Back-to-back mass shootings in Georgia and Colorado underscore how loopholes and weak restrictions in gun laws enabled both suspects to get quick access to their weapons of choice in attacks that left 18 people dead.

The two shootings in March have thrust the issue of gun violence back into the national spotlight – and with it, calls for changes in gun requirements.

USA TODAY Sports’ race and inclusion editor Hemal Jhaveri announced Friday she was fired after falsely saying an “angry white man” was responsible for Monday’s mass shooting in Boulder, Colorado.

“[I]t’s always an angry white man. Always,” Jhaveri said Monday evening before police revealed the shooter was 21-year-old Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, a migrant from Syria.

The 21-year-old accused of gunning down 10 people, including a police officer, at a King Soopers grocery store in Boulder, Colorado, on Monday made his first court appearance Thursday.

Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa, of Arvada, Colorado, was taken into custody about 50 minutes after the shooting was reported. He was charged with 10 counts of first-degree murder as well as one count of attempted murder for allegedly shooting at a police officer who was not hurt.

“The 21-year-old suspect in this week’s Colorado mass shooting will make his first court appearance on Thursday, three days after authorities say he opened fire at a supermarket and killed 10 people, including a policeman. Ahmad Al Aliwi Alissa faces 10 counts of murder and an attempted murder charge stemming from the rampage on Monday.” (Reuters)

The right opposes additional gun control laws, arguing that they would not prevent most mass shootings, and criticizes those in the media who rushed to blame the shooting on white supremacy.

After 10 people at a Colorado supermarket were gunned down this week, a question familiar in America's cycle of bloodshed began to echo: Does mental illness drive mass shootings?

The 21-year-old suspect arrested in the rampage, the second in a week, was almost immediately described by family members as paranoid and antisocial.

But researchers and advocates say the rush to cast blame on a mental illness is misplaced.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis said he is ruling out claims that the Boulder mass shooting suspect had any ties to terrorist groups.

“From a preliminary perspective, there’s been comments from the brother, the family, that there were concerns about this individual’s mental health,” Polis said in a televised interview on Wednesday, adding that an investigation is ongoing.

On March 17, the day after the Atlanta spa shootings that killed eight people — six of whom were women of Korean and Chinese descent — the Asian American Journalism Association (AAJA)’s website crashed.

“We’re troubleshooting @AAJA website, which is crashing from the traffic after we released guidance on covering the Atlanta shooting. It’ll be back up shortly, but please share these screenshots in the meantime,” AAJA president and Washington Post reporter Michelle Ye Hee Lee tweeted.

Every time there is a mass shooting in the U.S., partisans on both sides hold their collective breath waiting for the perpetrator to be identified in order to see whose worldview will be vindicated. The left gets excited about murders involving police officers shooting unarmed black people, as well as those perpetrated by white supremacists or believers in QAnon; the right highlights Muslim terrorists and Antifa.

After lunch on Monday, a man walked into a grocery store in Boulder, Colorado and shot 10 people to death. One of those slain was a police officer called Eric Talley. Eric Talley had seven children. His youngest child was just five years old. Your heart breaks for his family.

Police responded quickly to the massacre and they arrested a 21-year-old suspect. Here's how CNN described the scene.