VP urges tough gun regs on mass shoot ann’y
Vice President Kamala Harris marked the oneyear anniversary Sunday of the deadly mass shooting in Monterey Park, Calif., by stressing the need for stricter gun regulations.
Eleven people died and nine were wounded when a gunman opened fire at the Star Ballroom Dance Studio on the night of Jan. 21, 2023.
The shooting was the deadliest ever in Los Angeles County.
“We mourn with the families who lost loved ones, and we remain committed to calling on Congress to pass commonsense gun safety laws,” Harris wrote Sunday on social media.
The massacre occurred after a Lunar New Year celebration in Monterey Park, a city with a large Asian population. The victims were in their 50s, 60s and 70s, according to officials.
Shortly after the shooting, a confrontation at a nearby dance hall, the Lai Lai Ballroom in Alhambra, Calif., ended with employee Brandon Tsay wrestling a gun away from the same suspect, Tsay told ABC News.
The suspect, 72-year-old Huu Can Tran, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound on Jan. 22 following a police manhunt.
Harris visited the scene of the Monterey Park shooting last January and met with the families of victims. In Sunday’s post, the vice president included a photo from her visit to a memorial outside the scene of the shooting.
President Biden went to Monterey Park, about 8 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, in March and announced an executive order that included stricter background checks for gun purchases.
“I’m determined to ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines,” Biden said at the time, stressing the need to “do something big.”
The Monterey Park shooting was the second deadliest in the U.S. last year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The rampage that killed 18 people in Lewiston, Maine, in October was the deadliest of 2023 and the 10th deadliest in the country’s history.
There were 658 mass shootings in the U.S. last year, the Gun Violence Archive says.