Over 1,000 killed in US since last month’s Connecticut school shooting

More than 1,000 Americans have been killed in gun-related violence since last month’s elementary school shooting carnage in Connecticut that killed 20 young pupils and six staff members, new data show.

According to the new data, collected through an interactive project conducted by Slate.com, the tally of those killed in gun violence across the US since the Connecticut massacre has surpassed the 1,000 mark, showing that as of 5 a.m. GMT on January 18, the figure has reached 1013.

The Connecticut school massacre was carried out by a lone 20-year-old gunman on December 14, 2012, using a semi-automatic assault rifle. The incident was reportedly the deadliest carnage at an elementary school in the US history.

Amid growing calls across the US for meaningful government and legislative action to control the free access to guns, especially assault weapons, US President Barack Obama finally delivered on his vow to offer a far-reaching gun-control plan on Wednesday.

While calling on the US Congress to do its part in legislating better gun-control laws, Obama also signed 23 executive orders to facilitate better measures to control purchase and tracking of firearms.

The move, however, has angered pro-gun conservative and Republican politicians and activists, led by the powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association (NRA), prompting some to call for Obama’s impeachment and other describing the newly reelected president as an “elitist hypocrite.”

A group called the “Project of Policy Issues Institute” manages a website that urges for Obama’s impeachment, asking visitors to sign a petition to impeach the US president and to receive updates on the campaign to remove him from office.

Although a real effort to impeach Obama appears highly unlikely, the emerging movement supporting the bid stems from a surge of public attention to the US gun debate following the Connecticut school carnage and the persisting divide in the nation’s Congress on enacting any gun-control legislations.

This is while US Vice President Joseph Biden vowed in a Thursday address to the United States Conference of Mayors in Washington that the Obama administration would vigorously press its bid to enact more gun-control legislations.

“We’re going to take it to the American people,” he said. “We’re going to go around the country making our case, and we’re going to let the voices, the voices of the American people be heard.”