Six shot as gunman opens fire in park with one dead and 6-year-old critically injured

Six people have been shot and one killed as a gunman opened fire at a park.

A man in his 30s died and a six-year-old was left in a critical condition when shots were fired in Rosa L. Burney park, in Atlanta, US.

No arrests have yet been made and a gunman is still at large when the shooting started after an argument at a softball game at around 7pm local time.

A man was rushed to a nearby hospital where he later died and the child is still in a critical condition.

Deputy Chief Charles Hampton Jr said: "As we’ve said countless times, we’re just asking the citizens just to find a way to resolve conflict without weapons.

"We’re just asking people to, you know, step away. We’re asking people just to let bygones be bygones."

The argument is believed to have started outside a baseball or softball game (11Alive)

A separate shooting in the city saw a four-year-old girl shot to death in the backseat of a car in DeKalb County.

A recent 'murder map' put together by US news outlet CBS places Atlanta, Georgia as the 22nd deadliest city for gun deaths in the US and has a murder rate of 19.53 per 100,000.

Atlanta sits behind fellow Georgia city Columbus and the top three spots are taken by St Louis, Baltimore and Birmingham respectively.

Biden managed to introduce some legislation in June, but was unable to ban any weapons (REUTERS)

The Gun Violence Archive lists four separate incidents in Georgia on August 7, with three of them in Atlanta.

Be it through murder, accident or in self-defence, the archive currently lists 5,871 deaths in the state by guns since 2013.

There have been 98 children aged 11 and under killed with a further 220 injured. For children aged 12 to 17, 322 have been killed with 658 hurt.

Gun deaths remain a real problem in the US thanks to a culture which means there are more guns that the population of around 390 million people.

Atlanta was named in the top 25 worst places in the US for gun deaths (Getty Images)

A total of 79 per cent of murders are carried out by guns in the US, compared to just 4 per cent in the UK, 37 per cent in Canada and 13 per cent in Australia.

Americans remain torn between advocating for stricter gun control and a belief they are entitled to bear arms according to the second amendment of the constitution.

Research published in January of this year by Everytown argued: "When we compare the states head-to-head on the top 50 gun safety policies, a clear pattern emerges. States with strong laws see less gun violence.

"Indeed, the 13 states that have failed to put basic protections into place - 'national failures' on our scale - have nearly three times as many gun deaths as the eight national gun safety leaders."