Dayton Police identified the shooter outside a Dayton nightclub in the early moring hours Sunday as 24-year old Connor Betts. He shot and killed nine people, including his own sister, before he was in turn killed by police.
Ohio officials were quick to respond to the news from Dayton. Governor Mike DeWine expressed his deep sympathy to the friends and families ofthe victims - and gratitude to the first responders who got the situation under control as quickly as possible:
"Dayton Police did an absolutely phenomenal job; truely heroic. If they had not acted when they did, there would have been many many many more people killed. Dayton had practiced this. You know you practice for a tragedy, you hope that you never have to implement that practic, But everything they did appears to be right."
DeWine says it's too soon to speculate what could have been done to prevent the shooting.
"Tragedies like this what first goes through your mind is 'what do we learn from this, what can we learn in the future, what can we do different, that we... I don't know if you can eliminate the chance of something like this, but rather to lessen the chance that it would occur, or lessen the deaths... In other words you always look at this as a case study."
U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown says his first reaction to the news was sorrow for the loss of life.
"But my next feeling was anger; that my country's government stands by and does so little."
Brown says the Congress could act quickly to pass legislation that would reduce the availability of guns.
"You know the House of Representatives has passed a background check bill. I have asked Senator McConnell to bring us back to do the same and get this bill to the president. We could pass this bill in an afternoon and get this before the president. We know that background check work to combat and reduce guin violence. And we know that a ban on assault weapons works because the country's done that before."
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has blocked gun control legislation in the Senate that had previously passed the House by wide margins, placing the bills on the calendar rather than having them referred to a committee to potentially be passed by the full Senate.
