Texas mall shooting: 'Gun-loving' former Army officer pushes for gun control. Know why

Steven Spainhouer, a former officer in the US Army and police, claims to be a "gun lover" and feels at ease around firearms.Spainhouer, though, is now fiercely advocating forgun controlafter witnessing a man with a rifle kill many people before being fatally shot by police outside a suburban Dallas mall on Saturday.

“We need some action in our legislatures at the federal and state level for better gun control,” he said in an interview withMSNBCa day after the mass killing outside Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas.

Spainhouer recalled running to the mall after receiving a call from his son informing him that he had heard a shooting. He arrived before first responders and gave CPR to some people who had been shot to death, reported the Guardian.

Spainhouer described the atrocities he witnessed first-hand in a separate interview with CBS.

“The first girl I walked up to was crouched down covering her head in the bushes.So I felt for a pulse, pulled her head to the side and she had no face,”he toldCBS.

Investigators discovered that Mauricio Garcia, 33, shot eight people to death and seven others in the vicinity of the Allen Mall. The attacker was fatally shot by a police officer who had gone to the mall for an unrelated incident; a law enforcement official later revealed to the Associated Press that Garcia had shown interest in white supremacist ideologies before committing the mass murder.

America's struggle with gun violence

According to the Gun Violence Archive, as of Monday morning (May 8),there had been more than 200 mass shootings and 20 mass killings this year.

As of Monday, the United States hadrecordedmore than one mass murder every week, a far greater rate than in previous years.

Despite these and subsequent nationwide mass shootings, Congress has been unable to severely restrict access to guns. In between, the Republican-run state passed legislation allowing Texans to openly carry guns without a permit or training. A federal judge overturned one of the state's few gun laws last year, which prohibited anybody under 21 from carrying guns.

In addition, Texas's state legislature is considering a bill that would mandate that students in grade school have access to battlefield-style tourniquets and be trained on how to use them to stop bleeding in the event that a mass shooter targets them.

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