US needs to ramp up gun controls, says UN human rights chief

High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein says a tougher gun controls are needed in the United States to protect people from "horrifyingly commonplace but preventable" attacks such as the Florida nightclub shooting.

Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein made his appeal on Tuesday, asking why it was possible for civilians to buy assault rifles or other high-powered weapons "designed to kill lots of people".

His spokesperson Rupert Colville said: "As the High Commissioner said, the killers, many of them clearly disturbed, come from a variety of backgrounds. The problem is the guns. It's very often people who we discover subsequently already have already have a record of domestic violence, of mental illness, but who are still able to buy assault rifles, pistols, shotguns, so on, some of them six, seven, eight, 10 guns, and limitless ammunition. So the problem is the guns."

The announcement coincides with a new report on gun crime from the UN Human Rights Office, OHCHR.

It shows that hundreds of millions of weapons are in circulation and that women and children suffer disproportionately from firearms violence.

SOURCE: UN Radio