“MULTIPLE victims” were reported in a shooting at a US university yesterday, with police saying the suspect was dead.

Students and members of the public had been told to avoid the area after reports of an active shooter on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, a short distance from the Las Vegas Strip.

“We are responding to preliminary reports of an #ActiveShooter on the campus of UNLV near Beam Hall,” the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department wrote on social media around midday local time (2000 GMT).

“There appear to be multiple victims at this time. Please avoid the area.”

Around half an hour later the department said: “The suspect has been located and is deceased.”

The university urged people to shelter in place.

One woman told local broadcaster KVVU that she had heard a series of loud noises and fled into a building on the campus, from which she was later evacuated by police.

“I was just having breakfast and then I heard three, like, loud booms,” she told the station.

“Then two more, and then police showed up there and ran inside… but then after two minutes boom, boom, boom, more shots. So I ran into a basement, and then we were in the basement for 20 minutes.”

It was not immediately clear how many people had been affected, and if there were any fatalities, but CNN reported one man had been taken to hospital in a critical condition.

Las Vegas was the scene of one of America’s deadliest ever mass shootings when a gunman opened fire on a crowded music festival in 2017, killing 60 people

Mass shootings are alarmingly common in the United States, a country where there are more guns than people and where attempts to clamp down on their spread are always met with stiff resistance.

The country has recorded over 600 mass shootings this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a non-governmental organisation that defines a mass shooting as four or more people wounded or killed.

As of Monday the country hit a record 38 mass shootings this year where four or more victims were killed, according to a tally by the Washington Post.

Efforts to tighten gun controls have for years run up against opposition from Republicans, staunch defenders of the constitutional right to bear arms.

The political paralysis endures despite widespread outrage over recurrent shootings. – AFP, December 7, 2023.