On Friday, a gunman opened fire in the small rural town of Arkabutla, Mississippi, killing six people across multiple sites. Armed with a shotgun and two handguns, 52-year-old Richard Dale Crum fatally shot his ex-wife, stepfather, stepsister, two handymen, and a woman. Crum was arrested without bond on a single charge of capital murder, and investigators are working to bring additional charges.
The tragedy has once again highlighted the issue of gun violence in the United States. There have already been 73 mass shootings, defined as having four or more victims, in the country in 2023 alone, according to the Gun Violence Archive. President Joe Biden has condemned the attack and called for Congress to act, echoing the same exasperated tone he struck after a mass shooting at a Michigan university just four days earlier.
Biden has made gun reform a priority of his presidency and signed into law the first federal gun control legislation in the country in decades in 2022. However, the bill fell far short of several long-sought reforms, including higher age restrictions for gun purchases and a federal ban on assault weapons. Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves, who regularly receives top ratings from the National Rifle Association (NRA), an influential pro-gun lobbying group, said he had been briefed on the most recent attack. The tragedy in Arkabutla has once again highlighted the need for more stringent gun control measures in the US.