US President Barack Obama has issued an angry response to the mass shooting carried out at a US college in Oregon in which a gunman slaughtered at least nine people.
In a televised address, President Obama said mass killings in America had become 'routine' after the latest atrocity in the small town of Roseburg, which police said was committed by Chris Harper Mercer.
He said: "As I said a few months ago each time we see one of these mass shootings our thoughts and prayers are not enough.
"It's not enough. It does not capture the heartache and grief and anger that we should feel. It does nothing to prevent this carnage from being inflicted some place else in America.
"We are the only advanced country on earth that sees these kinds of mass shooting every few months."
Mr Obama called for a change America's gun laws in the wake of the attack.
A Myspace page in Mercer’s name features chilling pictures of masked gunmen, and references to the Irish Republican Army, including a picture of the front page of a the Irish republican newspaper An Phoblacht, bearing the headline “British Army Could Not Defeat IRA”.