Another mass shooting hits US

The author of the latest mass shooting in the United States was a drifter who tried to escape after killing two women in a movie theater, then took his life as police closed in, authorities said yesterday.

The incident came just hours after President Barack Obama said an inability to enact "common sense" gun controls was one of the greatest frustrations of his time in office.

It was not yet clear how John Houser -- a 59-year-old white male with a criminal record -- obtained his gun. Nor was his motive immediately known.

Police said Houser tried to flee after shooting 13 rounds from a single handgun into the crowded cinema in Lafayette, Louisiana Thursday evening. Nine people were wounded.

Houser had been staying at a nearby motel where authorities found glasses and wigs apparently intended for disguises.

"He's kind of a drifter," Craft said, adding that Houser -- who he said had acted alone -- had arrived in Louisiana recently from Alabama.

Craft later told CNN that Houser had a criminal record, including previous arrests for arson and a misdemeanor charge for selling alcohol to a minor.

Louisiana state police chief Michael Edmonson said they were investigating Houser's motive, and had spoken to his friends and family.

It is possible that he may have been inspired by a 2012 theater massacre in Colorado that left 12 dead and 70 injured, Craft said.

More than 100 people were in the Louisiana cinema when Houser began shooting indiscriminately into the audience about 30 minutes into a screening of "Trainwreck."

Seven people remained in hospital Friday, one of whom is in critical condition.

The shooting came just hours after Obama said the issue he felt "most frustrated and most stymied" was gun control.

"If you look at the number of Americans killed since 9/11 by terrorism, it's less than 100. If you look at the number that have been killed by gun violence, it's in the tens of thousands," Obama said in an interview with the BBC taped before the shooting.

"And for us not to be able to resolve that issue has been something that is distressing," he said.

The White House said the president was briefed late Thursday while en route to Kenya about America's latest mass shooting tragedy.

This latest incident also comes a week after Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, 24, opened fire on two military centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee and killed four US Marines and a Navy sailor before dying in a shootout without police.