Caution tape surrounds Apalachee High School in Winder, Georgia, on 4 September 2024. Four people were killed and nine wounded in the school shooting on Wednesday, the Georgia Bureau of Investigation said. (Christian Monterrosa/AFP)

• A 14-year-old student, Colt Gray, killed two students and
  two teachers and wounded nine others in a shooting at Apalachee High School in
  Winder, Georgia.
• He was taken into custody and will be tried as an adult.
• The shooting has reignited the national debate on gun
  control, with President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris calling for
  common-sense gun safety legislation.

A 14-year-old boy killed two fellow students and two
teachers and wounded nine others in a shooting at a Georgia high school on
Wednesday, jolting the United States with the first mass campus shooting since
the start of the school year.

The suspect, who had been interviewed by law enforcement
last year over online threats about committing a school shooting, was taken
into custody shortly after the shooting at Apalachee High School in Winder,
Georgia, investigators said.

He was identified as Colt Gray, 14, and will be charged and
tried as an adult, Chris Hosey, director of the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation, told a press conference.

Barrow County Sheriff Jud Smith said the gunman, armed with
an “AR platform style weapon,” or semiautomatic rifle, was quickly
confronted by deputies assigned to the school and that the suspect immediately
got on the ground and surrendered.

Once under arrest the suspect was speaking with
investigators, who believe he was acting alone, but they declined to say if
they knew what motivated him.

Officials identified those killed as two 14-year-old
students, Mason Schermerhorn and Christian Angulo, and two teachers, Richard
Aspenwall, 39, and Christina Irimie, 53. All nine of those hospitalised were
expected to recover, Smith told reporters.

Smith said:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation later issued a statement
revealing that it had investigated online threats to commit a school shooting
in 2023 and local law enforcement interviewed a 13-year-old subject and his
father in nearby Jackson County. The statement did not identify the teen, but
Georgia officials said the statement was in connection to the subject in
custody.

“The father stated he had hunting guns in the house,
but the subject did not have unsupervised access to them. The subject denied
making the threats online. Jackson County alerted local schools for continued
monitoring of the subject,” the FBI said, adding that there was no
probable cause to make an arrest.

A family prays during a vigil for the victims of the Apalachee High School shooting at Jug Tavern Park in Winder, Georgia, on 4 September 2024. (Christian Monterrosa/AFP)

AFP

The shooting revived both the national debate about gun
control and the outpouring of grief that follows in a county where such
outbursts occur with some regularity.

People in Winder, a city of 18 000 some 80 km northeast of
Atlanta, gathered in a park for a prayer vigil later Wednesday night.

Some leaned on each other or bowed their heads in prayer,
while others lit candles to honour the dead.

“We are all hurting. Because when something affects one
of us it affects us all,” said Power Evans, a city councilman who
addressed the gathering. “I know that here tonight, all of are going to
come together. We’re going to love on one another. … We’re all family. We’re
all neighbours.”

Biden calls for gun safety legislation

The White House said in a statement that President Joe Biden
had been briefed on the shooting “and his administration will continue
coordinating with federal, state, and local officials as we receive more
information.”

“Jill and I are mourning the deaths of those whose
lives were cut short due to more senseless gun violence and thinking of all of
the survivors whose lives are forever changed,” Biden said in a statement,
calling on Republicans to work with Democrats to pass “common-sense gun
safety legislation.”

Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic Party nominee
for president, called the shooting a “senseless tragedy.”

“We’ve gotta stop it. We have to end this epidemic of
gun violence,” Harris said at the start of a campaign event in New
Hampshire.

Former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee for
president, wrote on social media that “Our hearts are with the victims and
loved ones of those affected by the tragic event in Winder, GA. These cherished
children were taken from us far too soon by a sick and deranged monster.”

Georgia’s Republican Governor Brian Kemp, asked at a press
conference what could be done to prevent shootings, said, “Today is not
the day for politics or policy. Today is the day for an investigation, to mourn
these precious Georgians that we have lost.”

The shooting was the first “planned attack” at a
school this fall, said David Riedman, who runs the K-12 School Shooting
Database. Apalachee students returned to school last month; many other students
in the US are returning this week.

The US has seen hundreds of shootings inside schools and
colleges in the past two decades, with the deadliest resulting in over 30
deaths at Virginia Tech in 2007. The carnage has intensified the pitched debate
over gun laws and the US Constitution’s Second Amendment, which enshrines the
right “to keep and bear arms.”