Furious British parent at Virginia school where 6-year-old shot teacher calls for change: ‘Why is it so bad?’

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A British mother gave a furious reaction after a six-year-old student at her child’s school in Newport News, Virgina, shot and critically injured a teacher on Friday.

A Richneck Elementary School teacher identified by local news reports as Abby Zwerner was intentionally shot by the young student after an alleged “altercation” in the classroom, police said.

Ms Zwerner, whose condition had improved to stable on Saturday, was praised by parents for warning her students to flee as she lay bleeding on the classroom floor.

Speaking outside the school on Friday, the unnamed parent told WTKR she was furious at the lack of gun regulations in the United States.

Speaking in an English accent, she told WTKR: “Guns, OK, that’s the biggest problem in this country,.

“Why is it so bad. Why is there a seven-year-old with a bloody gun?” she said, speaking before police revealed the alleged shooter’s age was six.

“Come on, think about it. Let’s do something. We’ve got a new Governor now, let’s do something, let’s change it.”

She compared the shockingly high levels of gun violence in the US to the United Kingdom, which has one of the lowest rates of deaths from gun violence in the world.

Speaking of the United States she said: “You’ve got a beautiful country, you’ve got beautiful people. But what’s the problem? Guns ... That’s what I’m pissed off with.”

She said that she only lived in the US because her husband served in the military.

“Otherwise I would not have chosen to come to this country.”

In 2022, the total number of gun deaths in the US was 44,257, or around  13.7 per 100,000 people, according to Gun Violence Archive.

Around half of those were suicides, the site stated.

Figures from the UK parliament said Britain had seen 35 homicides by shooting in the year to 31 March, 2021.

The United Kingdom has some of the strictest gun ownership laws in the world.

Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a Republican elected in November 2021, said in a statement on Friday that he was “praying for the continued safety of all students and the community”.

Gun control activists have urged Mr Youngkin to enact stronger gun laws in the state after two mass shootings in November.

Three University of Virginia students were allegedly shot and killed by a former teammate on 13 November.

Then a disgruntled employee at a Walmart in Chesapeake opened fire in a break room on 22 November, killing six co-workers before turning the gun on himself.

Fred Guttenberg, whose daughter was killed in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, tweeted at Mr Youngkin: “It happened under your leadership. Instead of dishonesty, reach out and let’s work together to solve this.”

After the Uvalde school shooting in May, the US Congress passed the nation’s first gun control laws in decades.

The new law imposed tougher checks on young gun buyers and provided funding to encourage states to implement “red flag” laws to remove firearms from those considered a threat.