US gun executives say criminals, not guns, responsible for mass shootings

Top executives at US gunmakers testified on Wednesday that criminals, not their products, were responsible for mass shootings, as they faced questions from a US House committee investigating recent massacres in Texas and New York, reports Reuters. The chief executives of Sturm, Ruger & Co Inc RGR.N and Daniel Defense Llc, testified at one of a series of hearings being held by the House of Representatives' Oversight Committee following mass shootings in Uvalde, Texas; Buffalo, New York; and Highland Park, Illinois.

The shootings just 10 days apart in May at a Uvalde elementary school and a Buffalo supermarket, along with the Fourth of July rampage at a parade in Highland Park, claimed 38 lives in all -- and reignited a decades-long debate over firearms ownership. "The gun industry has flooded our neighbourhoods, our schools, even our churches and schools, and gotten rich doing it," Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney said in her opening statement on Wednesday.