4 dead, 3 wounded in Louisiana shootings

A shooting spree in the US state of Louisiana has left four people dead following a Christmas Day in the US that saw at least eight gun deaths.

A gunman went on a shooting spree Thursday evening in Lafourche Parish, Louisiana, killing three people and injuring three others in three shootings. The gunman was later found dead in a vehicle.

In the first shooting, which happened around 6:40 p.m. local time, Lafourche Parish Councilman Louis Phillip Goaux was wounded and his wife, Susan Goaux, was killed.

The second shooting left an administrator at Ochsner St. Anne dead and his wife and daughter wounded.

In the last shooting, the alleged gunman’s wife was found shot to death.

The shooting spree came one day after a Christmas Day in the US on which several people lost their lives to gun violence.

On Wednesday, three people were shot dead at a nightclub in the township of Irvington, New Jersey, just hours after midnight. In the neighboring city of Newark, two teenagers were fatally shot hours later.

Early Christmas morning, a man was also shot and killed during a party in Dorchester, Boston, and another man was shot to death in Chicago’s South Side.

A 17-year-old pregnant girl who was found shot in the head in a Chicago suburb on the day of Christmas was also pronounced dead on Thursday.

Meanwhile, several other people were wounded during shootings on Christmas Day and Christmas Eve.

According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, 32 Americans, on average, are murdered with guns every day and 140 are treated for a gun assault in an emergency room.

A scientific study published by the American Journal of Medicine in September found that the rate of gun violence is positively correlated with gun ownership rates, supporting arguments put forth by many critics who blame the notoriously liberal gun control laws in the US for the high rate of gun violence in the country.

However, more than one year after the tragic shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 first-grade school children and six staff members dead, little effort has been seen on the part of Congress or even the Obama administration for any substantial changes to current laws.

According to the Brady Campaign, the current background check system in the US only applies to about 60 percent of gun sales, leaving 40 percent of sales, including online sales and purchases at gun shows, without a background check.