LONDON, May 17 (Xinhua) -- The United States is picking up the pieces from a weekend of gun violence that has refocused the country's leadership on the toxic interplay of political ideology and easy access to guns, The Guardian has said.
Violence included a shooting in Buffalo, New York that left 10 people dead, as well as shootings in the cities of Houston, Los Angeles and Chicago that left eight people dead and multiple injured, it said in a report on Monday.
The Buffalo shooting -- one of the deadliest racist massacres in recent memory -- has renewed scrutiny of Internet-promulgated hate speech, access to assault-style guns and body armor, and the inability of law enforcement authorities, elected politicians, religious leaders and the commercial sector to stop such violence from recurring, it said.
White, racially motivated extremists have been responsible for most of the deadliest attacks in the United States in the last five years, the report quoted FBI Director Christopher Wray as saying. The official described the domestic terrorism threat in the United States as "metastasizing."
An unclassified report from the U.S. intelligence community last year warned that violent extremists motivated by political grievances and racial hatred pose an "elevated" threat to the country, it added. ■