Gunman singled out Christians

A visibly angry President Barack Obama has made an impassioned plea for gun control after a shooting at an Oregon college left 10 dead and seven wounded, saying such tragedies had become "routine".

In the close-knit community of Roseburg, large crowds turned out for a candlelight vigil for the victims of Thursday's killing spree at Umpqua Community College, which ended with the assailant dying during a shootout with police.

"Somehow this has become routine," Obama said of the attack, as he blasted Congress for its failure to act in the face of such killings.

"We've become numb to this... It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun."

"Prayers are not enough," the stony-faced president said. "We can actually do something about it, but we're going to have to change our laws."

One man whose daughter was wounded told CNN that the gunman ordered students to identify themselves if they were Christian and then shot them.

"They would stand up and he said 'Good, because you're a Christian, you're going to see God in just about one second'," Stacy Boylan told CNN, relaying his daughter Ana's account.

He said his daughter, who survived by playing dead, told him the shooter burst into the classroom and first shot the professor point blank.

The gunman -- identified by US media as 26-year-old Chris Harper Mercer -- opened fire in a classroom, then moved to other rooms, methodically gunning down his victims.