Walmart employee kills six and himself in Virginia

In the most recent incident of gun violence in the US, a Walmart employee shot himself to death at a shop in Chesapeake, Virginia, after killing six people and injuring a number of others.

According to Chesapeake Police Chief Mark Solesky, the unidentified shooter used a pistol in the shooting late on Tuesday, inflicting at least four injuries in addition to the dead.

Following the murder of five people at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs on Saturday, the most recent shooting sparked yet another round of condemnations from public figures and requests for stricter gun laws from campaigners.

On Wednesday, U.S. President Joe Biden referred to the massacre as "yet another tragic and senseless act of violence," and he vowed to use any resources required by the federal government to support the inquiry.

"There are now even more tables across the country that will have empty seats this Thanksgiving," he said in a statement, noting a shooting earlier this month that left three University of Virginia students dead. "We must take greater action."

Four others were being treated at nearby hospitals in addition to the seven confirmed deceased, including the shooter, Solesky added.

Employees at the massive Walmart Supercenter off Battlefield Boulevard in Chesapeake, a community of roughly 250,000 people south of Norfolk, told the media that the shooter was a manager.

"I looked up and my manager just opened the door and he just opened fire," Briana Tyler said, according to ABC News.

"The Battlefield Walmart just got shot up by one of my managers. He killed a couple of people. By the grace of God I made it out," another employee, Kevin Harper, told CBS.

In the United States, where an average of two mass shootings — defined as an incident killing or injuring four or more people — occur every day, according to data from GunViolenceArchive.org, Tuesday's bloodbath marks the most recent outburst of gun violence.

In the wake of the killings at the University of Virginia, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, who was already facing increased calls for gun violence regulations, declared that he had offered local law enforcement support in its investigation.

"Heinous acts of violence have no place in our communities," Youngkin wrote on Twitter.

There have been other mass shootings at Walmart, which has thousands of stores across the country.

23 people were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, in August 2019, which authorities are classifying as domestic terrorism. The shooting occurred close to the border with Mexico. The Hispanic population was likewise the target of the bloodiest attack in recent memory. A manifesto with white nationalist and anti-immigrant themes was left behind by Patrick Wood Crusius, who was arrested in the shooting and was 21 years old at the time and from Allen, Texas.

Walmart expressed its "horror" at the violence at the Chesapeake shop in a statement on Wednesday and stated that it was collaborating closely with law authorities.

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