Gunman shot dead after killing 9 in Oregon school

A gunman killed 9 people and wounded up to 7 others at a community college in a rural area of the northwestern US state of Oregon yesterday.

There were conflicting reports on the final number of fatalities at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, a town in southern Oregon.

However, the state’s attorney general Ellen Rosenbaum later confirmed the figure.

The incident moved US President Barack Obama to call on Americans to help him change the country’s gun laws.

“We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction,” he said.

The gunman, identified by the state governor as a 20-year-old male, was killed by police after an exchange of gunfire.

Police received a call about a gunman on the loose in the college at about 10.38am.

A spokeswoman in the sheriff’s office in Douglas County, where the college is located, said police units from multiple jurisdictions responded to the shootings.

Male gunman

Sheriff John Hanlin of Douglas County said they came across a male gunman in one of the buildings in the college and fired on the individual, killing the man.

Roseburg is a timber-producing community with 107,000 people in Douglas County.

Umpqua Community College is the only third-level educational institution in the area.

“It is a peaceful community,” said Sheriff Hanlin.

“We have our share of crime like any small community.

“Certainly, this is a huge shock to the entire community to have this level of crime.”

One student, Kortney Moore (18), told local news outlet News Review Today that she was in a writing class when a single shot was fired through a window of the classroom.

Gunman entered

She said she saw her teacher get shot in the head, apparently after the gunman entered the room.

Ms Moore said the gunman ordered everyone on the ground. Then he asked people to stand up and state their religion and then started firing, she said.

A clearly angry President Obama said: “I hope and pray that I don’t have to come out again during my tenure as president to offer my condolences to families in this circumstances, but based on my experience as president, I can’t guarantee that. And that’s terrible to say.

“As I said just a few months ago, and I said a few months before that, and I said each time we see one of these mass shootings, our thoughts and prayers are not enough,” he said. “It’s not enough.

“It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel, and it doesn’t nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in America next week, or a couple of months from now.”

He pointed to other countries – “Great Britain, Australia, countries like ours”– who he said have crafted laws that “almost eliminated” mass shootings.

“Somehow this has become routine. The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine,” said Mr Obama. “We’ve become numb to this.”

The mass shooting is the latest incident of gun violence in the United States as the ready availability of firearms and the role of mental health is debated at a national level after each incident.

Nine people were murdered recently at a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina, by a gunman as they attended a Bible study class. Five US military personnel were also killed by a gunman who opened fire at two military sites in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July.