![Automatic weapons at gun range, Las Vegas. - [Image credit – Cory Doctorow, Wikimedia Commons]](https://staticr1.blastingcdn.com/media/photogallery/2018/2/15/660x290/b_502x220x82/automatic-weapons-at-gun-range-las-vegas-image-credit-cory-doctorow-wikimedia-commons_1834269.jpg "Automatic weapons at gun range, Las Vegas. - [Image credit – Cory Doctorow, Wikimedia Commons]")
Another incident of gun-related violence in a school in Florida has left at least 17 dead with another 14 injured. Some of them have life-threatening injuries. The gunman is believed to be a 19-year-old man who used to be a student of the school and was expelled for disciplinary reasons. He had enrolled in another school in the district and used to work in a local store.
NBC News reports that the incident happened in the afternoon of February 14 and the suspect, who has been identified, tried to merge in the crowd and flee from the scene but was arrested by the police.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott has termed it as "absolutely pure evil." President Donald Trump has also been was briefed about the tragedy.
It was an intentional act
The gunman was armed with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle and multiple magazines. He used to be a student in this school and knew the layout. He began shooting even before he entered the premises, and once inside, he shot dead 12 people and sprayed bullets to injure many more. He was at it for more than an hour, but it is not known how he laid his hands on the semiautomatic rifle. The school is in Parkland, in north Broward County, located northwest of Fort Lauderdale, and the school superintendent has confirmed that there are police cars on the campus daily.
The gunman must have known about this and he went ahead nevertheless. It was a case of gun-related violence and in the opinion of federal and local authorities, the shooter appeared to have worked on his own without an accomplice.
Such violence must be stopped
This tragedy brings back to mind an earlier instance of gun-related violence in a school.
It was the Sandy Hook Elementary School where the 20-year-old gunman shot dead 26 persons in cold blood.
According to the New York Times, the gunman had used an assault rifle to kill 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, in Newtown, Connecticut. It seems many children have access to unlocked guns at home, which is not a healthy trend.
Former President Barack Obama tried to introduce some form of gun control mechanism to prevent such deaths but failed.
There was another mass shooting at a country music festival in Las Vegas in October 2017, where more than 22,000 people had gathered. NBC News says it was also a lone gunman who shot from a vantage point in an upper floor hotel room. He killed 59 people and injured more than 500 others and he did not have any criminal background. Tragedies of this nature could be due to the easy availability of firearms in the United States, and the authorities must take necessary measures to check that lethal weapons do not fall into the wrong hands.
