Three dead in shooting at US mall—officials

Three people were killed and another three injured Monday, July 18 (Philippine time) at a mall in the US state of Indiana, officials said—the latest in a spate of gun violence in the country.

"We experienced a mass shooting this evening at the Greenwood Park Mall," Mark Myers, the mayor of Greenwood, Indiana, said in a statement.

"We have three fatalities at this time and three others injured."

Myers said that the gunman had been shot dead by "an armed individual."

The Greenwood police shared a post on their Facebook page asking for witnesses to the shooting to contact the department with information.

The attack is the latest in a wave of gun violence plaguing the United States, where about 40,000 deaths a year are caused by firearms, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

It comes just weeks after a gunman opened fire on a July 4 parade in an affluent Chicago suburb, killing seven people and injuring at least three dozen.

That shooting followed two massacres in May that saw ten Black people gunned down at an upstate New York supermarket, and 19 children and two teachers slain at an elementary school in Texas.

The recent surge in gun violence has reignited the divisive debate over firearm regulation. A committee of the US House of Representatives is set to vote this week for the first time in nearly 20 years on a bill that would ban assault weapons. (AFP)