amendment on the right to bear arms after the Colorado shooting.

On Tuesday Biden senior adviser Cedric Richmond told MSNBC that “the regular sentiment of hearts and prayers are not enough. We need action”. “The good news is that this president has a track record of fighting against the NRA and beating them,” he added.

Witnesses at Colorado supermarket said they initially heard multiple loud bangs outside the shop.

“I just nearly got killed for getting a soda and a bag of chips,” Ryan Borowski, who was in the store when he heard at least eight gunshots, told CNN.

“It doesn’t feel like there’s anywhere safe anymore.” Among the 10 people killed was a police officer, 51-year-old Eric Talley, who was the first on the scene.

Colorado has previously suffered two of the most infamous mass shootings in US history — at Columbine High School in 1999, and at a movie theater in Aurora in 2012.

Those massacres prompted nationwide soul-searching but did not result in major changes to gun laws.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2021