Tulsa shooting - live: Victim revealed as top WNBA doctor as shooter’s AR-15 and pawn-shop gun under scrutiny

It’s hard to miss the similarities.

Recent shootings in Buffalo, New York; Uvalde, Texas; and Tulsa, Oklahoma all involved legally purchased, AR-15-style weapons.

The weapon used in the Tulsa shooting was purchased that day.

The Independent’s John Bowden has this look at one of America’s most notorious and popular weapons.

Three hospital employees and one patient have been identified as the victims of the mass shooting at the Saint Francis Hospital in Tulsa, southeast Oklahoma.

Tulsa Police Department Chief Wendell Franklin told reporters at a press briefing on Thursday that two physicians and a Saint Francis Healthcare System receptionist were among the four people killed.

A patient was also among the victims shot dead by suspect gunman Michael Louis, who police found dead with self-inflicted wounds.

The four victims were identified as Dr Preston Phillips, Dr Stephanie Husen, receptionist Amanda Glenn, and William Love, the patient.

Gino Spocchia has more details.

Taser and surveillance company Axon has announced plans to put its weapons on drones as a solution to school shootings in America, prompting immediate criticism.

The proposal was met with objections from the company’s own ethics board, which questioned the idea of a remote-controlled flying drone armed with a Taser.

Axon said on Thursday that it has “formally begun development of a non-lethal, remotely-operated Taser drone system as part of a long-term plan” to stop mass shootings.

Maroosha Muzaffar has more.

President Joe Biden on Thursday delivered a plea for action on gun violence as the nation recovers from a spate of mass shootings including horrific massacres in New York and Texas.

Here’s a clip from his live address:

Doctors have been increasingly threatened with or become victims of violence by patients complaining of pain, especially in recent years when they have prescribed alternatives to opioids and tapered patients off addictive painkillers.

More than two-thirds of pain specialists surveyed during a violence education session at a 2019 American Academy of Pain Medicine meeting said a patient threatened them with bodily harm at least once a year. Nearly half said they had been threatened over opioid management.

Read more:

New York‘s legislature voted Thursday to ban anyone under age 21 from buying or possessing a semi-automatic rifle, a major change to state firearm laws pushed through less than three weeks after an 18-year-old used one of the guns to kill 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo.

Other new legislation will restrict civilian purchases of bullet-resistant armor, which was worn by the killer in Buffalo, and require new guns to be equipped with microstamping technology that can help law enforcement investigators trace bullets to particul

The AR-15, a semi-automatic weapon, has in recent years become the weapon of choice in numerous high-casualty mass shootings. This includes, the recent shootings in Uvalde, Buffalo and Tulsa, as well as other incidents in past years including the massacre in Las Vegas, the shooting at a Texas Wal-Mart in 2019 as well as the Sandy Hook attack and the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Fla. There are many other examples.

Continue reading about the rise of the AR-15 from The Independent’s John Bowden below.

The deadly mass shooting at an Oklahoma medical office by a man who blamed his surgeon for continuing pain following an operation on his back underscores the escalating threat of violence doctors have faced in recent years.

“What we currently know is that Louis was in pain, Louis expressed that he was in pain and was not getting relief and that was the circumstance surrounding this entire incident,” Tulsa Police Chief Wendell Franklin said at a news conference on the shooter, Michael Louis.

More than two-thirds of pain specialists surveyed during a violence education session at a 2019 American Academy of Pain Medicine meeting said a patient threatened them with bodily harm at least once a year. Nearly half said they had been threatened over opioid management.

Read more from The Independent below.

The physician that Tulsa police chief Wendell Franklin told reporters was the man that Michael Louis, the suspect, wanted to kill over recent back surgery and pain he felt was once a top doctor for the Women’s National Basketball League.

As tributes pour in to commemorate the slain doctor, a tweet from former Tulsa Shock head coach Gary Kloppenburg reminded the world of just one of the many contributions the Ivy League trained orthopaedic surgeon made in his lifetime.

“Lord help us, our wonderful @wnba @TulsaShock team doctor Preston Phillips was one of the innocent people murdered in the latest mass shooting. Such a kind and compassionate man who loved basketball and looked out for our players,” Mr Kloppenburg wrote, who is now on the staff for the WNBA’s Indiana Fever.

“The dereliction of duty by the OK legislature and @GovStitt who have failed to protect their citizenry by implementing insanely loose gun laws hits close to home. RIP Doc,” the former Tulsa Shock head coach wrote, before adding a crying and basketball emoji.

Dr Phillips served as the team’s doctor before the Shock left Oklahoma and rebranded as the Dallas Wings in 2015.

New York’s legislature has passed a bill to raise the age limit for purchasing semi-automatic rifles to 21, in the wake of two mass shootings in Buffalo and Uvalde last month that killed a total 31 people, including 19 children.

The bill, announced earlier this week by governor Kathy Hochul, was taken up for debate on Thursday.

It seeks to raise the age limit to buy semi-automatic rifles to 21 years from the current 18 as Democrats continue to push for regulations on buying and possessing firearms.

New York will join a handful of states, including Florida, Hawaii, Illinois, Vermont and Washington, which require buyers to be at least 21 years, instead of 18, to purchase long guns.

Read more from The Independent’s Alisha Rahaman Sarkar below.

Oklahoma’s House Democrats began to start a rallying cry to overhaul the rules around purchasing firearms in the state, which by all accounts, has some of the least restrictive gun laws in the country.

Speaking during a press conference on Wednesday in front of the state’s Capitol, Democrats proposed a piece of legislation, aptly named the Stand Against Violence and Extremism Act, SAVE, that would see to amending some of the state’s gun control policies, Tulsa World reported.

Top of the Democrats’ agenda included enacting a red flag law, repealing the permitless-carry law, repealing the concealed-carry law in public spaces like zoos and parks, creating a waiting period and increasing the age requirement for the purchasing guns to 21.