Alabama Shootings Kill 7

Facts

  • On Saturday, two separate shootings killed seven people in Alabama. A shooting outside a Birmingham home claimed the lives of three individuals, including a young child. Later that night, a Birmingham nightclub shooting killed four people and injured many others.1
  • Birmingham Police and Fire and Rescue officials rushed to the nightclub around 11 pm, finding a dead man on the sidewalk. Two women also died in the shooting, while the University of Alabama's Birmingham Hospital, treating about nine other victims, declared a second man dead.2
  • Officials believe at least one suspect fired into the nightclub from the outside. Local Birmingham police have received help with the investigation from federal law enforcement authorities.3
  • Earlier, police responded to a car crash around 5.20 pm in a residential area. Officers located a man, a woman, and a five-year-old boy with gunshot wounds. Fire and rescue officials pronounced all three dead on the scene.1
  • The police identified the victims as a 28-year-old woman and her child and a 28-year-old male. Police believe the three, all from Alabama, were victims of a targeted shooting.4

Sources: 1Guardian, 2US News & World Report, 3Yahoo News and 4World News.

Narratives

  • Left narrative, as provided by Missouri Independent. While the motives behind these shootings are unclear, what is known is that there are many more such tragedies to come. The US experiences mass shootings at an unprecedented level due to lax restrictions on military-style weapons. It's time to adopt common-sense gun safety regulations.
  • Right narrative, as provided by NRA. Gun restrictions only curtail the freedoms of law-abiding citizens who have a right to buy, own, and use weapons for lawful reasons under the Second Amendment. Every man or woman must be allowed to protect their family against criminals, who won't be deterred by gun limitations anyway.

Predictions