Washington: Heart-broken by the killing of Sikhs in a Gurdwara, US President Barack Obama has asked Americans to do some "soul-searching" and examine ways to reduce violence.
"I think all of us recognise that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul-searching and to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence," he told reporters at the White House.
A former US Army veteran believing in the white supremacist movement had opened fire on worshippers at a Gurdwarda in Oak Creek in Wisconsin on Sunday morning, killing six people before he was shot dead.
Obama said, "If it turns out, as some early reports indicate, that it may have been motivated in some way by the ethnicity of those who were attending the temple, I think the American people immediately recoil against those kinds of attitudes."
"All of us are heart-broken by what happened," he said.
The US has witnessed a number of such shooting incidents by loners and the latest carnage came even as the nation was still reeling from a mass shooting two weeks ago in which a gunman killed 12 people in a theatre in Colorado.
"I think it will be very important for us to reaffirm once again that, in this country, regardless of what we look like, where we come from, who we worship, we are all one people, and we look after one another and we respect one another," he said.
"We don`t yet know fully what motivated this individual to carry out this terrible act," said the US President in response to a question.
PTI
