Tag Archives: Mass Shootings

Thirty people die in two mass shootings in Texas and Ohio

Francisco Castaneda joins mourners taking part in a vigil at El Paso High School after a mass shooting at a Walmart store in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Jorge Salgado NO RESALES. NO ARCHIVES.

By Julio-Cesar Chavez Steve Gorman

EL PASO, Texas/ LOS ANGELES (Reuters) – Thirty people died and dozens were wounded in two mass shootings within just 13 hours of each other in the United States, shocking the country and prompting calls from some politicians for tighter gun control.

The first massacre occurred on Saturday morning in the heavily Hispanic border city of El Paso, where a gunman killed 20 people at a Walmart store before surrendering to police.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott said the rampage appeared to be a hate crime, and police cited a “manifesto” they attributed to the suspect, a 21-year-old white man, as evidence that the bloodshed was racially motivated.

Officials investigate the scene after a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Officials investigate the scene after a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, U.S. August 4, 2019. REUTERS/Bryan Woolston

Across the country, a gunman opened fire in a downtown district of Dayton, Ohio, early on Sunday, killing nine people and wounding at least 26 others, police and the city mayor said. The assailant was shot dead by police.

The El Paso shooting reverberated on the campaign trail for next year’s U.S. presidential election, with several Democratic candidates denouncing the rise of gun violence and repeating calls for tighter gun control measures.

At least two candidates, Mayor Pete Buttigieg of South Bend, Indiana, and El Paso native Beto O’Rourke, a former congressman, drew connections to a resurgence in white nationalism and xenophobic politics in the United States.

“America is under attack from homegrown white nationalist terrorism,” Buttigieg said at an event in Las Vegas.

President Donald Trump branded the shooting “an act of cowardice,” saying in a Twitter post, “I know that I stand with everyone in this country to condemn today’s hateful act. There are no reasons or excuses that will ever justify killing innocent people.”

A hallmark of Trump’s presidency has been his determination to curb illegal immigration. Critics say the rhetoric he has used around the issue, as well as other remarks about minorities, is divisive and has fueled racism and xenophobia.

Pope Francis condemned the spate of attacks on “defenseless people” in the United States, including a rampage last Sunday in which a gunman killed three people and wounded about a dozen at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California.

A woman reacts after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

A woman reacts after a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, U.S. August 3, 2019. REUTERS/Jose Luis Gonzalez

‘HATE CRIME’

In Texas, police and FBI investigators searched for clues as to what motivated the suspect, who is from Allen, Texas, a Dallas suburb some 650 miles (1,046 km) east of El Paso, which lies on Rio Grande across the U.S.-Mexico border from Ciudad Juarez.

Multiple news media outlets, citing law enforcement officials, named him as Patrick Crusius.

Police said the suspect opened fire with a rifle on shoppers, many of them bargain-hunting for back-to-school supplies, then surrendered to officers who confronted him outside the store.

An El Paso police spokesman, Sergeant Robert Gomez, said on Saturday night police were interviewing the suspect, while investigators continued to collect evidence at the crime scene.

Several local politicians said the gunman was an outsider, suggesting he had traveled hundreds of miles from the Dallas area to commit mass murder. But Gomez declined to say how long the suspect might have been in El Paso before the shooting.

El Paso Police Chief Greg Allen said investigators were examining a “manifesto” from the suspect indicating “there is a potential nexus to a hate crime.”

A four-page statement posted on 8chan, an online message board often used by extremists, and believed to have been written by the suspect, called the Walmart attack “a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas.”

It also expressed for support for the gunman who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in March.

CNN reported the FBI had opened a domestic terrorism investigation.

“We are going to aggressively prosecute it both as capital murder but also as a hate crime, which is exactly what it appears to be,” Texas Governor Abbott told reporters.

El Paso and Ciudad Juarez, together with the neighboring city of Las Cruces, New Mexico, form a metropolitan border area of some 2.5 million residents constituting the largest bilingual, bi-national population in North America.

Mexico’s President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador said three Mexican nationals were among the 20 people killed in the shooting, and six others were among 26 victims who were wounded.

The carnage ranked as the eighth-deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, after a 1984 shooting in San Ysidro, California, in which 21 people died.

RAPID POLICE ACTION

In Dayton, a riverfront city of about 140,000 people in southwestern Ohio, a gunman dressed in body armor opened fire in a downtown district, unleashing carnage that could have been much worse if not for the rapid intervention of police.

Officers who were on routine patrol nearby were on the scene in less than a minute and shot the attacker dead, likely preventing a much higher casualty toll, police and the city’s mayor said.

Assistant Police Chief Matt Carper said the shooting began at 1 a.m. local time in Dayton’s Oregon District, a downtown historic neighborhood popular for its nightclubs, restaurants art galleries and shops.

The motive was not immediately clear, and investigators believe the individual had acted alone, Carper said.

The authorities did not disclose the shooter’s identity.

A total of 10 people were killed, including the assailant. Twenty-six others were injured and taken to hospitals across the area, Mayor Nan Whaley told reporters, though the extent of their injuries was not known.

She said the suspect was wearing body armor and was armed with a rifle firing .223-caliber rounds with high-capacity ammunition magazines.

FBI agents were assisting in the investigation.

(Reporting by Julio-Cesar Chavez in El Paso and Steve Gorman in Los Angeles; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles, Tim Reid in Las Vegas and Daniel Wallis in New York; Writing by Frances Kerry, Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Trump questions 3-D gun sales as U.S. states sue

FILE PHOTO: U.S. President Donald Trump speaks about the economy while delivering remarks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, U.S., July 27, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Barr

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Tuesday raised concerns about the sale of plastic guns made with 3-D printers, a day after several U.S. states sued his administration to block the imminent online publication of designs to make the weapons.

Eight states and the District of Columbia on Monday filed a lawsuit to fight a June settlement between the federal government and Defense Distributed allowing the Texas-based company to legally publish its designs. Its downloadable plans are set to go online on Wednesday.

The legal wrangling is the latest fight over gun rights in the United States, where a series of mass shootings in recent years has re-ignited the long-simmering debate over access to firearms.

“I am looking into 3-D Plastic Guns being sold to the public,” Trump said in a Twitter post that referred to the powerful National Rifle Association lobbying group. “Already spoke to NRA, doesn’t seem to make much sense.”

Representatives for the U.S. State Department, which signed off on the settlement allowing publication of the designs to go forward, did not immediately reply to a request for comment. The U.S. Department of Justice, which also signed off on the settlement, said the issue was a matter for the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, a spokeswoman said.

NRA officials were not immediately available for comment.

The states are asking a U.S. judge to issue an injunction to block the online distribution of the gun blueprints. They say the U.S. government has failed to study the national and state security implications of the decision and violated states’ rights to regulate firearms.

Josh Blackman, a lawyer for Defense Distributed, said the case was not about guns but instead about protecting the constitutional free speech rights of his client.

“I don’t care what President Trump says. I will be arguing to protect my client’s First Amendment rights,” he said in an interview on Tuesday.

Defense Distributed’s website said it would publish the files on Wednesday but blueprints for seven guns already were available for download on Tuesday. The company’s founder, self-declared anarchist Cody Wilson, told media outlets on Monday that the files went up late Friday evening.

Mark Kelly, who co-founded a gun reform group with his wife, former Democratic U.S. Representative Gabby Giffords, who was wounded in a 2011 shooting, criticized Trump for his tweet.

“He should go to the State Department, not the NRA,” he said.

Kelly said Trump should tell the department the blueprints should remain restricted under international arms trafficking regulations.

The states, in their filing on Monday, argued the online plans will give criminals easy access to weapons by circumventing traditional sales and regulations.

Gun rights groups have been largely dismissive of concerns about 3-D printable guns, saying the technology is expensive and the guns unreliable.

The gun plans were pulled from the internet in 2013 by order of the U.S. State Department under international gun trafficking laws. Wilson sued in 2015, claiming the order infringed his constitutional rights.

Until recently, the government argued the blueprints posed a national security risk. Gun control groups said there had been no explanation for the June settlement and the administration’s abrupt reversal on the issue.

Wilson said in an online video that the blueprints were downloaded more than 400,000 times before they were taken down in 2013.

(Reporting by Susan Heavey, Tina Bellon in New York and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Bill Trott)

France frets over internal threat two years after Paris attacks

A white rose hangs near a commemorative plaque facing the 'Le Carillon' bar and 'Le Petit Cambodge' during a ceremony marking the second anniversary of the Paris attacks of November 2015 in which 130 people were killed, in Paris, France, November 13, 2017.

By Marine Pennetier

PARIS (Reuters) – Two years after militants killed 130 people in coordinated attacks across Paris, French officials say there remains an unprecedented level of “internal” threat from both within and outside the country.

With Islamic State losing ground in Iraq and Syria, hundreds of French citizens – and in some cases their children – have started to return to France, leaving the government in a quandary over how to deal with them.

For the first time as president, Emmanuel Macron will pay tribute on Monday to the victims of the mass shootings and suicide bombing that took place across Paris and in the city’s northern suburb of Saint-Denis on Nov. 13, 2015.

The attacks, the deadliest on French soil since World War Two, prompted the country to strike back, joining international military operations targeting IS and other Islamist militant groups in Iraq, Syria, Libya and elsewhere.

There has also been the passage of more stringent French legislation, with the most recent law, effective this month, giving police extended powers to search properties, conduct electronic eavesdropping and shut mosques or other locations suspected of preaching hatred.

Conservative politicians say the regulations don’t go far enough, while human rights groups express alarm, saying security forces are being given too much freedom to curtail rights.

Macron – often parodied for his ‘on the one hand, on the other hand’ policy pronouncements – has emphasized the need to balance security and liberty. While he has ended the state of emergency brought in after the attacks, heavily armed soldiers still patrol the streets of Paris daily, and barely a week goes by without a police operation to round up suspects.

 

“MORE DISAPPOINTED THAN SORRY”

According to the interior ministry, extraordinary measures have helped intelligence agencies thwart more than 30 attacks in the last two years. Last week, the police arrested nine people and another was apprehended in Switzerland in a coordinated counter-terrorism operation.

“What worries us are plans for terrorist attacks prepared by teams that are still operating in fighting zones in Syria and Iraq,” Laurent Nunez, head of France’s internal intelligence agency DGSI told French daily Le Figaro in a rare interview.

The risk of a home-grown attack also remains strong, with a risk of more attacks from isolated individuals using “low-cost” methods such as cars or knives to kill, he said.

The hypothesis of a car bomb attack or suicide bomber cannot be excluded either although his services had not uncovered any such plan, he said.

Of particular concern is what to do about hundreds of French citizens who went to fight with IS and may now seek to return home, now that the militant group has lost nearly all the territory its self-proclaimed caliphate ruled in Syria and Iraq.

“We know that the will of the jihadists to take action is intact,” Nunez said.

Visiting Abu Dhabi last week, Macron said those returning would be studied on “a case-by-case” basis.

“Some of them will be coming back (by their own means), others will be repatriated and some, in specific circumstances, will be facing trial with their families in the countries where they are currently, Iraq in particular,” he said.

“A majority doesn’t want to come back to France given the legal proceedings they face upon their return. But some women, widows, with their children, are inclined to travel back,” French prosecutor Francois Molins said. “We should not be naive. We are dealing with people who are more ‘disappointed’ than ‘sorry.'”

(This version of the story adds dropped words in first paragraph)

 

(Writing by Matthias Blamont, additional reporting by Sybille de La Hamaide; Editing by Luke Baker, Peter Graff and Richard Balmforth)

 

Texas gunman’s in-laws sometimes attended church, sheriff says

The playground at the site of a shooting at the First Baptist Church of Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 6, 2017.

By Jon Herskovitz and Lisa Maria Garcia

SUTHERLAND SPRINGS, Texas (Reuters) – A man thrown out of the U.S. Air Force for beating his wife and child shot and killed 26 people in a Texas church where his in-laws had sometimes worshipped before shooting himself, officials said on Monday, in the latest in a string of U.S. mass shootings.

The gunman, Devin Patrick Kelley, 26, walked into the white-steepled First Baptist Church in rural Sutherland Springs carrying an assault rifle and wearing black tactical gear, then opened fire during a Sunday prayer service. He wounded at least 20 others, officials said.

After he left the church, two local residents, one of whom was armed, chased him in their vehicles and exchanged gunfire, and Kelley crashed his car and shot himself, dying of his wounds, Wilson County Sheriff Joe Tackitt told CBS News in an interview on Monday morning.

“At this time we believe that he had a self-inflicted gunshot wound,” Tackitt said.

Tackitt said Kelley’s in-laws sometimes attended services at First Baptist, which was cordoned off by yellow crime-scene tape on Monday morning.

“I heard that they attended church from time to time,” Tackitt told Reuters. “Not on a regular basis.”

The attack came a little more than a month after a gunman killed 58 people in Las Vegas in the deadliest shooting by a sole gunman in U.S. history.

The initial death toll matched the fatalities at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, where a man shot and killed 26 children and educators and his mother before taking his own life in December 2012. Those attacks now stand as the fourth deadliest by a single gunman in the United States.

 

‘POWDER KEG’

Republican Texas Governor Greg Abbott told CBS there was evidence that Kelley had mental health problems and that he had been denied a Texas gun permit.

“It’s clear this is a person who had violent tendencies, who had some challenges, and someone who was a powder keg, seeming waiting to go off,” Abbott said.

Abbott and other Republican leaders were quick to say that the attack did not influence their support of gun ownership by U.S. citizens – the right to bear arms protected under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

“This isn’t a guns situation. I mean we could go into it but it’s a little bit soon to go into it,” U.S. President Donald Trump told reporters while on trip to Asia. “But fortunately somebody else had a gun that was shooting in the opposite direction, otherwise … it would have been much worse. But this is a mental health problem at the highest level.”

Democrats renewed their call to restrict gun ownership following the attack.

“How many more people must die at churches or concerts or schools before we stop letting the @NRA control this country’s gun policies,” Democratic U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren said on Twitter.

The victims in Sutherland Springs, a community of fewer than 400 people, located about 40 miles (65 km) east of San Antonio, included the 14-year-old daughter of church pastor Frank Pomeroy, the family told several television stations.

A woman prays after a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 5, 2017. Nick Wagner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN via REUTERS

A woman prays after a mass shooting at the First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, U.S. November 5, 2017. Nick Wagner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN via REUTERS

One couple, Joe and Claryce Holcombe, told the Washington Post they lost eight extended family members, including a pregnant granddaughter-in-law and three of her children.

In rural areas like Sutherland Springs, gun ownership is a part of life and the state’s Republican leaders for years have balked at gun control, arguing that more firearms among responsible owners make the state safer.

John Stiles, a 76-year-old retired U.S. Navy veteran, said he heard the shots from his home about 150 yards (137 m) from the church.

“The wind was blowing and there was a bang, bang, bang. It was the gunshots,” Stiles said. “My wife and I were looking for a peaceful and quiet place when we moved here but now that hasn’t worked out.”

Kelley served in its Logistics Readiness unit at Holloman Air Force Base in New Mexico from 2010 until his discharge in 2014, according to the U.S. Air Force.

Kelley was court-martialed in 2012 on charges of assaulting his wife and child, and given a bad-conduct discharge, confinement for 12 months and a reduction in rank, Air Force spokeswoman Ann Stefanek said.

Kelley’s Facebook page has been deleted, but cached photos show a profile picture where he appeared with two small children. He also posted a photo of what appeared to be an assault rifle, writing a post that read: “She’s a bad bitch.”

 

(Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas, Phil Stewart in Washington, and Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Writing by Scott Malone; Editing by Mark Heinrich and Jeffrey Benkoe)

 

Uber driver suspected in Michigan shootings, six dead

(Reuters) – A Michigan man who worked as an Uber driver was under arrest on Sunday in the fatal shooting of six people in Kalamazoo, as police investigated reports he may have driven customers of the car-hailing service the night of the rampage.

Prosecutors alleged that Jason Dalton, 45, opened fire, apparently at random, in parking lots outside an apartment building, a car dealership and at a Cracker Barrel restaurant in Kalamazoo, about 150 miles west of Detroit.

Two other people were wounded, including a teenage girl who was initially thought to have died.

Authorities could not confirm Dalton was working for Uber during the nearly five-hour shooting spree on Saturday evening. He was arrested without incident on Sunday while driving away from the parking lot of an area bar.

An Uber representative confirmed that Dalton was a company driver and had passed background checks. The representative referred questions about whether Dalton was working at the time of the shootings to police.

The victims “appear to be chosen at random, because they were available,” Kalamazoo County Prosecuting Attorney Jeff Getting said. “They were shot multiple times, multiple – nine, 10, 11 shell casings at each of these scenes.”

The carnage in Kalamazoo, a city of about 75,000 people, was the latest in a series of mass shootings that have elevated gun control as a campaign issue in the November U.S. presidential election.

The attack also prompted renewed interest in how Uber vets drivers, who use their personal vehicles to ferry customers at prices that are generally below those of established taxi companies. Critics say the company’s vetting process is flawed because it never meets with potential drivers in person.

Uber says on its website that it has an “extensive” driver screening process that includes collecting detailed information from potential drivers and using the investigation service Checkr to vet them. Other websites and databases such at the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website are used as well.

WOOD-TV, a Grand Rapids station, quoted police as saying they were investigating reports Dalton dropped off Uber fares at a hotel and then killed four women and wounded a 14-year-old girl at the nearby Cracker Barrel. The teenager was in critical condition, Michigan State Police said.

In an emailed statement, Uber’s chief security officer, Joe Sullivan, said the company was in contact with police to help with the investigation.

An Uber passenger, Matt Mellen, told CBS TV affiliate WWMT that he had tried to alert the company after a wild ride with Dalton about an hour before the first shooting was reported.

He said Dalton introduced himself using a different name from the one listed as a driver. He then sped through medians and across a lawn, and Mellen jumped out at a stop at about 4:30 p.m.

“He just kind of kept looking at me like, ‘Don’t you want to get to your friend’s house?’ and I’m like, ‘I want to get there alive,'” said Mellen, a brewery worker.

His fiancée posted a Facebook account of the ride that said Dalton had sideswiped a car and run a stop sign. Mellen said he unsuccessfully tried to contact Uber about Dalton after talking to police.

Kalamazoo Police Chief Jeff Hadley told Reuters that investigators were still looking into reports of Dalton picking up Uber fares around the time of the shootings. He confirmed that a man did call police with a report of an erratic Uber driver and the report was relayed to patrol officers.

Hadley said it was not unusual for police to receive such reports and that he was not sure whether investigators had contacted the passenger who made the report.

An Uber spokesman could not be immediately reached for comment on Mellen’s account.

Michigan State Police said the carnage began at about 5:30 p.m. ET with the report of a woman wounded outside an apartment building. At about 10 p.m., a father and son were killed at the car dealership.

Dalton allegedly opened fire outside the restaurant about 15 minutes later. The four slain women were identified as Mary Lou Nye, 62, of Baroda, Michigan; and Dorothy Brown, 74; Barbara Hawthorne, 68; and Mary Jo Nye, 60, all of Battle Creek, Michigan, state police said.

Earlier, authorities reported seven deaths. Hadley said he understood that the wounded teenage girl was initially believed to have died and was being prepped for organ harvesting when she grasped the hand of one of her parents.

Getting said Dalton was thought to have been in contact with more than one person via cellphone during the shooting spree. Hadley said authorities have contacted Dalton’s wife, who is safe and cooperating with investigators.

Dalton is expected to be arraigned on Monday on charges of murder, assault and firearms violations, the prosecutor said. Getting said a semiautomatic pistol was found in Dalton’s car. Police said he had no known criminal record.

The Detroit Free Press newspaper said neighbors described Dalton as a father of two who “loved guns” and who worked on cars and had a day job as an insurance salesman.

The Kalamazoo shootings come as Uber is facing a range of regulatory and safety issues. The company agreed last month to pay $28.5 million to settle federal litigation brought by customers who alleged the service misrepresented the quality of its safety practices and fees.

(Reporting by Chris Michaud and Ian Simpson in Washington, and Curtis Skinner in San Francisco; Editing by Alan Crosby, Jonathan Oatis and Chris Reese)

Obama Announces New Gun Control Measures, Including Background Check Changes

President Barack Obama on Tuesday unveiled new measures that would govern gun sales and safety in the United States, actions he said are geared toward reducing gun violence by preventing the weapons from ending up in the hands of people who may use them nefariously.

Speaking in a televised address from the East Room of the White House, Obama listed mass shootings while detailing an executive order he said were designed to close loopholes in existing laws and make it tougher for people to obtain the weapons used in the deadly rampages.

The new measures would enhance the vetting process, requiring anyone who is “in the business of selling firearms” to obtain a selling license and conduct background checks. That’s not always the case under the current system, which has more lenient rules for gun-show and online sales.

“We know that we can’t stop every act of violence,” Obama conceded. “But what if we tried to stop even one?”

Opponents and gun rights activists immediately spoke out against Obama’s order, saying the president’s actions can not usurp American’s constitutional right to bear arms. House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wisconsin) issued a statement in which he said the president’s “words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty,” and said there was “no doubt” that someone would challenge the directive, which doesn’t need Congressional approval, in court.

In his address, Obama said the order was not an infringement of the Second Amendment and noted Americans were guaranteed additional rights and freedoms that gun violence was hampering, noting guns contribute to the deaths of 30,000 Americans every year. The president expressed a need to balance those other freedoms and rights with the right to bear arms.

He specifically mentioned the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

“Those rights were stripped from college kids in Blacksburg and Santa Barbara and from high schoolers at Columbine and from first-graders in Newtown,” Obama said, referencing campus shootings at Virginia Tech, UC Santa Barbara, Columbine High School and Sandy Hook Elementary School. “And from every family who never imagined that their loved one would be taken from our lives by a bullet from a gun. Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad.”

Obama also referenced mass shootings at a military facility in Fort Hood, Texas, a church in Charleston, South Carolina, the Washington Navy Yard, a holiday party in San Bernardino, California, and a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, on a list that included “too many” instances of gun violence. The president said it was time “not to debate the last shooting, but do something to try to prevent the next one.”

Several Democrats lauded the president’s efforts. They include former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was injured during a mass shooting in Tuscon five years ago this week. She attended the address and tweeted Obama’s “responsible actions … will save lives.”

However, the National Rifle Association issued a statement saying that none of Obama’s proposals would have stopped any of the “horrific events he mentioned” during his speech.

“Once again, President Obama has chosen to engage in political rhetoric, instead of offering meaningful solutions to our nation’s pressing problems,” Chris W. Cox, the executive director of the association’s Institute for Legislative Action, said in a statement. “Today’s event also represents an ongoing attempt to distract attention away from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from terrorist attack. The American people do not need more emotional, condescending lectures that are completely devoid of facts.”

The main point of Obama’s executive order is undoubtedly reforming background checks.

Those checks have already prevented 2 million guns from being sold to people who cannot legally purchase them, the White House said in a news release, and the executive order aims to bolster the strength and overall efficiency of the system. The FBI is planning to hire 230 additional employees to process the 63,000 background check requests it receives every day, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms is working to finalize rules that would prevent people from circumventing the background check requirements for particularly dangerous guns.

The order also calls for better enforcement of existing gun laws, and Obama’s budget for fiscal year 2017 includes funding that would allow the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms to hire 200 additional agents and investigators. The president is also pushing for better gun safety technology, directing officials with the Homeland Security, Justice and Defense departments to help study how to prevent guns from firing accidentally, and proposing $500 million for nationwide improvements to mental health treatment.

Prosecutors Charge Farook’s Friend With Buying San Bernardino Weapons

A friend of one of the people responsible for the Dec. 2 mass shooting in California has been charged in connection with the attacks, as well as for plotting other unrelated terrorist acts.

Enrique Marquez Jr. was arrested Thursday, the Department of Justice said in a news release.

The 24-year-old is accused of unlawfully buying two assault rifles that his longtime friend, Syed Rizwan Farook, and Farook’s wife, Tashfeen Malik, used to kill 14 people and injure 21 more during a holiday party for Farook’s coworkers on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino. He was also accused of playing a role in plotting attacks with Farook in 2011 and 2012, plans they later abandoned.

Marquez was expected to appear in federal court later Thursday.

The official charges against him included conspiring to provide material support to terrorists, making a false statement about purchasing firearms, and immigration fraud, prosecutors said.

“While there currently is no evidence that Mr. Marquez participated in the Dec. 2, 2015 attack or had advance knowledge of it, his prior purchase of the firearms and ongoing failure to warn authorities about Farook’s intent to commit mass murder had fatal consequences,” U.S. Attorney Eileen M. Decker said in a statement announcing the arrests.

Prosecutors said Marquez moved to Riverside around 2005 and lived next door to Farook, who introduced him to Islam. Farook told Marquez about his radical views, prosecutors said, and Marquez converted to the religion in 2007. By 2011, prosecutors said Marquez “spent most of his time” with Farook, listening, watching and reading various radical Islamic materials.

Prosecutors said Farook and Marquez began planning terrorist attacks in 2011, and that Marquez admitted the attack was “designed to maximize the number of casualties that could be inflicted.” Marquez allegedly told prosecutors he and Farook wanted to throw pipe bombs into a cafeteria at Riverside Community College, where they had both studied, and shoot people as they fled. Prosecutors also allege Marquez told them about a terrorist plot involving pipe bombs and guns that would have targeted a stretch of California Route 91 during rush-hour traffic.

Prosecutors allege that Marquez bought two assault rifles between 2011 and 2012 that he claimed were for himself, but he was actually going to give to Farook for those attacks. Marquez allegedly told prosecutors he agreed to buy the guns because he appeared Caucasian and Farook appeared Middle Eastern. Marquez is also accused of buying explosive smokeless powder to aid “his and Farook’s plans to create bombs and commit mass killings,” according to the news release.

Prosecutors allege Marquez went to firing ranges with Farook to practice for those attacks in early 2012, but Marquez “distanced himself” from Farook in late 2012 after other people in Southern California were arrested for terrorism charges in November.

Authorities said that forensic tests confirmed two of the guns Farook and Malik used in San Bernardino were the ones Marquez allegedly purchased.

Additionally, prosecutors charged Marquez with entering into “a sham marriage with a member of Farook’s extended family so that she could obtain legal status in the United States.” Marquez’s alleged wife paid him $200 a month, prosecutors claim.

In one more detail, prosecutors illuminated published media reports saying that Malik pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State on the morning of the attack.

In the news release, prosecutors allege “a Facebook account associated with Malik searched for” Islamic State materials that morning, and that the account posted “We pledge allegiance to Khalifa bu bkr al bhaghdadi al quraishi,” which prosecutors believe is the publicized pledge.

The FBI said the investigation into the San Bernardino shooting is ongoing.

Interest in Concealed Carry Permits Hits New High after California Shootings

More Americans have performed Google searches for concealed carry permits this month than at any other point in the past 11 years, according to data published on the company’s website.

The spike in concealed carry permit searches comes in the wake of the Dec. 2 mass shooting that left 14 people dead and 21 more injured in San Bernardino, California. The husband-and-wife team of Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik opened fire during a holiday party for Farook’s coworkers in what President Barack Obama has declared an act of terrorism.

People who possess valid concealed carry permits can carry hidden handguns in public areas.

The previous all-time high for concealed carry searches came in December 2012, the month in which Adam Lanza killed 20 schoolchildren and six teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. The total concealed carry searches in that month were about 60 percent of what they were in the first 11 days of this month, according to Google Trends data.

There’s also been a documented rise in the number of people who actually obtain the permits.

The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) says that about 12.8 million Americans held concealed carry permits in July, nearly tripling the 4.6 million million who held such permits in 2007. The CPRC says that 1.7 million new concealed carry permits were issued in the past year alone, and the 15.4 percent year-over-year increase was the largest ever recorded in history.

Near the site of the shooting, some people wasted little time to get new concealed carry permits.

The Los Angeles Times reported that the San Bernardino County sheriff’s department received 75 applications for concealed carry permits the weekend following the shooting, which was seven times higher than usual. In neighboring Orange County, sheriff’s deputies told the newspaper that they received about 100 additional applications the weekend after the attack.

The news comes amid a new survey released Thursday by the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) that found that 47 percent of Americans fear they or someone in their family will be the victim of a terrorist attack. That’s a 14 percent increase from one year ago. The PRRI survey also indicated 3 in 4 Americans said terrorism was a “critical issue” in the nation.

As permit interest surged, some were trying to prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.

Connecticut’s governor, Dannel P. Malloy, said Thursday he would sign an executive order that prohibits selling firearms to anyone on a government watchlist. It still needs federal approval.

San Bernardino Suspects Spoke of ‘Jihad and Martyrdom’ Two Years Ago

The husband and wife responsible for last week’s mass shooting in California were discussing ‘jihad and martyrdom’ together as early as 2013, FBI Director James Comey said Wednesday.

Comey unveiled the information while he was speaking to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Investigators have been working to determine the circumstances that led the husband-and-wife team of Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik to open fire during a holiday party for Farook’s coworkers, killing 14 people and injuring 21 others exactly one week ago.

President Barack Obama has called the shooting an act of terrorism, and investigators had said the suspects were radicalized for “quite some time,” though Comey’s revelation to the lawmakers provided the most specific account yet of how and when the suspects became radicalized.

Comey said the FBI’s investigation “indicates that they were actually radicalized before they started courting or dating each other online,” dispelling notions that one suspect radicalized the other. By the end of 2013, Comey said the two “were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom” online before their engagement, marriage and Malik’s move to the United States.

Yet none of these conversations apparently triggered any red flags, as Comey had previously told reporters that neither Farook nor Malik was on the FBI’s radar screen at the time of the attack.

Farook, a United States citizen, was born to Pakistani parents in Illinois. He met Malik, a Pakistan native who was living in Saudi Arabia, on an online dating website. Malik originally came to the United States under a “fiancee visa” waiver program that has been highly scrutinized since the attack, with federal lawmakers and Obama calling for reviews to the program. The fact that Malik was apparently radicalized before she came to America could spur further scrutiny.

While authorities have not linked Farook or Malik to being part of a larger terrorist group, investigators are trying to uncover what initially led the suspects to become radicalized and whether they were inspired by the work any foreign terrorist groups.

Police have said they recovered at least 4,500 rounds of ammunition and 19 pipes that could have been used to produce bombs from the couple’s home in Redlands, California.

Farook and Malik died in a shootout with police, leaving behind a 6-month-old daughter.

Obama Vows U.S. ‘Will Destroy’ ISIS, Other Terrorist Groups

The United States “will destroy” the Islamic State “and any other terrorist organization that tries to harm us,” President Barack Obama said in a televised speech to the nation on Sunday night.

Speaking from the Oval Office, the president said the country faces new challenges in its 14-year war on terrorism but remains equipped to overcome the threat the ideology poses to America.

The speech came days after the husband-and-wife team of Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik killed 14 people and wounded 21 others in a mass shooting at San Bernardino, California. The brazen attack occurred during a holiday party for Farook’s coworkers on Wednesday.

“This was an act of terrorism designed to kill innocent people,” Obama declared in the speech.

Obama went on to say that other shootings at military installations in Fort Hood, Texas, and Chattanooga, Tennessee, were also acts of terrorism. The president said the nature of these attacks represent a fundamental shift in the face of terrorism, and the challenge it presents.

He said the country has been at war with terrorists since 9/11, when terrorists hijacked four airplanes in an elaborate plot that ultimately killed nearly 3,000 people. America has beefed up its security and intelligence operations and disrupted a host of terrorist plots in the years since.

“Over the last few years, however, the terrorist threat has evolved into a new phase,” Obama said. “As we’ve become better at preventing complex, multi-faceted attacks like 9/11, terrorists turn to less-complicated acts of violence like the mass shootings that are all too common in our society.”

While noting there was no evidence that Farook and Malik were directed by a terrorist group or that they were part of a broader conspiracy in planning and executing Wednesday’s shootings, Obama said “it is clear that the two of them had gone down the dark path of radicalization, a perverted interpretation of Islam that calls for war against America and the West.”

The FBI echoed that statement on Monday, with an official saying at a news conference that the bureau had evidence that Farook and Malik had been radicalized “for quite some time.” The probe into the shootings and the circumstances around them continued Monday afternoon.

In his Sunday night speech, Obama reaffirmed the country’s commitment to fighting terrorism.

He said “our military will continue to hunt down terrorist plotters in any country where it is necessary,” and noted that 65 countries have joined an American-led coalition that is carrying out airstrikes against ISIS interests. The United States is also providing training to forces in Iraq and Syria that are fighting ISIS militants on the ground, and deploying special ops in both countries. Coalition forces are working to disrupt ISIS in other ways, like cutting off its money supply (largely obtained through oil smuggling) and preventing it from adding manpower.

Obama noted global efforts to combat ISIS have increased since Nov. 13, when gunmen and suicide bombers linked to the group killed 130 people in multiple terrorist attacks in Paris. In particular, he said the exchange of intelligence between allies has surged since those attacks.

The president said technology has made it easier for groups like the Islamic State to corrupt the minds of people around the world. The terrorists are frequently able to use social media and the Internet to share their radical messages. Obama called for technology companies and law enforcement officials to make it more difficult for terrorists to hide behind computer screens.

He also called for the departments of State and Homeland Security to review the ‘fiancee visa’ waiver program that Malik, a Pakistani native who was living in Saudi Arabia, used to enter the United States. It’s been widely reported that she met Farook, a U.S. citizen, on an online dating site.

Obama also called for stricter gun laws, like making it more difficult to purchase assault weapons like the ones used in San Bernardino. He noted authorities simply can’t identify every potential mass shooter, but “what we can do — and must do — is make it harder for them to kill.”

While Obama outlined the steps America is taking against ISIS and to prevent future terrorist attacks at home, he also laid out a list of things that America should not do. Those included entering a ground war in the Middle East, which could be lengthy and ultimately play into the Islamic State’s hand. He also said the country shouldn’t fear or discriminate against Muslims, noting that the Islamic State “doesn’t speak for Islam” and was “part of a cult of death.”

“The threat from terrorism is real, but we will overcome it,” Obama said in his televised comments. “We will destroy (ISIS) and any other organization that tries to harm us.”