A man shot and killed two women before turning the gun on himself outside a church in Iowa shortly after President Joe Biden’s primetime speech in which he urged the passage of stricter gun control legislation.
The three deaths on Thursday night come after a string of mass shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Another two people were wounded during another shooting on Thursday at a burial ceremony in Racine, Wisconsin.
The Iowa shooting took place outside Cornerstone Church, a fundamentalist church east of Ames, a city located 37 miles (60km) north of the state capital Des Moines.
The chief deputy of the Story County sheriff’s office, Nicholas Lennie, said a church programme was taking place inside the building at the time of the shooting.
Mr Lennie said all three people were dead when officers got to the scene. He added that he was unable to reveal if they were connected to each other or divulge their identities.
“This appears to be an isolated, single-shooter incident,” he said.
The shooting occurred just moments after Mr Biden pushed Congress to act on gun control in a primetime speech from the White House. Mr Biden urged lawmakers to pass an assault weapons ban, expand background checks and put in place other restrictions in an effort to curb gun violence.
“Enough, enough!” Mr Biden said.
Ten Black residents were killed in a racially motivated supermarket shooting in Buffalo on 14 May. Ten days later, 19 children and two teachers were killed at an elementary school in Uvalde. Four people died in a shooting in a medical building in Tulsa on Wednesday.
Several shots were fired into a group of people attending a burial in Racine, Wisconsin, on Thursday. Two people were wounded.
Racine police Sgt Kristi Wilcox told the press that one of the injured individuals was treated and later discharged from a hospital in the area while the other wounded person was flown to a Milwaukee hospital with more serious injuries. No suspect has been arrested.
The president’s account tweeted on Thursday that “we need to: Ban assault weapons — and if we can’t, then we should raise the age to purchase them from 18 to 21.
“Ban high-capacity magazines. Strengthen background checks. Enact safe storage laws and red flag laws. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability.”
”There are too many other schools, too many other everyday places that have become killing fields, battlefields here in America,” Mr Biden said in his White House speech on Thursday night.
“Over the last two decades, more school-age children have died from guns than on-duty police officers and active duty military — combined,” he added. “For God’s sake, how much more carnage are we willing to accept?”
