El Paso police chief Greg Allen said, under law in the state of Texas, it was legal for the gunman to carry the assault-style rifle he used.

He only committed a crime when he opened fire on shoppers at the Walmart, he told reporters.

“Of course normal individuals seeing that weapon might be alarmed, but technically he was in the realm of the law,” he said.

Image source, Reuters

Back in February, the House of Representatives passed a bill expanding background checks for all gun sales, including those at gun shows and on the internet.

The legislation was the most significant gun control measure to make progress in Congress in more than two decades.

It has not been taken up by the US Senate - as Nancy Pelosi points out today - and the White House has said President Trump would veto it anyway.

Here are the big obstacles that stand in the way of the US taking the kind of quick, major changes to firearm policy that New Zealand introduced after the Christchurch mosque attacks.

Five reasons gun control won't happen

The suspected El Paso gunman has been charged with capital murder, the city’s district attorney has said.

“The state charge is capital murder. We are seeking the death penalty,” Jaime Esparza said at a press conference.

The FBI’s Emmerson Buie told reporters that investigators were looking into a number of potential criminal charges against the suspect, including hate crimes and domestic terrorism.

John Bash, US attorney for the Western District of Texas, said the shooting is being treated as a “domestic terrorism case”.

“We are going to do what we do to terrorists in this country, which is deliver swift and certain justice,” he said.

Axios has ranked the country's mass shootings by death toll and places Saturday's attack in Texas at eighth.

Only three in the top 10 happened before 2012, which has prompted some discussion from commentators.

Image source, Axios

Read the Axios list in full, external

And the BBC's piece on why shootings are becoming more deadly

Image source, Reuters

Ned Peppers, a bar in Dayton city centre close to where the shooting took place, has released a statement on its website.

The shooting happened outside the bar on E 5th Street, a busy area in the Oregon district of the city.

The shooter, the bar said in its statement, “started down the road and made his way towards our business”.

“We have police regularly staffed next to our business who engaged the shooter and neutralised the threat,” the bar said.

The bar praised police for their response to what it described as a “senseless act of violence” that has left the community “shaken and confused”.

Read Ned Pepper's full statement, external

Kellyanne Conway, a senior adviser to President Trump, says "our nation is saddened and outraged by the senseless acts of terror".

She is not happy with those who claim Mr Trump's rhetoric is a factor.

Influential conservative broadcaster Mark Levin has also pushed back at the charge.

Law enforcement sources tell CBS News that the Dayton shooter is Connor Betts, 24, from Bellbrook, Ohio.

Police are searching his house, according to CBS, the BBC's partner in the US.

Image source, CBS

Dayton mayor Nan Whaley has given an update on the details of the mass shooting overnight.

She said the suspect was wearing armour and used an “AK-like gun assault rifle” to target his victims - all were shot outside.

“In less than one minute Dayton first responders neutralised the shooter,” the mayor said.

The mayor confirmed the death toll, 10 including the shooter, remained the same. The victims were a “diverse” group of people, Ms Whaley added.

Hospitals have treated 27 people, 15 of whom have been discharged, she said.

A vigil for the victims and their families, she said, would be held at 20:00 local time (04:00 GMT) on Sunday at a yet to be announced location.

Image source, Reuters

It's not surprising for Democrats to demand stronger gun control laws in the aftermath of a mass shooting - but two Republicans have also called for legislative action.

These "red flag" laws allow for the temporary confiscation of guns from people who pose a danger to others. Some states have introduced them but a bipartisan bill introduced in the US Congress in 2018 after the Parkland school shooting was not passed.

The BBC's Cut Through The Noise reported on why some local sheriffs are refusing to implement the laws because they believe them to infringe on Americans' Second Amendment rights.

The gunman suspected of carrying out the Dayton shooting has been identified, police say.

The police chief said an “investigative process” is under way while speaking at a press conference alongside Dayton’s mayor, Nan Whaley.

“We understand the public wants to know who this person is," he said.

“We’re working very hard to give the public an answer as to what the motivation is for this crime.”

Image source, Reuters

In a press conference, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley insisted that the district of Oregon was “one of the safest places in the region”.

She said “these senseless acts of violence” could happen anywhere in the US.

In an apparent point about gun laws, the mayor said the shooting was “completely preventable”, asking: “When is enough, enough?”

“We’re at a place now in this country where they [shootings] are so random,” she said.

Dozens of people have been injured in these two shootings. Some of them will face a long road to recovery. But the impact on their lives will be multiple - physical, emotional and financial.

The BBC's Hannah Long-Higgins talked to gunshot survivors in Florida who said the mounting bills were as worrying as the injuries.

New York photographer Kathy Shorr catalogued the stories and injuries of 101 gunshot survivors.

Rosemarie Melanson spent a year in hospital after being shot in Las Vegas by a gunman who killed 58 at a country music festival. The BBC spoke to her as she returned home after an arduous recovery.

Doctors from Miami Valley Hospital have held a press conference to update reporters on the condition of victims following the Dayton shooting.

Paramedics took 16 victims to the hospital, but only four were admitted.

Of the four people admitted, one person is in a critical condition, the doctors said.

The other victims were treated for “extremity injuries”, a hospital official said.

They have not had any deaths from the shooting at the hospital. It remains nine dead.

Donald Trump's acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney denies the president's rhetoric on immigration and race is in any way responsible for the mass shootings.

Asked what he would say to those who do think President Trump's rhetoric is to blame, he said: "The president is just as saddened by this as you are, the president is just as angry about this as you, he wants to do something about this just as much as everybody else."

Talking on ABC's This Week, he said only the people who pulled the trigger should be blamed, not politicians. But he added that "crazy people" who carry out shootings "should not be able to get guns".

The attacks have prompted messages of sympathy for the victims from around the globe, and condemnation for the gunmen.

Mexico President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, who said three Mexicans were killed in the El Paso shooting, sent his condolences to victims.

Pope Francis offered his “spiritual closeness” to the “defenceless people” killed in both shootings.

New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern expressed sympathies to those affected.

She said she could not confirm reports that the El Paso gunman was connected to the Christchurch gunman, who killed 51 people in March.

In a tweet, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson condemned the shootings as “appalling acts of violence”.

Why US won't follow New Zealand on gun laws

Other leading Democrats have responded by calling on Congress and the White House to enact tighter gun laws.

Two women who were inside a nightclub in Dayton when the gunman opened fire describe what they saw as they fled.

Former El Paso Congressman Beto O'Rourke, who is now running for president, calls President Trump a white nationalist and claims that his rhetoric "encourages" this kind of violence.

In an interview this morning with Jake Tapper on CNN's State of the Nation, Mr O'Rourke said: "We've got to acknowledge the hatred, the open racism that we're seeing. There is an environment of it ... We see if from our commander-in-chief. He is encouraging this. He doesn't just tolerate it, he encourages it."

Another candidate, Pete Buttigieg, said the White House condoned white nationalism.

And Senator Sherrod Brown, who considered running in 2020 but declined to, was also forthright.

• Nine people were killed and at least 26 injured when a gunman opened fire at 01:07 local time (05:07 GMT) in the Oregon district of the city
• He was said to have been wearing body armour and firing a "high-capacity" rifle
• The suspect was killed by police within minutes
• The mayor of Dayton, Nan Whaley, said "hundreds of people in the Oregon District could be dead today” had police not acted as quickly as they did
• Mr Whaley said the 26 injured were in hospitals around the city and that some had life-threatening wounds

Read the full story

Image source, European Photopress Agency

• Twenty people have been killed and 26 injured at a Walmart store
• A 21-year-old white male from Allen, Dallas, has been taken into custody after surrendering to officers
• US media have named him as Patrick Crusius
• Police received reports of an active shooter at around 10:39 local time (16:39 GMT) on Saturday
• The Walmart was full of shoppers buying back-to-school supplies
• The police and FBI are investigating whether the attack was a hate crime after a white nationalist “manifesto”, purportedly written by the gunman, was shared online
• Texas Governor Greg Abbott described the shooting as "one of the most deadly days in the history of Texas”, while US President Donald Trump called it "an act of cowardice"

Read the full story