At least 20 people were injured in a shooting at a teenager’s birthday party Saturday night in a small town in Alabama, southern United States, local media said, citing law enforcement officials.
The shooting took place around 10:30 p.m. (03:30 GMT Sunday) in a building in the city center. A teenager – whose gender was not revealed – was celebrating his sixteenth birthday, according to local broadcaster WRBL.
Authorities have not said whether any suspect is in custody.
The motive has yet to be determined, but investigators believe an altercation led to the tragedy, according to the WRBL.
The United States pays a very high price for the proliferation of firearms on its territory and easy access by Americans to them.
The country has more individual guns than residents: one in three adults owns at least one gun and nearly one in two adults lives in a household where there is a gun.
The consequence of this proliferation is the very high death rate from guns in the United States, unmatched by that of other developed countries.