Christmas shootings leave 4 dead and 4 injured in US

Four people have been killed and four others injured in three separate shootings in the US on Christmas morning and Christmas Eve, according to US media reports.

Three people were killed and two others were injured at a nightclub in the US state of New Jersey just after midnight Wednesday, UPI reported.

Meanwhile, in Dorchester, Boston, a man was shot and killed early Christmas morning during a party, officials said.

Police responded to an emergency call around 4 a.m. Wednesday after shots were heard on Wales Street, according to Boston Police Department spokeswoman Nicole Grant, the Associated Press reported.

In another incident, shots were heard on neighboring Kingsdale Street and Talbot Avenue, early Wendsday morning.

A second victim, a woman who was in a car during the shooting and was injured by glass debris, was taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries.

Four teenage boys were also arrested for firing shots at a Central California high school teacher who tried to fight back during an attempted robbery at the school.

Fresno Police Chief Jerry Dyer announced the arrests on Tuesday and said the suspects were 17 and 16-year-old Norteno gang members.

The boys, armed with a handgun and a sawed-off shotgun, were confronted by Edison High School teacher Steven Guerrero who let them take a computer but then fought back and was shot in the stomach and leg. The police said he survived the injuries.

According to an investigation by the Daily Beast, one school shooting has taken place in America every two weeks on average over the past year.

Since the deadly shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14 which left 20 first-grade school children and six staff members dead, there have been nearly 12,000 gun deaths reported in the US media, according to an interactive project between slate.com and the anonymous creator of the Twitter feed @GunDeaths.

However, slate.com says based on the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates, the actual number of gun deaths in the US as of December 25, 2013, is roughly 35,000, almost three times more than the number reported in the media.