Murder-suicide suspected in 4 US deaths

The shooting deaths of four members of a family in Fontana, California, appeared to be a murder-suicide, police said Tuesday.

Ramon Miranda, 38, apparently killed his wife, Silvia Miranda, 34, and their two children Rayna Miranda, 10 and Ramon Miranda Jr., 12, according to the San Bernardino County coroner’s office.

The bodies were discovered by a 16-year-old boy who said his family members had been injured or possibly killed in the house, said Sgt. Doug Imhof.

The woman and children all were shot more than once and Ramon Miranda had a single gunshot wound to the head, police spokeswoman Martha Guzman-Hurtado said.

Investigators found a handgun.

“Everything that has been confirmed so far indicates it could be a murder-suicide, but that has not been confirmed,” Guzman-Hurtado said. “They are questioning other people before making that conclusion.”

He said the bodies were spread throughout the house.

Fontana is a city of about 200,000 people in San Bernardino County, around 50 miles east of downtown Los Angeles.

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.